I have been an advocate of young people taking initiative to solve societal challenges instead of just complaining, sitting, and waiting unendingly for government and others. This is why taking initiative is encouraged through what we call the ‘Impact Community Project’ – an essential component of our youth leadership academy – Studership.
Over time, after discussing with some other young persons at various fora, i can not but notice the underlying passion for making a contribution, starting a project or building an organisation.
As good as these drives are, it requires reason, planning and commitment. Take out some time to answer the following questions and note the suggestions.
What is the purpose of your initiative? What is its mission? As a friend used to say, ‘anything that is not written down does not exist’. Try writing out clearly what you want to achieve with the initiative. Writing it will help in clarifying your mission. After writing the mission, place where you can see it consciously, to help you focus on accomplishing it.
As suggested by Julie Loosbrock, Where do you plan on implementing this initiative? Just in one location or several? Is the location rural or urban? Do you (really) need office space? Perhaps keeping your plan small to begin with, will give you room to make adjustments and changes as you see fit. You can always expand. It’s a lot harder to start big and then have to cut back.
How do you plan on executing your initiative? Who will be involved? What skills will be needed? How many people do you need for each community? How many days a week will your program be? What materials will you need? What support from each community do you need? How will you go about developing support for your program/initiative in each community? Who needs to be involved? What level of commitment do you need from the participants to keep the program going?
Once you can dutifully and simply clarify the WHY, it will help in the clarification of your WHAT, WHERE, HOW and WHEN. Get a team or group of people (of like minds, but diverse experience) with whom you can share ideas and discuss what you want to do.
As important as taking initiative is, it is more important to know / envision the resultant effect of your action (and inaction). Stick to your vision, share it with others. It is feasible, it is achievable; you can make it happen.
If you can answer those questions, then you have passed the first stage required in taking initiative. Get going, pull resources together and stay committed to the bigger dream (the VISION).
I will love to read from you. Drop your comment in the comment box, or send me a mail via damolamore@gmail.com. TakeInitiative!
Question: What initiative are you taking? What impact have it made? What challenges did you face and how have you been able to overcome it?