Want to Improve Your Time as a Volunteer? Here are 3 Tips You can Follow to Boost Your Experience
A mentor and buddy in LBN’s reading programs.
It’s your first official day of volunteering! After submitting your application form, completing an interview, and finishing up your training, you finally find yourself with new responsibilities and millions of thoughts racing in your mind: How serious is this commitment? How should you make the most of your time here? Or maybe you’re an experienced volunteer wondering if there are more ways to grow. No matter — here are three ways to boost your time volunteering!
1. Enjoy your time here by forming casual connections
Volunteering doesn’t have to be a cold, serious endeavor. In fact it shouldn’t be that way. There are whole networks of people working alongside you. So feel free to reach out, and strike up a casual conversation with them! If you’re volunteering in person, maybe try talking to someone who’s by themself during your break or after the session. Chances are, they’re looking for another person to talk to, but are too shy to say the first word. On the other hand, if you’re volunteering online, you could try engaging someone in a casual conversation while doing group work. This is a more subtle tactic you can use, especially if you’re timid or don’t feel brave enough to approach someone else at your own discretion.
Forming new connections will not only give you familiar people you can rely on, but also make your time here enjoyable as you can both discuss, vent, or gossip about your shared experiences.
2. Critique yourself and observe other people
There’s no way to improve without being aware of your shortcomings or skills you want to develop. Volunteering means being surrounded by individuals with many different skill sets and capabilities, so there are plenty of opportunities to learn by copying. This doesn’t necessarily mean acting like the counterfeit of someone else, but rather, paying attention to how they compose themselves in certain situations and seeing if you can channel those traits. For instance, if you notice your fellow volunteer, who’s a great listener, maintains good eye contact, and asks questions, you can try emulating that as well.
3. Challenge yourself
Yes, we hear this all the time. And yes, it’s beyond cliché. But it’s a motto that encourages growth and is especially relevant with volunteering—an experience that can help tailor you and your soft skills. Some challenges you can try out:
Changing your role. While this may seem intimidating and uncomfortable, it can be quite rewarding by exposing you to new skills, like being responsible for other people or even testing previous capabilities you’ve developed. And who knows, maybe you’ll end up loving your new position!
Answering your messages and emails as soon as possible. It may be tempting to put replying off until later, especially if you find drafting out messages tedious. However, by being quick with communication, you’ll appear more reliable and responsible.
Managing your time. This is quite relevant when it comes to volunteering, an additional commitment you need to balance on top of school or work. Thus, try listing all the tasks you need to get done in their order of urgency, and setting artificial due dates to make sure you get them done.
While it may feel like a storm of responsibilities at first, volunteering can be a valuable opportunity for cultivating who we are. It just takes a bit of courage to exert yourself, and make it the richest experience it can be.