How can we move from good intentions to meaningful impact?

I’m a person with lofty goals, and sometimes, though, it takes me a while to actually do something about them.

I’ll talk about a book I want to read, a movie I’ve been meaning to watch, or a craft I’ve been wanting to try. I’ll tell myself I want to get more into tennis, especially during the US Open, because I grew up playing the sport. Then, somehow, I end up watching three episodes of the same reality TV show instead. It’s not that I don’t care, but I just can’t do everything, and when there are too many things I want to do, the familiar thing is often easier.

So I’ve been experimenting with giving different interests their own night: Sunday is for a movie, Monday is for a game, Tuesday is for reading, Wednesday is for reality TV, Thursday is for creating, and Friday and Saturday are for non-reality TV or sports. I’m only on week two, but it’s actually going fairly well. I feel a little lighter, more fulfilled, less constricted despite more structure, and more inspired.

So this week’s challenge is: How can we move from good intentions to meaningful impact?

Honest Story

Lamar Hardwick is a pastor who was diagnosed with autism at 36. The diagnosis gave him a new way of understanding his own experiences, but it also changed the questions he was asking about Christianity and the church. As a pastor, he began noticing a gap between the church’s desire to welcome people with disabilities and the ways church spaces and practices could unintentionally exclude the community. His book, Disability and the Church, grew out of that realization and his work helping churches think differently about disability, inclusion, and leadership.

At one church he led, Hardwick noticed that some members with physical disabilities were sitting in the back because the auditorium was so dark that they were afraid of falling. The lighting was designed to create a certain atmosphere, but it was also creating a barrier. In this instance, Hardwick went beyond good intentions to meaningful impact, with awareness first. It sounds almost embarrassingly simple, and that’s actually the point. Sometimes impact begins with awareness of a problem, listening to the people experiencing it, and taking one concrete step to address it.

That story makes me think about the distance between caring about something and changing something. Maybe we imagine meaningful impact as one enormous act of courage or generosity. But often, it looks much more ordinary: noticing, asking a question, trying something, learning from it, making a change, and then taking the next step. Hardwick’s work shows what can happen when we don't just have good intentions, but allow those intentions to move us into a series of actions.

Rigorous Learning

We often imagine motivation working in the opposite direction: first, we feel motivated, and then we act. Behavioral activation offers another possibility: action can come first, and motivation can follow. In one study, college students experiencing subthreshold depression participated in weekly behavioral-activation sessions that encouraged them to choose activities they could enjoy or find meaningful, try them in real life, and pay attention to what happened as a result.

After five weeks, the intervention group showed changes in brain activity and connectivity in regions associated with intrinsic motivation, along with improvements in measures of environmental reward. The study is small and specific, with 18- and 19-year-old college freshmen with subthreshold depression, so there are clear limits to how far we can extend the findings. Still, the idea stays with me: sometimes we don't act because we're motivated. We become more motivated because we've acted (Mori et. al., 2018).

Work of Art

Sue Austin's work makes me think about what happens when we stop accepting the environment around us as the only possible way to move through the world. As a performance and installation artist who uses a power wheelchair, Austin has made work that challenges the assumptions people often attach to disability and mobility.

Her underwater wheelchair performances are striking. She moves through the ocean surrounded by water and fish, floating rather than simply moving from one place to another. Something that might traditionally be understood only as a limitation actually becomes the material for exploration. Her work invites us to experiment with the tools and circumstances we already have rather than waiting for better ones.

Practical Experiment

This week, pick one small way to strengthen the disability community and make it specific and brief.

• Attend an in-person or virtual disability-led event
• Read a disability-led book for children, teens or adults
• Listen to a disability-led podcast
• Watch a disability-led movie or show
• Support a disability-led artist, creator, or business
• Learn about a disability-led organization in your community
• Have a conversation about what you’re learning about disability

This is how we move from good intentions to meaningful impact: we take a series of small steps, starting with awareness-building. We notice something we care about, take one action, listen and learn, adjust, and then take the next step. The goal isn't to solve disability inclusion in a week or know exactly where all the steps will lead. It’s to move from caring about an issue to becoming part of the work of changing it. Meaningful impact rarely comes from one perfect decision or one enormous burst of motivation. It comes from the accumulation of small choices that strengthen relationships, build community, and move us, little by little, from what we intend to do toward what we are actually doing.

Want a specific recommendation about where to start? Please reach out.

Reflection

What is one thing you've been waiting to feel ready for? And what would happen if you tried it before you felt ready?

Next Week's Challenge

How can we move from feeling overwhelmed to finding where we can make a difference?