Life experiences shape you. Whether personal or through what your loved ones encounter, experiences make you care. Once you care, you probably uncover a desire to make others care too. That explains why so many national awareness days and months exist.

Seriously, go take a look at www.nationalcalendarday.com. Perhaps someone can propose a National Awareness Initiative Awareness Day in which you and I can dedicate time to familiarizing ourselves with all the awareness initiatives out there. I’m only half joking. 😉

While I poke some fun, I sincerely feel the various national awareness days and months stem from well-intentions. Unfortunately so many well-intentions can begin to overshadow one another. Sounds like a problem, right? Fear not! I’m here with a solution.

Live Your Awareness Initiative

Yes! Live your awareness initiative! Stop letting the calendar dictate when you can spread awareness. Take what you care about and make that a cause. Live your cause. Actively seek ways to get your message out there.

Allow me to use myself as an example. If you know me, you know I’m dedicated to raising cerebral palsy (CP) awareness. CP awareness possesses both a national awareness month (March) and a national awareness day (also in March). Plus on an international level every year the world celebrates World Cerebral Palsy Day the first Wednesday in October. Multiple calendar opportunities to raise cerebral palsy awareness!

Still not even the multiple calendar opportunities prove enough to contain my CP awareness efforts. Instead year round I’m putting out cerebral palsy content. Most recently I made the following video.

Creativity Counts

Maybe I just bought into my own hype but I find my Elwood Blues character impersonation video quite creative. The way I used lines from the film Blues Brothers not to mention lyrics from “Everybody Needs Somebody” and “Soul Man” to progress and accent my message, I’m proud. Let me dial back on the gloating though.

Rather let’s refocus on creativity because creativity matters. People want fun, to smile and to laugh. Depending on your cause, a fun vibe might seem inappropriate. Yet the right perspective can turn inappropriate into appropriate. For example, I think any cause involving people dying can create smiles and laughter by asking participants to recall good memories with their late loved ones.

Go along now friends. Forget the calendar and get creative making what you care about your cause. After all awareness days and months can become overshadowed but you, you will stand out.

To get started living your awareness initiative leave a comment below identifying your cause.