Something that impacted my life was watching Gin no Saji. It's from Himoru Arakawa, creator of Full Metal Alchemist. The story is about a guy (Hachiken) who goes to an agricultural school after failing entering college despite studying in a great prep school. He has a father that treats him like trash and a mother that seem to slightly underestimate him. Well my parents aren't like this and the anime is actually funny (really funny) and serious on the right moments but what I liked most was that it explored the main character's problems of self-esteem, uncertainity about his future and lack of self confidence in a moment I was on the bottom of the pit of self-esteem and self confidence. That's why I felt some identification with the story and characters (even with secondary characters) and watching Hachiken make an effort to overcome his problems and grow stronger helped me a lot to regain my strenght. If something like this can helo change my life, then I want to help people change their lives too.
Another thing that impacted me was discovering Redwall. Yep, I'm a 22-year-old person reading a series for "older kids" (as Brian Jacques used to say), but it doesn't matter. Redwall is awesome - well written, with great characters (forget those Disney villians that try to win by brute force - they're actually [really] intelligent creatures in Redwall), quests, scenarios, relations, and many other things I can't list. The main thing that impacted me was realizing I always liked stories with animals since I was kid, but I had forgotten that with the years. It has, then, driven me to plan stories with such elements and I'm already building some things for the next years. It also showed me some great illustrators (Troy Howell, Christopher Denise, Jerome Jacinto - I actually discovered Redwall because of Jerome's fanarts) that are one of the best references I could ask for.