On Idealists in Action, we love to tackle your biggest obstacles to doing good. One we hear a lot is, “I don’t have the skills or knowledge to start something.” This week, we’re taking that behemoth down.
Another way you can defeat the obstacles in your path is by joining the Idealist Network—a new online and on-the-ground platform we’re designing to help people everywhere connect and take action on any issue that concerns them, locally or globally. Sign up to attend our online launch on March 11 and see what it’s all about.
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The following post was translated from Elena Martín’s original on Idealist’s Spanish language site, Idealistas.
Much of your ability to do something is not dependent on whether or not you can actually do it, but whether or not you think you can do it. Someone with all the skills in the world but little confidence in himself will not get very far, while someone with less skills but true belief in himself will usually find a way to meet his goals.
Psychologists call this phenomenon “self-efficacy”—our belief in our capabilities to do what is required to achieve a given goal. Think about yourself: do you more often have the attitude: “I can get this project to work,” or “I can get this job,” or the opposite: “I don’t think I can do this,” or “I’m not going to get a call back”?
If you fall in the first camp, bravo! But if you tend to think more like the latter, don’t despair—for one thing, you’re not alone. Overriding self-confidence doesn’t come easily to everyone. You might be thinking, “Sure, I’d love to have more faith that I can do the things I want, but it’s not like I can just flip a switch. What can I do?”
Well, we invite you to try building your confidence by practicing these points:
It’s true: increasing self-confidence isn’t as easy as flipping a switch, but it can be built up like a muscle. Try these tips and see if you don’t notice a growing faith in yourself!
What other practices have helped you gain confidence and believe more in what’s possible than what’s impossible?
On Idealists in Action, we love to tackle your biggest obstacles to doing good. One we hear a lot is, “I don’t have the skills or knowledge to start something.” This week, we’re taking that behemoth down.
Another way you can defeat the obstacles in your path is by joining the Idealist Network—a new online and on-the-ground platform we’re designing to help people everywhere connect and take action on any issue that concerns them, locally or globally. Sign up to attend our online launch on March 11 and see what it’s all about.
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“In 2010 I was in the middle of a failing sabbatical,” begins Derick Tsai, founder and creative director of hip content development studio Magnus Rex.
“The brutal truth was I had bumped up against the limits of my abilities. I was going to have to drastically up my game if I had any hope of realizing my projects. In an unfamiliar space and out of my depth, I was reduced to moping around in sweats all day and constantly stressing about running out of money.”
“Then something woke me up and put everything into perspective.”
How did this visionary artist rise from the depths of not knowing to a new pinnacle of creativity? Read his story on GOOD.
Tell us about a time you didn’t know what to do, but turned rock bottom into your launch pad.
Happy January! Welcome to Clean Start week.
The following post was translated from Elena Martín’s original on Idealist’s Spanish language site, Idealistas.
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Do you want to help make a difference, but find yourself surrendering even before you begin because you don’t know where to start? Do you keep shaping an idea in your head but not taking any action?
You’re not alone. There are many reasons we can end up feeling lost when we want to change the world. Maybe…
The list could stretch to infinity. But whatever the reason, if you’re just standing by, paralyzed by procrastination and toying with excuses, fears, and doubts, you won’t ever start.
Luckily, there’s one simple key that can get any project going. It’s called: Just start somewhere.
It doesn’t really matter where. Your first step will dictate where your next one should be, and the dominoes will fall from there. You just have to get started.
Don’t know where you’re going? That’s okay. Just take the first step.
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
Step by step
Here are some ways to take that first good step. Try them, and your project will begin to take shape.
In short, if you don’t know where to start, just start by completing a first step as soon as possible. As Anne Frank wrote, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
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What project would you love to work on this year? What first step are you taking to start it?
When we move from ideas to action, we run the risk of making decisions we regret.
Sometimes regret might seem unavoidable, but it doesn’t have to drag us down. Here’s why regret happens, how to overcome it, and how to make better decisions in the future.
Bad decisions always have an opposite angle.
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
Why we feel we’ve made a bad decision
When it comes to decisions that truly have no right or wrong answer—and there are many in the world of doing good—there are three rationales that can cause us to think we’ve made a wrong choice.
Myopic view of the world
We are all just one piece of a much larger puzzle, but it’s easy to lose that perspective when we’re each responsible for so much in our daily lives. When we think of ourselves as more crucial to a situation than we actually are, the weight of regret stemming from a bad decision can grow.
High expectations
In a world of seemingly endless opportunities, it’s easy to build up our expectations. We might want to come up with a genius idea for a life-saving tool, be influential in advocating for a cause, or leave a helpful legacy to an organization we love. Expectations like these can be motivating, but they also greatly raise the stakes to do well—or risk feeling profound regret if we don’t.
Getting stuck on “what if?”
Even after we’ve made a choice we think is good, part of us can still be tempted to dwell on what we didn’t do: “What if I had gone the other way?” Thinking about the routes we didn’t take can easily lead to making us dissatisfied with the ones we did.
How to overcome regret
We all feel regret about a decision from time to time, but if your sadness and guilt are outstaying their welcome, here are some ways to hit “refresh” and redeem yourself.
Put things in perspective
Make it a goal to come to peace with the fact that you can’t change your past decision. To do this, it can be very helpful to focus on the things you learned as a result of your choice, and how you can use those lessons going forward.
Talk it out
Ask for the ear of a friend, family member, or someone else you trust. Speaking to them about your decision and rationales can create a catharsis that will allow you emotional release from your feelings of regret. Also, explaining the details of your choice aloud to someone may help you clarify and better understand why you did what you did.
Think positive thoughts
Norman Vincent Peale’s classic book The Power of Positive Thinking, first published in 1952, isn’t on the bestseller list anymore, but its central idea remains a powerful tool for determining how we feel. Even if you think you have a real reason to be unhappy, you can still choose to be happy.
How to make good decisions
After making a “bad” decision and experiencing regret, it’s time to get back on the horse. Here are some steps you can take to help ensure you feel more confident in your decision-making going forward.
Don’t procrastinate
Yes, it’s good to take time and think thoroughly about your options, but don’t let that be an excuse to not make a decision.
Imagine yourself in each scenario
If you’re deciding between two options, try them both on for a minute. Imagine you’ve chosen option A: what does the result look like? How do you feel in the position it brought you to? Which additional doors did it open, and which did it close? Do the same for option B, and compare the results.
Create a pro and con list to help you evaluate
Write out the benefits and liabilities you can foresee with each option. Then tell family, friends, and mentors about your situation and see if they have any experience or pros and cons to add—they might reveal insights you never would have thought of. (Of course, take any advice as only one slice of your decision-making pie. Don’t let anyone pressure you into a decision you’re uncomfortable with!)
Be confident (or act like it if you aren’t)
Once you make a decision, don’t allow yourself to entertain distracting thoughts of how life might have been if you had gone a different way. Learn to love your choices, and you’ll love your life!
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Alicia Lawrence is a content coordinator for WebpageFX and blogs in her free time at MarCom Land. Her work has been published by the Association for Business Communication, Business Insider, and Ask Miss A. You can find her on Twitter (@Alicia_Lw) and Google+.
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one.
This week we present: money.
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Trying to change the world can be expensive work! So this Money Week, we’re sharing some ideas and opportunities to help you secure the cheddar you need to turn your awesome ideas into real-world action.
Crowdfunding infographic by Anna Vital and Vlad Shyshov,
fundersandfounders.com
Nothing attracts a crowd like crowdfunding
This buzzword has become annoying to some (check out this amusing McSweeney’s send-up), but it’s been more than a flash in the pan for a reason.
In the past five years, Kickstarter alone has been the conduit for raising $918 million to help fund 53,000 creative projects. And now they’re far from the only game in town: Indiegogo, AngelList, and Crowdfunder are just a few of the other major players on the scene.
Interested in learning more about your crowdfunding options?
Show me the money
These opportunities will have you feeling like this guy.
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
If you want to try from the reverse angle and go for funding that’s already been allotted for specific purposes, here are a few current opportunities:
Pick up some knowledge
Restock your brain library.
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
Or maybe the time is right for you to hit the (proverbial) books and read a little more about different funding options. Here are a few ideas:
Party with a purpose
Break out the costume box.
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
From the “mixing business with pleasure” file, here’s With Love… The New Generation of Party People—a new book and accompanying website geared toward helping you put on great fundraising parties. Find ten complete party plans with everything from invitations to music playlists to help you show your friends a good time while bringing in some cash for your cause.
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Have you had a good fundraising experience recently (or a not-so-good one)? Share your story in the comments.
This week’s spotlight: all things death.
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Can’t make it to a Death Cafe? Try talking about end-of-life issues in the comfort of your home with My Gift of Grace.
“We spend most of our lives avoiding thoughts of mortality, which means that when we have to talk about illness and death, we’re unprepared,” say the folks at The Action Mill, a design firm who recently produced a conversation game that encourages people to talk about end-of-life issues. Called My Gift of Grace, it’s part of the firm’s “contribution to the growing movement to unhide death.”
So how does this game ‘unhide’ death and how could doing that benefit us?
My Gift of Grace is a set of cards that come in three categories: Questions (“If you could plan three things about your own funeral, what would they be?”), Statements (“The worst part about being at the end of my life would be…”), and Activities (“Visit your local cemetery. If you see an employee, ask them what it’s like to work there.”).
Players use the cards to start short discussions with others in the group and to keep notes on; when the game is over, participants are encouraged to keep the cards handy as reminders of the conversations they had.
As for the benefits, the designers cite encouraging giving, better focus on the present, and increasing understanding, for starters:
Anyone can get the game and play it, but we’re designing My Gift of Grace to be given as a gift. Giving is good for us. Generosity makes us happier and healthier and creates social connections.
The game itself is just one part of the social support network we’re designing to help people get unstuck and have important conversations that can help us get perspective and focus on the things that are most important to us in the here and now.
Sharing how you think about the end of your life is also one of the most important gifts you can give to the people who are close to you. Letting them know how you feel about end-of-life issues can save them from a lot of guilt, trauma, and expense down the road in the event they need to make decisions for you.
Read more about the purposes behind and development of My Gift of Grace on The Action Mill’s Kickstarter page. For info about ordering the game when it becomes commercially available (hopefully this month), see MyGiftOfGrace.com.
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Have you opened conversations about end-of-life issues with your community? Did the experience help get you unstuck?
This week’s spotlight: all things death.
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Illustration by Jan Hyrman
When you think about why you’re having trouble getting started on or continuing with a project, do the reasons ever sound like, “I just don’t have any good ideas,” “No one will believe this is going to work,” or “I’ll never be able to see this through.” If so, you may have some self-doubt dragons to slay!
Check out these ideas and tips from Authentic Coach Samuel Collier on how to boost self-confidence and turn obstacles into stepping stones.
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While some of us are already living a life filled with confidence, many of us only ever fantasize about being sure of ourselves. More often than not, we are plagued by an annoying, nagging voice inside our heads telling us we aren’t capable of or worthy enough to do the things we want to do.
So how do we get over our self-doubt and claim the life we’ve always dreamed of?
The answer is by “growing up.” This is not the same type of growing up we all went through during childhood where our parents and schools raised us, taught us how to survive, and how to be good people.
This growing up is about reclaiming our childhood and our natural birthright of confidence and curiosity. It’s also about redefining our relationship to fear through the choices we make.
Growing up is a process. It takes time to transform from being a person who doubts him or herself into a self-realized person of courage, curiosity, and confidence. But this journey is possible, and it’s all about the choices you make.
Courage may come easy for some, but both courage and confidence can be generated in everyone. All it takes is the commitment to begin changing with small steps towards the life you want and building a state of mind that will sustain it.
We should first recognize that fear is a survival mechanism, not a character flaw. Most anxiety and belief systems are an adaptation to stressful situations we learned in childhood. So we just need to upgrade our systems. How do we do that?
1. Redefine all fear as positive.
Courage does not mean the absence of fear. Courage means being afraid, but doing it anyway. Without fear, life would be dull, drab, and static. Fear is a core emotion for a reason and it gives life much of its color. If we had no fear, there would be no potential for growth.
2. Remember that real fear has a purpose.
Ninety nine percent of the time the fear you’re feeling is a false fear, meaning one that is not based on any immediate physical danger. When you are feeling afraid you should gauge the likelihood of your worst fear coming true. Most of the time, you will see that it is unlikely ever to happen.
3. Face fears gradually and gently.
Break down insurmountable tasks so they become manageable. Use baby steps and follow a schedule that isn’t overwhelming. A more gradual process will strengthen your resolve and I guarantee the sense of power you begin to feel will be enough to keep you going.
4. Become friends with failure.
You alone have the capability to start facing your fears, so don’t give up when you fail. Recognize that when you fail, it’s not permanent—it’s part of the process of learning how to do better.
Befriend your failures, your fears, and the process and you will be rewarded!
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Samuel Collier is the Authentic Coach, helping people awaken to their self-confidence and activate their hidden potential. Visit his blog and website, or email him at samuelbcollier@gmail.com.
This week’s spotlight: all things death.
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Death Cafe is not the title of a new heavy metal LP, nor is it the name of a restaurant where skeletons are served. (Well, maybe it is, but that’s not what we’re writing about today!)
Death Cafe is an idea, a movement, and a series of meetings where, according to its hub website, “people—often strangers—drink tea, eat cake, and discuss death. Our aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives.”
Jon Underwood of London got the idea when he read a 2010 newspaper article that mentioned Swiss sociologist and anthropologist Bernard Crettaz, who started hosting the first “cafe mortals” in Switzerland in 2004.
He’d already been at work on a series of projects about death, and decided to try organizing his own “death cafe” with the help of his mother, Sue Barsky Reid. It was a great success. The mother-and-son team began hosting more events and in 2012 published the guide “Holding Your Own Death Cafe“, which quickly spread around the world.
To date, over 3,000 participants have discussed end-of-life issues at 396 Death Cafes in Europe, North America, and Australasia.
Death Cafes help participants explore all the faces of this universal event.
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
How it works
The meetings are run on a purely voluntary basis, with each led by different facilitators and attended by groups of different sizes. Most meetings begin with a facilitator sharing what led them to the group and asking others to share their reasons.
The group might then split into smaller chunks to answer more conversation-starting questions like: What do you want your funeral to be like? Is there such a thing as living too long? What do you most want to accomplish before you die?
And there are a few ground rules that hold the concept together:
As for what the experience is like, a few Death Cafe leaders and participants sound off:
Is this piquing your interest? Look for an upcoming cafe taking place near you.
Also, it doesn’t take much to try hosting your own event. DeathCafe.com offers information, instructions, and support for new facilitators, and hosts a a “Death Conversation” section where participants can share experiences and info.
Sue and Jon claim “organising a Death Cafe is enjoyable, easy and life-enhancing.” Who knew death could have such an upside?
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Have you hosted or attended a Death Cafe? Did the experience help you deal with your fears?
Not treating your instinct as the be-all and end-all can help you make better decisions
about when to change direction. (photo courtesy Shutterstock)
Most of us make the bulk of our decisions based on instinct. How many times in your life have you found yourself saying, “It just felt right”?
But here’s the thing: your intuition might be wrong. It just might be your obstacle to action.
In a recent Brainpickings blog post, editor Maria Popova dissects the marvels and flaws of intuitive thinking based on the findings of psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Drawing from a series of studies he did in the ’70s, Kahneman encourages us to keep our intuition in check.
How? By being aware that it’s our brain’s default to jump to conclusions based on scant information.
That will very often create a flaw. It will create overconfidence. The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence [but] of the coherence of the story that the mind has managed to construct. Quite often you can construct very good stories out of very little evidence. … People tend to have great belief, great faith in the stories that are based on very little evidence.
But you can use your slippery instinct to your advantage. Maria smartly writes:
In other words, intuition, like attention, is “an intentional, unapologetic discriminator [that] asks what is relevant right now, and gears us up to notice only that” — a humbling antidote to our culture’s propensity for self-righteousness, and above all a reminder to allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.
So the next time you’re in the midst of a project and “feeling” that something is right (or wrong), you might want to think again.
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When has listening to your instinct worked for you? When has it not?
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one.
This Halloween week, we present: fear.
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Jonathan Fields helps people be “more agile, creative and innovative and embrace action in the face of uncertainty with a greater sense of ease.”
As a father, husband, author, speaker, wellness industry entrepreneur, former hedge fund lawyer, innovation consultant (and more!), he’s no stranger to making ideas happen.
He describes his Good Life Project (GLP), in part, as “a voracious commitment to move beyond words and act.” Very Idealist!
In this video from GLP TV’s third season, Jonathan talks about countering fear and inaction by “reframing” our thoughts to push past our natural inclination toward negativity bias (concentrating on what could go wrong), and focus on the opportunities—not the pitfalls—that await in any challenge.
A few of our favorite quips to whet your appetite for action:
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When have you been able to shed fear by focusing on opportunity?
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one.
This Halloween week, we present: fear.
To make their “extreme haunt” trail extra creepy, Acres of Darkness plays up local legends and natural spooks like wolves, Bigfoot, and scary old men with chainsaws. (photo courtesy Kyle Simpson)
Your pulse is racing. Your palms are sweating. You’re paralyzed with metallic fear.
You totally went over-budget on fake blood. Welcome to the charitable haunt director’s worst nightmare.
Actually, if you’re one of the many directors or volunteer leaders who run haunted events for charity this time of year, you’re probably too preoccupied on Halloween to be spooked by much.
And you’re certainly not alone on your busy day: The Haunted House Association (yes, that’s a real thing) estimates that 80% of haunted houses in the U.S. are run by or for mission-driven organizations.
Despite the ubiquity of the “scare because we care” fundraising model, haunts are a huge challenge to plan, staff, and execute.
The money and volunteer hours it takes to set up a haunted site—not to mention moving potentially thousands of guests through the site or grounds—is enough to strike terror in the heart of even the most experienced project manager.
We asked two nonprofit leaders who rely on haunts as an important source of revenue to tell us what freaks them out about haunts and how they deal with their concerns.
Kyle Simpson is the sanctuary manager of the Chattanooga Audubon Society, Tennessee’s oldest wildlife preserve. Since 2010, they’ve been putting on a spooky fundraiser called Acres of Darkness, which sends people out into the dark woods to be chased by chainsaw-wielding forest monsters.
Sean Kelley is Director of Public Programming at Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site (ESPHS) outside of Philadelphia, which hosts Terror Behind the Walls. The event is one of the largest haunts in the country and features night tours through the abandoned prison, complete with creepy zombie inmates.
Terror Behind the Walls in the historic Eastern State Penitentiary lives up to its name.
(photo by Andrew Garn)
Fear #1: Staying on mission
Since so much energy goes into preparing and executing this one event, both Kyle and Sean have concerns about spending a ton of time on something that isn’t necessarily a perfect fit with their mission.
“Sure we’re getting kids out in nature, but that’s kind of a stretch. We want to encourage people to be out in nature, not make them terrified of it,” says Kyle.
At the Eastern Penitentiary Historic Site, Sean and the staff work hard to differentiate the content and focus of the historical tours from the haunted tours to make sure their visitors don’t get the wrong idea.
“We have a strict ‘no discussion of real or implied history’ at the haunted house. This forces the content to be a lot of startles, large props, special effects, and actors dressed as zombie guards and inmates with vague and ambiguous lines,” he says. “We never imply that a visit to our haunted house is either educational or an accurate depiction of this or any other prison. It’s a distraction from the mission, no question.”
Fear #2: Safety
When the point of your event is to scare your audience, it’s really important to make certain that nothing bad actually happens to them. Sean stresses safety above everything.
“Startling people in the dark, many of whom have been drinking, is more risky than walking them through during the day,” he says.
To stay safe, Terror Behind the Walls has security and an EMT on site at all hours. They also do extensive emergency training with every employee.
Fear #3: Keeping volunteers happy
The spookiness of Chattanooga’s haunted woods comes mostly from the efforts of the Audubon society’s many dedicated volunteers. For Kyle, making sure his volunteers are having fun is just as important as getting people out to the event.
Last year, Kyle says, one of his volunteer actors had an issue with some older kids who were walking through the haunt and wanted to cause trouble. They laughed and made fun of him for not being scary.
“He wasn’t even really supposed to be scary. He was dressed as a gatekeeper and it was his job to direct people down the path,” he says. “They were really mean to him.”
The volunteer got his feelings hurt and ended up working in the coat trailer for the rest of the season.
“That’s really disheartening to see. Here we have folks coming out to volunteer with us and they’re doing it for the right reasons. We just want them to feel appreciated and have a good time.”
To keep everybody energized and happy, Kyle says he matches his volunteers with the jobs that excite them the most. He also makes sure they feel really appreciated by providing a warm dinner for his actors each night and hosting a volunteer appreciation event later in December.
A pretty good trick for getting treats
Though it can be scary to put on a capital-intense fundraiser, the payoff is good for most organizations. In its third year, Kyle says Acres of Darkness already brings in more than 10% of the Chattanooga Audubon Society’s annual operating revenue. For Sean and the more established haunt at ESPHS, it’s 60%.
It also brings in new audiences and donors by inviting people who might not otherwise know much about the site to come for a fun, seasonal event.
Sean likes to think of the haunted tours as a kind of spooky disguise for the organization as a whole.
“The Penitentiary puts on a costume, throws a big party, and we get a chance to meet broad new audiences.”
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Have you hosted or attended a haunt for charity this year? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one.
This Halloween week, we present: fear.
A rejection sampler.
Here’s an idea to get over your fear of rejection: seek it out.
Yeah, I know. Sounds crazy. But the concept is sound: the more you’re rejected, the more it doesn’t seem like such a scary thing.
James Comely’s game, Rejection Therapy, encourages you to try this theory out. It works like this: try everyday to get someone to reject you. You can opt for a 30 Day Challenge, 100 days, or more or less depending on what you want to get out of it.
For $10, you can purchase a set of cards that gives suggestions for situations prime for dismissal. Examples include: friending a complete stranger on Facebook; hitchhiking; calling or visiting a direct competitor.
Or, you can create your own rejection scenarios.
Success is when somebody tells you “no.” If they say “yes,” your ask wasn’t risky enough. Try again.
Of course, playing the game once won’t make you immune to the ravages of rejection. The goal is to increase your confidence by disrupting your comfort zone over time.
Here’s what Comely had to say in an interview on fear.less:
Before playing the game, I thought about it a lot: Why was I not happy? Was I always in my comfort zone? All that introspection and pondering pointed to one thing: Rejection. I knew the fear from rejection was handcuffing my life. It was crippling. But what gave power to this fear? The answer was my comfort zone. That’s what it was. Go home on a weekend and be comfortable. At the most, call up an old friend, go out and get something to eat or whatever. Stay comfortable. Opt for the comfort factor.
Opportunities presented themselves but I chose the comfortable, boring route. But as I began to look for rejection, I discovered a unique thing about my comfort zone: It was elastic. The more I pushed past the boundaries, the more it would expand.
Now will you go share this blog post with one million people? I sure hope you won’t.
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Have you ever been rejected and had it not be a big deal?
Samantha Thornhill reciting a poem on a Brooklyn-bound Q train.
(photo courtesy Syreeta McFadden)
Samantha Thornhill and Jon Sands make art out of what many people fear more than death: public speaking.
Poets in Unexpected Places (or PUP, “Pop-up Poets”) is a New York City-based poetry performance group that creates large-scale poetry installations in public spaces like subway cars, ferries, classrooms, and parks.
Here’s how it works: one of the five PUP poets (called “Curators”) stands up and reads either their own or someone else’s poem. Then it’s another poet’s turn. And so on.
After the third or fourth poet shares something, people start to see that this isn’t a random act of art. They begin taking their ear buds out, or looking up to chuckle with the person sitting next to them. This moment of connection is what the PUP Curators are trying to create.
“You see people sharing an experience. People who were disconnected before, staring at their iPods, are now connecting. They’re part of a story where everyone has a role to play,” Samantha says. “And that’s revolutionary.”
They’ve had audiences react with indifference and (rarely) with hostility, but the overall response since PUP’s start in 2008 has been really positive. Audience members have even joined in and shared their own work—poems, raps, dances, even a monologue from Romeo and Juliet. When this happens, the brave civilians are called “Pop-up Passengers.”
Transforming fear
Even for experienced teachers and performers like the PUP Curators, sharing something as personal as a poem (especially an unsolicited poem) in a public space is definitely a risk. Each Curator has their own strategy for dealing with the fear and making something positive from it.
Samantha says she takes power from the surprise of not knowing what’s going to happen.
“I harness that energy of uncertainty and nerves, and I let it bring me to a positive space. Then it’s not fear anymore,” she says.
It’s helped her become a braver person overall. “I was able to tell myself that if I can stand up on a train and do a poem, then I can dismantle other fears that are holding me back.”
Jon says the whole idea for PUP was pretty much a dare. He was riding a late night L train with his friend Adam, another co-founder of PUP, who told him he’d give him $2 if he did a poem—right then and there.
“Of course we were afraid—but when you’re afraid of something, that’s usually a good sign that you should try it,” he says.
Acting on good intentions
Knowing what they want to do—and why they’re passionate about it—helps the Curators stay focused and committed to the act of storytelling and transforming public spaces.
“I believe in doing something with intention—to really dissect what you’re doing and why you’re doing it—otherwise it might seem like a frivolous action. It’s okay to be afraid, as long as it’s not paralyzing or destabilizing, but the intention and the passion have to be there,” Samantha says.
If you’re trying to get to the root of your intentions, Jon thinks there’s something to be said for just going with your feelings and opening up to the unknown.
“There’s really a value in saying ‘yes’ and seeing what happens.”
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When have you channeled fear into a positive emotion? How did you do it?
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one. This Halloween week, we present: fear.
The following is a translated excerpt from Elena Martín’s original post on Idealist’s Spanish language site, Idealistas.
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When we talk about the obstacles that prevent people from moving from intention to action, we often cite the fear of failure. But the other side of the coin is not so commonly discussed: fear of success.
Are you afraid you might see failure… or success?
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
Fear of failure can come into play when we think our image is on the line (“People will think this idea is absurd,” “If I try this and it doesn’t work, they’ll think I’m a failure,” etc.), and also when we treat failures purely as setbacks, instead of as opportunities to learn and make changes.
Fear of success, however, comes from different ideas and habits—often ones related to responsibility and commitment.
When thinking about an idea you want to make happen, have you ever had the following thoughts?
If so, you might be suffering from a fear of success! As you can see, the way we frame our thoughts and feelings about fear determines in large part what we dare to do (or not do).
So we invite you to try asking yourself what stops you from taking action. What’s the cost of not trying? Would it be better to try than to keep imagining what would happen if you did? What would make a better addition to your life than realizing your idea?
Your answers might give you a clue that you’re afraid of succeeding. If that’s the case, don’t fret: you can turn it around.
If we change our thoughts—if we can behold failure as a learning experience, responsibility as an honor, and commitment as an adventurous challenge—we can change the world.
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Have you experienced fear of failure, or of success? Have you been able to turn good intentions into action by reshaping your thoughts and feelings about fear? Please share in the comments.
Idealist contributor Kimberly Maul also delves into the fear of success, with a focus on career goals, in this Idealist Careers post.
There’s been a lot press a lately about Brandon Stanton, founder of the Humans of New York photojournalism project.
If you’ve been following the HONY story as religiously as I have, you’ll know that last week Brandon released a book of his 400 best portraits since beginning the project in 2010.
I love HONY for a myriad of reasons. I love how he captures beauty in all its diverse forms amidst the chaos and congestion of the city. I love how his subjects are so unbelievably raw and wise. I love how he connects me to a place where I once lived.
And finally I love Brandon’s chutzpah, not least because he approaches random strangers all the time, but because he took a chance on his passion. Before millions of people started following his blog, Brandon was a bond trader in Chicago. Then he quit his job, picked up, and moved to NYC with a camera in hand to try and make it.
People thought he was crazy.
This is a common fear that we hear from you, our Idealist community. Brandon’s story is a great example of preserving, despite the people around you thinking you’re cuckoo.
Here’s a snippet from Huffington Post on how HONY came to be:
My initial plan was to take 10,000 street portraits to plot on an interactive map, creating a photographic census of the city.
But I was completely broke. My friends and family thought I was crazy. I’d only had six months of photography experience, yet I was moving across the country to be a photographer. Despite the absurdity of the decision, I felt confident. I knew that my photography skills left a lot to be desired. But I also knew that I had the best idea of my life, and that everything else could be figured out as I went along.
I made that move about 2.5 years ago. There were a lot of lonely times. That first year was tough. I knew nobody in New York. I never knew where rent was coming from. All I did was take photographs. I never took a day off. I worked every single holiday. I took thousands of portraits before anyone paid attention. But even though I didn’t have much to show for it, I knew that I was getting better, and I knew the photographs were special.
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Have you ever taken a chance on a seemingly crazy idea, only to have it be more successful than you ever could’ve imagined?
Getting a scene to look like its been filmed at zero gravity isn’t easy.
(Image via Warner Bros. Pictures)
While “Gravity” is getting a lot of attention for its stunning visuals and intricate special effects, here at Idealist we’re more interested in what the space survival epic says about persistence in the face of loneliness, isolation, and fear.
Director Alfonso Cuarón is no stranger to obstacles and setbacks himself. In this Vulture interview (originally from New York Magazine), he says the film took him nearly four and a half years to complete. His idea for the movie was met with a lot of skepticism initially.
“It’s a very unlikely film, first of all, to put together,” he tells interviewer Dan P. Lee. “It’s basically one character floating in space.”
People told him it was impossible to make a movie like this. They wanted him to change the story. They wanted him to take shortcuts. But he believed in his original vision.
Cuarón describes some of the obstacles he and his collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki faced while trying to film something that was thought of as nearly impossible:
They tried the conventional methods. With wires and harnesses, “you feel the gravity in the face, you feel the strain,” Cuarón says. (In a few shots they would prove unavoidable, so the filmmakers designed a complex twelve-wire puppeteering system.)
They tried the infamous “vomit comet”—a specially fitted airplane that flies in steep parabolic arcs to induce brief spans of weightlessness inside the open fuselage, which was used to great effect in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. Cuarón found it impractical: “You’ve got a window of twenty seconds if you’re lucky, and you’re limited by the space of a 727.”
They flew to San Francisco to view robots as stand-ins for the actors. They tried motion capture. They considered creating a “CG Sandra,” but “the fluid in the eyes, the mouth, the soul—there’s something that doesn’t work yet,” Lubezki says.
Cuarón consulted the director James Cameron and Lubezki the director David Fincher. Both had the same advice: Wait for the technology.
The leadership at Warner Bros. changed. Actors took other jobs and dropped out. There was the constant concern of money—the studio had only budgeted the film at a reported $80 million, a relatively modest amount given that, as they were slowly realizing, they’d have no choice but to largely invent the technology that would allow the film to be made.
So what did they do?
“How do you eat an elephant?” Cuarón asked me. “One spoonful a day.”
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Can mainstream movies like “Gravity” make a positive impact on our society? What other inspiring ideas can we take away from the film and the story of how it was made?
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one. This week, we present: people issues.
Feeling comfortable talking to strangers is a classic obstacle to action. In this delightful video, the folks at SoulPancake (the same media group responsible for Kid President) show us one way to make introductions fun and memorable.
Have you ever made a new connection from a totally random interaction like this? Tell us about it!
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one. This week, we present: people issues.
A few years ago, one month away from college graduation, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.
I was a double major in communications and Spanish, had two internships under my belt, and no earthly idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I applied to dozens of jobs, mostly in New York City but also abroad, and crossed my fingers.
Idealist’s Community Manager Matt Cifaldi immediately after bear-spraying himself in Alaska.
(photo courtesy of the author)
During this time I called a friend of mine who told me to apply for a job at a nonprofit he had worked for in Alaska through an AmeriCorps grant. He was enthusiastic and thought it might be a good fit for me.
Little did I know then that two weeks after commencement I would find myself setting up a tent in a field outside of Anchorage at 2:00 a.m., wondering what I had gotten myself into.
The program lasted from June to November, and the idea was simple: in teams, we traveled across the state of Alaska improving trails, keeping highways clean, and developing events with local communities. We lived at campsites in tents. Showering was a weekly event, and we had no access to electricity.
I expected my time in Alaska to be a trying experience, and it often was. Rain would last for an entire week, the mosquitoes were unbearable during the summer, and I never really got a full night of sleep. I ran into all sorts of wildlife, most of it frightening. I climbed mountains and glaciers, and I learned more about living outdoors than I thought I would ever know.
What I didn’t expect, and in fact didn’t even consider, was what I would learn about other people. I signed up for the Alaska program for relatively selfish reasons: I wanted to wash off four years of city living, have an adventure, and get some experience working in the nonprofit sector.
But when I arrived home in November smelling like a campfire and ecstatic to sleep on a mattress, I came back with more than bear stories. I had learned some valuable lessons about living and working with others that I still find useful today.
1. First impressions are almost always wrong.
For our first week, everyone attended an orientation program. We learned how to use chainsaws, practiced CPR, and watched a video about bear safety. We made meals together and started to get to know one another. After the end of orientation, the initial large group of fifty split into six smaller teams.
We were all from different areas of the country, and ranged in age from 18 to 30 years old. No one on our team seemed to have much in common, and I thought I had everybody figured out within a week of working with them. I decided they were lazy, or stubborn, didn’t work well with others, or were distant.
However, as their unique stories unfolded over dozens of campfire conversations and morning coffees, I realized that each of my teammates had a deep personal story to tell.
And that I had been wrong about each and every one of them.
For example, during the first few days, one person on my team casually told me he’d come to Alaska by following an eagle that had appeared in his dreams. I quickly dismissed him as a little bit crazy. But by the end of our time together, I looked up to him and considered him my good friend. And to this day I record interesting dreams I have, mostly due to his influence.
The grandeur of the 49th state! (photo courtesy of the author)
2. Different personalities clash in close quarters. Get over it.
We did everything together. Every day we woke up, made breakfast, drove to our worksite, worked until lunch, ate lunch together, worked some more, drove back to camp, cooked dinner, then went to sleep.
With nothing but time on our hands, we gossiped. It often felt like we were living a supercharged version of Survivor. I’d be friendly with one teammate for two weeks, get into an argument with them, then find another teammate to be best friends with for the next fortnight. Everyone did it. With a limited supply of potential friends, most transgressions were quickly forgiven, and just as quickly occurred again.
Working with such a small group of people and being in constant contact taught me this: everyone has something valuable to offer, as well as something negative. Focusing on the negative aspects of someone’s personality is often easier, especially in a work setting, but it’s never productive.
3. Being a leader is a lot harder than it looks.
Our team leader was responsible for our budget, arranging jobs across the state, and generally keeping us motivated and alive. She was our boss, parent, and friend all at once.
Before Alaska, I’d viewed my past managers’ jobs as similar to mine, except they got paid more. From living in close contact with my boss, though, I realized her responsibilities were much greater. She had to do everything I did, plus keep everything organized and solve disagreements between team members, of which there were many. She was also just as far from home as the rest of us, and couldn’t as comfortably confide in us as we could in each other.
There’s a reason managers get paid more: their job is often much harder than it seems.
The entire Alaska trip was harder than it seemed it would be, in fact, and there were times I truly wanted to give up and book a flight home. But in the end, I wouldn’t trade the half year I spent there for anything else.
I am a better person for having been to Alaska, and not a day goes by that I don’t use something I learned there. Like when I meet someone new, I know not to judge them based on first impressions. And when I meet a bear, I know not to run away. It will just chase you.
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Tell us about a time you unexpectedly learned about people when you set out to learn something else.
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one. This week, we present: people issues.
The following post was translated from Elena Martín’s original on Idealist’s Spanish language site, Idealistas.
Was that good advice, or are you shutting me down?
(photo courtesy CleftClips, Flickr Creative Commons)
You have an idea for a project—but you can’t seem to get going.
When you share your idea, some people tell you you’re just a dreamy idealist; some say you should straighten up and get serious; others might leave it at “you’re crazy.” You start to doubt yourself and don’t take any more steps forward.
Have you ever stopped to think how the people around you might be affecting your actions?
A friend of mine once said, “If you want to pursue your dreams, do not tell them to your mother.”
Clearly not all mothers are risk averse, but my friend’s point was that we’re more prone to act when we don’t hear well-meaning naysaying—things like, “Why don’t you just look for a good job with a stable company?” This can be the case especially when it comes to innovative social impact projects.
We may know in our hearts that going a safe-and-steady route won’t make us happy, but it can still be hard to brush off the dissenting opinions of others—especially when they’re people we really care about. We don’t want to disappoint them, and when they know us well, their advice can seem more meaningful.
So how can you determine who around you might be unwittingly shutting you down—offering you “wise” advice that actually aims to prevent you from acting on your dreams?
Think about whether you know anyone who fits these descriptions:
Even if you know some people with the above tendencies, the good news is that not everyone is like that. The world is full of positive people who are full of energy and don’t subscribe to blanket negativity.
These people don’t lose focus; they think and do; they have goals and listen to what people have to say, but don’t let discouraging comments lead them away from their committed path.
So ask this question: how can I surround myself with these positive people, instead of with negative critics (even if they mean well)? Who do I know that fills me with energy and motivation, rather than leaving me focused on the dark side?
Identify these people and commit to spending more time with them; you’ll see how your attitude and your world will begin to change. Good energy, just like bad energy, is contagious!
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Do you have a story about a well-meaning person who inadvertently kiboshed your plans? Have you found success in surrounding yourself with overtly positive people? Tell us in the comments.
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one. This week, we present: people issues.
Sometimes a friendly conversation is the most effective way for an idea to spread.
(photo courtesy Filckr Creative Commons)
We can be so stubborn sometimes. Even with clear information, incentives, and easy-to-follow instructions, a lot of the time people just don’t give up their old habits.
How many of us have tried to encourage people in our community to do something differently—even if it would make their lives easier or better in some way—only to have those ideas not catch on or slowly fizzle out over time?
Even in a field like medicine where innovative ideas can save literally hundreds of thousands of lives, new ideas and improved practices are oftentimes shrugged off as unimportant. Why is this the case?
Surgeon, writer, and researcher Atul Gawande recently wrote a piece in The New Yorker exploring how good ideas are spread. By examining a recent campaign in northern India designed to reduce infant deaths after childbirth, the Better Birth Project, he suggests that a friendly face may be the most important thing campaigns designed to successfully create lasting change can offer:
The most common approach to changing behavior is to say to people, “Please do X.” Please warm the newborn. Please wash your hands. Please follow through on the twenty-seven other childbirth practices that you’re not doing. This is what we say in the classroom, in instructional videos, and in public service campaigns, and it works, but only up to a point.
To create new norms, you have to understand people’s existing norms and barriers to change. You have to understand what’s getting in their way. So what about just working with health care workers, one by one, to do just that?
With the Better Birth Project, we wondered, in particular, what would happen if we hired a cadre of childbirth-improvement workers to visit birth attendants and hospital leaders, show them why and how to follow a checklist of essential practices, understand their difficulties and objections, and help them practice doing things differently. In essence, we’d give them mentors.
He continues…
In the era of the iPhone, Facebook, and Twitter, we’ve become enamored of ideas that spread as effortlessly as ether. We want frictionless, “turnkey” solutions to the major difficulties of the world—hunger, disease, poverty.
We prefer instructional videos to teachers, drones to troops, incentives to institutions. People and institutions can feel messy and anachronistic. They introduce, as the engineers put it, uncontrolled variability.
But technology and incentive programs are not enough. “Diffusion is essentially a social process through which people talking to people spread an innovation,” wrote Everett Rogers, the great scholar of how new ideas are communicated and spread. Mass media can introduce a new idea to people.
But, Rogers showed, people follow the lead of other people they know and trust when they decide whether to take it up. Every change requires effort, and the decision to make that effort is a social process.
In the case of the Better Birth Project, direct and consistent contact with trained mentors is starting to make a difference. As the nurses build relationships with the campaign workers, they’re taking more and more ownership over the new ideas and changing their routines.
And why are they doing what the mentors suggest? In one nurse’s words: “She was nice.”
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Do you know of other campaigns that have successfully used sociable tactics like this? Or campaigns that prove an exception to the rule?
Stuck? Feeling hopeless? Unsure of your next step? For the almost two decades Idealist has been around, we’ve been asking you—our community—to tell us about the obstacles you face when trying to turn your good intentions into action. We’ve compiled a short list of the top-reported obstacles, and now we’re blogging about them one by one. This week, we present: people issues.
“Ummm, what’s your name again?”
We’re told as kids not to talk to strangers, but as adults, an inability to do so can become problematic. It’s important to make connections with new people in all parts of our lives, whether we’re participating in community events, building our professional networks, pioneering new friendships, or trying to get a new project off the ground.
But not everyone can summon their inner social butterfly at the drop of a hat. There are a lot of ways to go about talking with strangers, and depending on your goal, awkwardness could well be seen as endearing! But if you think your game could use a little polish, consider these resources about three common social challenges:
1. Making small talk.
When it comes to making connections with new people, small talk is huge. In this The Wall Street Journal article on how to become a better conversationalist, columnist Elizabeth Bernstein explores how we can improve what experts call “conversational intelligence.”
According to Dr. Bernardo J. Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast, there are five stages of a successful conversation practiced by those with the “gift of gab.” These stages include getting started, personal introduction, pre-topical exploration, post-topical elaboration, and wrap-up.
Throughout these stages, it’s important to focus most of your attention on the other person.
“Ask a lot of questions. People love to talk about themselves and often will think you are a great conversationalist if you talk about them and not yourself. Don’t let the conversation stall after the person has answered—be ready with follow-up questions or build on the topic.”
2. Reaching out to people you find online.
Just because you’re connected to someone online doesn’t mean you’re close IRL. But what’s the best way to reach out to someone if you’ve never actually met them in person?
In this article recently published on Forbes, leadership and career success coach Kathy Caprino offers tips for reaching out to online contacts and making those connections in person. She reminds us that whether on the web or face to face, the same rules apply:
“Be considerate of their time, and understand that building relationships online is exactly like building them in person. You wouldn’t come up to a stranger at a cocktail party and grill them with questions,” she says. “You’d ease into the situation, listen deeply first, and learn about who they are and what they care about. Then, and only then, would you respectfully pose a question or offer a comment that you know is a good fit with their passions, skills, and interests.”
3. Interacting with people in their homes.
Going door-to-door is an advanced form of talking with strangers. Although it makes some people nervous, making personal contact is one of the best ways to unite a community around an issue or campaign.
This online toolkit from Compass Point Nonprofit Services is a series of tutorials and interactive video games designed to introduce people with the basics of starting conversations when approaching a stranger in their home. It’s safe, low-risk, and available to play online for free in both English and Spanish.
Lessons include recognizing when it’s a good time to talk, breaking the ice, sharing details about yourself, listening, and following up. While of course the simulated games can’t prepare you for everything you’ll see in the real world, the toolkit offers a great (i.e. not scary) way to practice conversation before you get out there and pound the pavement.
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What other tips do you have when it comes to talking with strangers? Share with us in the comments.
Maybe you can’t put lipstick on every pig?
(image courtesy Karen Roach)
Here at Idealist, we think there should be more conversations about what happens when things don’t work out. Recently, we’ve touted the benefits of making the most of your mistakes, learning by doing, and knowing when to quit—because even the best-laid plans, well, you know.
And we’re not alone. In this week’s The Atlantic, political columnist Liza Mundy suggests in the article “Losing Is the New Winning” that there’s never been a better time to admit your shortcomings and own up to your mistakes. It used to be the case that a big enough scandal could ruin your reputation forever, but we’re starting to notice that failure (if you’re honest about it) is actually kind of hot right now.
Mundy suggests we’ve entered a time when many public figures are rebranding their mistakes as opportunities for personal growth—and it’s working. She cites former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer’s current campaign for New York City comptroller as an example. He’s taking his questionable gubernatorial ethics head-on in his campaign ads by stating flat out, “I failed. Big time.”
Politics isn’t the only arena with leaders who have (or should) come clean when they mess up. One particularly memorable scandal is Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson’s financial mismanagement of the Central Asia Institute. Mortenson’s refusal to take full responsibility for any wrongdoing has prompted even more criticism of his organization, including Jon Krakauer’s article “Is It Time to Forgive Greg Mortenson?” in The Daily Beast this past spring (hint: until he’s honest, the answer is still ‘no’).
Admissions of guilt—even when they reveal something uncomfortable or unethical—are important to help repair one’s credibility with the public. But Mundy suggests that our willingness to forgive and forget scandals might be because as Americans, we have a certain ‘soft spot’ for fresh starts:
As the historian Robert Dallek pointed out to me, overcoming failure—bankruptcy, addiction, dissolution, defeat—is part of the quintessential American success story. Failure narratives resonate with all sorts of deeply held cultural tenets, from Christianity’s focus on forgiveness and rebirth to the frontier mentality’s emphasis on prevailing over obstacles both external and internal, including our own imperfect selves. Still, some eras seem to crave stories of redemption more than others. It seems no accident that after a punishing half decade in which failure descended upon millions in the forms of foreclosure, job loss, factory shutdowns, workplace realignment, growing economic inequality, and dwindling options, we delight in hearing that NASA, according to Dweck, prefers to hire aspiring astronauts who have failed and bounced back, rather than those who have enjoyed easy successes.
While stories of public figures or politicians overcoming shame and coming back from failure can certainly be compelling, there are still situations where giving second chances is downright crazy. Mundy raises the more complicated question of where we draw the line:
When is a public figure’s failure a sign of abiding character flaws, and when is it a harbinger of growth? When is an attempted comeback a marker of tenacity, and when is it a red flag signifying a delusional lack of self-awareness?
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What do you think the current popularity of failure stories means for leadership in the social good sector today? Can you tell us about a time when you admitted your mistakes and kept going, or when you decided to cut your losses and quit a project following a big fail?
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Quitters never win and winners never quit.” But author Seth Godin would argue quitting is good—if you’re smart about the right time to do it.
From his book The Dip:
“Never quit.” What a spectacularly bad piece of advice.
Actually, quitting as a short-term strategy is a bad idea. Quitting for the long-term is an excellent idea.
I think the advice-giver meant to say: Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment. Now that’s good advice.
So, let’s say you have an idea for an unique arts project for after-school youth. You’ve been thinking about it for years, have spent months refining your plan, hours getting the word out, and countless minutes perfecting your funding appeal. You’re so close to making it happen.
But there’s a snag: the school you were going to partner with backed out and no other school seems to be stepping up as a replacement.
This, my friend, is what Godin calls “the Dip.” It’s the moment when things don’t seem to be going your way and you’re starting to question if all your effort is worth it.
So your project? Godin would say it’s time to change your tactics, not quit the plan. No one quits the Boston Marathon at mile 25, right?
It’s human nature to quit when it hurts. But it’s that reflex that creates scarcity. The challenge is simple: Quitting when you hit the Dip is a bad idea. If the journey you started was worth doing, then quitting when you hit the Dip just wastes the time you’ve already invested.
Quit in the Dip often enough and you’ll find yourself becoming a serial quitter, starting many things but accomplishing little.
Simple: If you can’t make it through the Dip, don’t start.
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Have you ever fallen into the Dip? How did you deal with it?
Though the study of empathy is not new, neuroscientists are only beginning to understand how exactly it works, and what conditions affect our ability to build the bridges of empathy that connect us with others.
A recent NPR story by Chris Benderev follows some leading neuroscience researchers who’ve recently proven what psychologists have been saying for years—that having a sense of power decreases our ability to connect with others. Dr. Sukhvinder Obhi of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada is one of these researchers. He’s been studying the “mirror system”–the part of the brain that helps us get inside someone else’s head:
Empathetic people see themselves reflected in others
(photo courtesy Shutterstock)
“When I watch somebody picking up a cup of coffee, the mirror system activates the representations in my brain that would be active if I was picking up a cup of coffee,” he explains. “And because those representations are connected in my brain to the intentions that would normally activate them, you can get activation of the intention. So you can figure out, hey, this person wants to drink coffee.”
The mirror system is thought to be the chemical fountain of our empathy—when we see someone doing something, we recognize what they are doing and connect it to our own experience.
In a recent study, Dr. Obhi’s team looked at how the mirror system is affected by power. Participants were split randomly into two groups and asked to either reflect on an experience of powerlessness, or on a time when they felt powerful and had authority over others. Then subjects were abruptly interrupted and shown a video of someone holding and squeezing a rubber ball. As the participants watched the video, the researchers tracked the activity in their mirror systems with electrodes.
They found that the mirror systems of people in the ‘powerless’ group were sending strong signals. As they watched the ball being squeezed, their brains were mirroring the sensation of squeezing a ball.
The people in the ‘powerful’ group, on the other hand, were less able to connect with the video. Their mirror systems were sending very weak signals. This provides a scientific explanation for what happens when power—even a tiny bit of power—goes to someone’s head.
“What we’re finding is that power diminishes all varieties of empathy,” says University of California, Berkeley social psychologist Dacher Keltner. “Whether you’re with your team at work or you’re having a family dinner, [empathy] hinges on how we adapt our behaviors to the behaviors of other people. And power takes a bite out of that ability, which is too bad.”
Keltner goes on to say that people in positions of power seem to be able to train themselves out of this behavior—good news for those who want to lead with their heads, but also keep their hearts.
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What do these findings mean to you? Can you think of powerful people who are exceptions to the diminished-empathy rule?
Kim Crosby, 2012 SOUL Sanctuary participant (photo credit: stone circles)
When she was an organizer in the 1990s, Claudia Horwitz began to notice that many of the people she worked with were overworked, exhausted, and stressed out. Responding to the urgent need she saw in the activist community, Claudia founded stone circles, an organization that works to strengthen and sustain people committed to transformation and justice.
Since 2007, stone circles has been based in Mebane, North Carolina at The Stone House, a retreat and training center on 70 acres of land. One of stone circles’ primary goals is to address high rates of burnout among activists and organizers.
Burnout is more than just a busy week at work—it’s the long-term result of carrying continual stress, exhaustion, anxiety, or isolation.
Here are some tips from stone circles for addressing burnout:
1. Develop a personal practice.
A practice is simply a habit that gives us energy and reminds us of what matters most. Having a practice helps us pay concentrated attention to the inner voice—a presence that has the power to continually re-inform the activities of our daily lives. Mindful breathing, yoga, meditation, prayer, and journal writing are all examples of personal practice. Choose a practice that replenishes you and commit to doing it daily for a month. This can help make it a habit.
2. Come back to your body.
When we are disconnected from of our bodies, we separate ourselves from essential wisdom about what we need to thrive. Reconnecting with the body might mean establishing an exercise routine, practicing an embodied awareness tradition like yoga or t’ai chi, seeking the support of a holistic healer or medical doctor, or simply scanning the body with awareness before laying down to sleep at night.
3. Connect with the natural world.
Find some way to connect with the rhythms of the ecosystem you live in. This might mean paying attention to the changing of seasons, planting a small garden, or finding an open green space in which to spend time regularly. There’s infinite wisdom in the dance of life, growth, and death.
4. Identify the specific causes of your burnout.
The Maslach Burnout Inventory identifies six areas leading to burnout:
After identifying the source, name it out loud. Brainstorm with someone you trust about how to specifically change this aspect of your work life.
5. Tell your story.
Exploring your own history and learning from others’ can be a powerful way to understand both the factors of your stress and your capacity to thrive. Questions to consider include: Why did I enter this work? How do my family, community, and educational background impact my work? When do I feel most alive and happy? When do I feel most overwhelmed?
6. Cultivate hopefulness.
It’s easy to be consumed by short-term and immediate tasks; be sure to take time to imagine the world you’re working toward, alone as well as with the people you collaborate with. The more clarity you have about your intentions and dreams, the more you will radiate the power of possibility.
7. Take a well-structured pause.
Make space in your schedule for extended silence and discernment. Look for a retreat center or rent a cabin for one. Look into retreats specifically for activists, like SOUL Sanctuary, offered by stone circles at The Stone House, or the Windcall Institute. Take a few days to remember what you love about your work and what makes you passionate about your cause. Get away from your workplace (and even from the community(ies) for which you work) on a regular basis to identify the source of your stress, and to give yourself space for renewal.
Taking the time to do these things can feel selfish, but addressing your own needs will make you a healthier, more effective agent for change—and give you the strength to continue your work for many years to come.
Lindsey Mullen is an intern at stone circles at The Stone House. She studied social justice at the University of Alabama, and is currently a Master of Divinity student at Wake Forest University. She is interested in sacred rest, restorative justice, and intentional living.
