The power of possibility in difficult times

“What if our best times are ahead of us?”?

This subject line seemed to reach off the screen and hold my aching heart when it landed in my inbox a few weeks back. It was a newsletter from women’s advocate Pat Mitchell, who was quoting Jade Begay, head of the Indigenous-led NDN Collective and climate justice activist. Begay posed this question at a recent Connected Women Leaders meeting, and I couldn’t get it out of my head.?

In the days that followed, I realized the subject line captivated me so powerfully because it’s a question I should be teeing up for everyone I serve: from my colleagues to my board, to my co-founders Malala and Ziauddin, to my two daughters at home. Because when we channel what President Obama called the audacity of hope, we dare to imagine not only a reduction in what’s wrong with the world, but also a future where the world is better than it’s ever been. And it is the power of such imagination, paired with inspired action, that allows us to create such a future.

Those of us in the nonprofit sector do the work we do because we believe that change is both desperately needed and ultimately possible. And we match this belief with action, showing up each and every day fueled by a mission to create a more just, compassionate, sustainable world. It can feel extraordinarily difficult to sustain such optimistic action, when we are confronted over and over again by cruelty and suffering, and straining to have impact with limited resources. But when we turn our attention, with discipline and intention, from this discouraging deficit framing to one of hopeful possibility, we access a powerful balm for the troubled human spirit —?and a tool that is essential to creating real, lasting change.

A close relative of faith in possibility is joy, something else that we struggle to access as we confront the violence and brutality that human beings create. But accessing joy is not just an Instagram aphorism —?it’s a moral imperative. In the film, Mission: Joy - Finding Happiness in Troubled Times, no less than Archbishop Desmond Tutu says, “It helps no one if you are sacrificing your joy because others are suffering.” He goes on to issue a call to action: “We people who care must be attractive, must be filled with joy, so that others recognize that caring, that helping and being generous are not a burden, they are a joy.”

And of course caring, helping and being generous ARE joyful. Science shows that helping others improves our mental health. One of the primary jobs for those of us who lead people is to help them stay connected to that experience of service, that core purpose, despite the news cycle and despite the inevitable stresses of everyday life and work. Here are a few ways we can do that:

• Share a powerful vision for the future, and help people stand in the story of exactly how their work makes that vision possible. As Pat Mitchell observed in her newsletter, putting forward a vision of the future is essential to shifting our narrative from one of fear to one of action — and love (but more on that next month). Use whatever tools at your disposal to share that vision as Ruth Obeta, a 17-year-old from Nigeria, did with a piece of poetry in the Malala Fund publication Assembly: “I have to be proud of the girl that I am/ And believe that the future will be better.”
• Invest in your staff’s well-being and belonging. You don’t get credit for external impact if you’re leaving staff threadbare. Create a culture that empowers people to thrive —?for example, one where people are allowed to protect themselves from burnout by saying “No, I can’t take that on right now” or “If I take that on, here’s what I have to put aside.” This is admittedly a learning edge for me and my colleagues at Malala Fund but a needed one as our work grows and our footprint expands. Just as important as being able to?say “no” is being able to say “yes” – to team lunches or group cooking classes or department-level retreats focused on friendship, feminism, frameworks and future!
• Model joy in the work where you can find it. I’m not talking about continually exhibiting unbridled joy, but it’s our job as leaders to show up with a positive affect and with a glass-half-full attitude. Do what you need to do to be able to show up this way, whether that means going for a morning run instead of answering email, or feeding yourself through conversations with colleagues who inspire you. The person you meet with at 4pm deserves the same freshness as the person you met with at 9am (I’m revealing my morning bird status — if you tend to have more energy in the afternoon: 9am deserves the same energy as 4pm!). I talk about this resilience-mixed-with-self-care strategy with Dhiyva O’Connor on the Charity CEO Podcast.

It comes down to this: Investing in ourselves and in each other is essential to investing in a brighter future for all. Because it’s our capacity as humans for joy, for optimism and for action fueled by possibility?that helps us all believe that, in fact, our best times are ahead of us.