Thread by @davidhogg111

THREAD:
Personal obstacles I've faced in organizing and how I have learned to cope with them.

These are by no means things that you have to do, but this is how I've learned to take care of myself. I hope this might help some people especially those involved in organizing.

Obstacle #1 Trauma

Social movements are often driven by years of trauma and pain (I'm writing this as if I was talking to my past self) You need to realize no one is immune to this trauma, even organizers that are not directly impacted by an issue area

Solution #1
You must have a solid community of friends around you that you can talk to for validation and get support from especially to stop you from becoming "numb" emotionally.

If you can GO TO THERAPY.

Talk about what is bothering you

Journaling is helpful.

Obstacle #2 Burnout

See self-care as part of your productivity not the opposite of it, think of it as proactively preventing burnout. Recognize that self-care is not selfish, in fact it is essential for the health of the movement. Doing this enables you to do the work long term.

Knowing when to take a break is hard, so instead of waiting until you burnout proactively plan to take breaks by building healthy Routines and setting boundaries on when you work. Stepping out or taking a break from the movement THAT IS 100% ok.

In my opinion community is probably the most important in preventing burnout. In activism it’s ESSENTIAL you have a group of people around you that you work with who “Get it” because they work in advocacy with you. It’s also important to check in on your friends in activism and

make sure they are also taking care of themselves and if they are not you suggest that they can take a break and rest because you are also doing this work too, letting them know it’s not all on them. It’s also important to have a group of friends outside of the activism space

because they will help get your mind off of the work when needed. For me it’s important to talk to at least one friend on a daily basis to help de-stress and be validated or just laugh.

Those relationships keep you grounded as a person and they make sure that you are still a well rounded human being.

Obstacle #3 Learning to call people in
When a friend or co-organizer does something that wasn’t necessarily great we should avoid the temptation to immediately shame them and make them feel bad, but as leaders rather try to use this as an opportunity to educate them,

and create a plan to prevent that behavior in the future. As young people we are all learning and sometimes we mess up. That does not mean that people can repeatedly say or do bad things after they have been educated on why

they are wrong. In that situation the team/ org has to have a discussion of whether or not this person belongs, because now they are harming the mission of the group by wasting everyone's time and resources because they are unwilling to change their behavior and create

a safe and comfortable environment for everyone involved. Also know that if you or your org are getting called out, that is not a time to become defensive and justify harmful behavior, it’s time to listen and work on changing that behavior for the betterment of the organization

and movement. Try to call those people in and offer that they be part of making the change they would like to see IF they would like to. Practice Humility and know there is no room for ego in movements and especially in good leaders.

Listen to learn, not to respond.

Always ALWAYS give credit to your team and know that even if you feel like you did a lot of work when you are in a leadership position what matters is your team knowing they are valued because they are really the people that made it happen.

Value yourself but BE HUMBLE

Obstacle #4: Not knowing what self-care looked like.

To fix this I started journaling and tried to see what days I felt best on and why. Once I knew what those things were I created a standard plan to do each of those things every day as part of my schedule.

Those things might not be work but they are just as important because they help me prevent burnout and overall make me significantly more productive by being happier and healthy. This is what I mean by saying self-care is part of productivity.

This is a kind of diagram I made to make sure I am maintaining my physical, social, mental and work health daily. I try to "check" each side on this octagon everyday by doing an activity from each side and put it into my daily plan that I make before I go to bed

Take time off from activism and be a student too. Take 2 or 3 weeks off a year and make an effort to do nothing but rest and chill out.

Know that it's ok if you are angry or sad or hopeless sometimes, it's natural and happens to everyone. But when you are in those situations call a friend and talk to them or hang out, know you are not alone.

Take breaks from social media and set boundaries. Sometimes I'm off twitter for weeks or months at a time because I'm in school or I just don't want to be exhausted so I delete all social media from my phone. Fake internet points mean nothing.
Also use the mute button for trolls

Most importantly be kind to yourself when you mess up. Think about treating yourself as you would a best friend, there will be some days where you just can't work and that is ok. You are not a machine you are a human being.

I hope this was helpful to some people.

Please let me know if you found this helpful and why
Thank you!