“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must shown.”

– Charles Dickens in David Copperfield

I’ve been getting sloppy.

After almost two decades in this work, there was a few minutes where community building became a bit passe for me. It seemed like every game had been done, every workshop facilitated, and every different attempt to change the world was already tried. Fortunately for me, the universal 2×4 swung around recently and smacked me upside the head.

Working with a client organization locally, I’ve been connecting the dots again. Faced with teeming challenges that have always been obvious and today seem more glaring than ever, I know there’s a lot of work yet to be done and innovations still ahead. New approaches to transforming the world have to be developed, and more people need to be brought into the work of transforming their own lives and the communities they live in.

Here are a some ways I’ve been reconnecting with work to change the world.

5 Ways to Get Back Into ACTION

1. Taking Account: Its easy to rest on your laurels when you think you’ve gotten things done. That was the whole point early on, doing things for the sake of getting them done- that’s what AmeriCorps taught us. But by taking account of where we’re at and where we need to go, I’ve learned that there’s more still that needs to get done.
2. Seeing New Things: Flipping through the latest email newsletter by my favorite orgs isn’t enough. Instead, I’ve been catching up with my past clients, reading through new research, and diving into the latest tools from radical projects around the world.
3. Reconnecting: I have many friends, colleagues, and homies in this work across North America and around the world. I’ve been reaching out to them and talking about what they’re doing, seeing, feeling, and believing at these points in our careers. Fascinating, to say the least.
4. Digging Into Existence: Sitting down with clients and spewing out tons of new information, ideas, and research is interesting for only one side of that equation. I’ve been remembering to go into inquiry mode and ask hard questions that hold practitioners accountable for our assumptions in our work, and dig deeper into how transformation happens, rather than status quo.
5. Get PASSIONATE: My best work is my most determined work. Its focused on the things I care most about, focused most on, and determined enough to make a difference. This passion, my raison d’etre, is engaging people deeply within themselves and to the world around them. What is YOURS?!?

These are some simple steps that I’m taking to get back into action. Do you want to connect? Reply to this post and let’s see what we can do together!