As the winter solstice approaches and our rafts and beach towels are relegated to increasingly dark corners, our attention is often pulled instinctively toward introspection and reflection. While hibernation is not on the menu for most passionate and busy change-makers, (despite the strong lure of Hulu or a good book,) we can turn to nature to guide us in slowing down, taking stock, and focusing on the essentials. We are in the season of reflection.
Reflecting can feel like a big undertaking, especially after the global upheaval we’ve experienced with the pandemic, the ensuring transformations that persist in our personal and work lives, and ongoing challenges to our extraordinary planetary home.
Earlier this year at TREC’s annual staff retreat, our facilitator invited us to dream big. Some of us were daunted by this invitation, prompting, as you would absolutely expect from your TREC crew, some exploration.
What does it mean to dream big right now? For you, for your team?
As a leadership coach and someone who has dedicated my life to supporting all of you engaging in the work of tending to our essential connections to each other and the world around us, my wish for you is that dreaming big starts with putting you in the equation. With caring for you. Your well-being, your capacity to stay in the work for the long haul, is at the heart of creating a thriving movement. There is no movement without you and all of us. The time you take to care for your body and spirit is not outside the work. It IS the work. One or two more hours on your computer at night is not going to solve the challenges we face, but it will eventually erode your capacity to show up with the creativity, capacity and joy that makes our work possible. Don’t ask me how I know that. 😊
In service to you and your well-being, in January, TREC’s Nailah Blades will offer a webinar on Nourishing Your Well-being in Service of Your Leadership. We will also offer a webinar on turning to nature’s 3.8 billion years of demonstrated genius for answers, respite, and reassurance. You can find additional resources in the well being section of our leadership learning guide, including a link to my conversation with Rev.angel Kyodo williams, “one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social healing,” on the interconnection between inner work and transformative social change.
Dreaming big also requires focusing on what we know to be true, on not getting lost in the sauce of overwhelm. We grow toward what we notice, as adrienne maree brown says. By focusing on what we know – our values, our individual and collective purpose, our mission – the answers will reveal themselves. Because they are grounded in and come from our truths. That may sound like a coach-y platitudes, but it bears out. Just ask anyone who’s recently endured big transformations, including all of us at TREC and many of you.
What are you willing to devote your discipline and attention to? If you’re like most of us, you’ll lose track of your focus 83 times by 10 am. Welcome to being human. That’s the whole (sometimes annoying) discipline thing: we’ve got to get back on the horse because our attention and focus is our greatest power.
December Icebreaker Questions
If you could design your ultimate holiday celebration, what activities and food would it include?
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What is one holiday tradition from your culture or family that you cherish?
Grounded in your values, mission and purpose, assessing the potential need for a strategic pivot is a great next step. This can be as straightforward as:
- Reflecting on the present situation with a focus on what has worked. What are your strengths? Where can you leverage them further? What lessons have you learned?
- Assessing shifts in your environment – Examine any shifts in policy, funding, decision-makers and power levers. How do these changes impact your work, and how do your values, mission and vision guide you in addressing any changes?
- Aligning Your Objectives – Revisit your short and long-term goals to ensure they align with the current landscape. What horizon line will most support your team’s work right now? Is it 10 years? 5? Or maybe it’s only 18 months. When wrestling with uncertainty, lowering that horizon line can help us find our feet, our capacity to move into action with clarity.
- Taking Strategic Action What can you do in 2025 to leverage your strengths and build paths forward?
Many of our client partners are tapping into TREC’s resources on community power mapping, strategic planning, and theory of change to ignite fresh thinking and possibility as their work and points of leverage shift.
Our webinar on building an operating reserve fund also supports planning for the long haul.
All of us at TREC are grateful to stand with you, connected and committed to deepening the impact we can make together.
We wish you a restful holiday season and a New Year full purpose and (you knew it was coming,) discipline in service to your joy, your well-being, and our collective work in the world,
– Kristi and all of us TREC
Sustaining Well-Being
Resilience, Change Management, Mindfulness, and more!
Strategic Planning Guide
How do we create and live into well-informed strategy in purpose-driven organizations? This learning guide provides resources to do just that.
Visit Our New Website
Through our new website, we’re honored to offer more support to take the bold, grounded, actions that will empower your work in the months and years to come.
A streamlined job board and referral board for easier access to opportunities and connections. TREC’s newsletters will also be posted on our website blog, and most blog posts are open for your discussion!
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Every year, my family hosts a Winter Solstice party, including the baking of a hefty and delicious solstice cake and the reading of adrienne maree brown’s Solstice poem. My kids thought this was very weird for a while, but now they’re on board.
Over the past year, I’ve become involved in a local draft horse sanctuary in Livingston, Montana, and cannot get enough time with these gentle and gigantic creatures.
Whenever I go home to visit my parents and my older daughter who is in college in Washington, D.C., we visit the Renwick gallery. A few years ago, I saw a quilt called The Harlem Hellfighters by Bisa Butler, an American fiber artist who has created a new mind-blowing genre of quilting. As an artist myself and someone who loves all things fabric, I am captivated and so inspired by her work.