Leveraging the Year’s End to Rest, Reflect, and Reimagine

As we approach the year’s end, we are leading with deep gratitude. The TREC team is so grateful and honored for the opportunity to support our client partners to do the essential and critical work of protecting and nurturing our wildlife, lands, waters and communities. We see December as full of rich opportunities to reflect on our year, as well as set intentions for the year ahead. There are so many examples from nature, our ancestors, and history to inspire us for the year ahead.

So, how might you leverage this month and this season in service to our well-being and our work? We’re glad you asked! The TREC team got together to compile and offer you some reflections as well as a myriad of resources to help! We invite you to approach this time with three practices: Rest, Reflect, and Reimagine.

Rest

We encourage you to lean into the opportunity to reflect and REST. As we enter the final month of the calendar year, it can be a gift to embrace a slower and more deliberate pace. December can be a time for leaders to pause, and to gently detach themselves as best they can from externally defined notions of success, of right and wrong, good or bad. As coaches and consultants, we see the damage that these binaries have had on leaders, causing burnout and extreme fatigue. Moving slow and saying no is still unpopular, not only in our society at large, but specifically in the nonprofit “grind culture,” where it can be especially challenging to keep pace with our passion. And we continue to be in a time of real and daunting threats to our work. But remember, leaders set the tone for thriving organizational culture. By taking the time to help and heal ourselves through rest, we invite our teams to refill their cups as well. And often, when we return from time away, we’ve not only had time to enjoy our loved ones, we have found some clarity in the stillness.

Here are some incredible resources to draw from in planning a season or more rest:

• Consider the incredible work of Tricia Hershey, Katharine May, and Jennifer Taitz to find thoughtful prompts and wisdom to lean into our right to rest.
• Consider some healthy binge watching as part of your recharge! Try some feel good cooking shows like The Great Canadian Baking Show or the original, The Great British Bake Off. Be inspired by Lhakpa Sherpa’s incredible life of climbing in Mountain Queen, or a classic holiday film to calm and comfort your spirit.

It is a persistent and complex tension to hold: to actively disrupt and dismantle the very system you must participate in to care for yourself, your family, and your community. But consider this quote to encourage you to identify one concrete goal to find some time for rest this winter:

Reflect

Another way to leverage this time of wintering, is to do some reading and reflecting on the “how” of your leadership. Time for planning, study, and casting vision is often so challenging as leaders navigate managing the pivots and day-to-day decision-making. During our recent Power Up training, TREC leadership faculty supported an exceptional group of senior leaders into a time of deep reflection, peer learning, and reconnecting with their purpose. One especially fruitful conversation was the way in which hope can be a critical leadership strategy, especially in times of uncertainty.

The discussion reminded us all about the criticality of our perspective as leaders and change makers. Ask yourself: Where do your expectations lie—for yourself, your team, your organization? We invite you to be fiercely intentional in designing your strategies and conversations in expectation of good work, good people, and hope in action. Our experience shows us that the heart and hope of the people is always stronger than the limited imagination and wounds of oppressive systems. We don’t deny the ills of systematic racism and unethical stewardship of power. We have and continue to be personally impacted by it. But as Mariame Kaba says, Hope is a discipline. One which we undertake with focus and stubborn tenacity akin to our ancestors who, if we are super honest, could only dream of the day-to-day privileges and agency we have. So, do not be deterred. At TREC, we keep aiming to embody hope through seeing it in the incredible persistence and tenacity of client partners we serve. We strive to replicate the hope of the natural world, shedding the debris and dead weight, turning inward through the cold snaps and storms, readying our minds and bodies for the next chance to bloom. This article from Nonprofit Quarterly invites us to explore how we can center hope and love in our work.

• The Essential Conflict Management Handbook, for new Executive Directors
• The How Wild Podcast series to hone your thinking around The Wilderness Act
• Budget Justice by Celina Su shares stories at the city level of communities organizing for change related to allocations and funding
• An insightful video on Conscious Leadership
• Krista Tippett’s Hope Portal series
• “How to Hold Power” by Pavi Moray

Reimagine

One final way to optimize times of rest and reflection is to allow yourself to lead with imagination! Leaders often use their creativity to reallocate limited resources or successfully manage their calendars. While both of these actions are important, we want to invite you to reimagine what is possible for your leadership and your organization in the year to come. What does it look like to dream ourselves into the future? Who are the individuals and groups daring to flip the script on “how it’s always been” and what can we learn from them? What would it take to bring fresh curiosity and enthusiasm to our movements? Answers to these questions come from activating our individual and collective imaginations, and co-authoring new stories of leadership and change from spaces of abundance and joy.

Below are some resources to help activate your imagination:

• The Radical Imagination Podcast Series features a number of visionary activists and leaders reimagining a just and thriving world.
• The Service Berry by Robin Wall Kimmerer calls us to reimagine our economies to center reciprocity and abundance. Check out an excerpt here.
• Thich Nhat Hanh’s meditation, “The Earth Is in You”
• Disabled Ecologies by Sunaura Taylor features incredible tales of successful, persistent community organizing

As you begin to dream, trust yourself to disrupt where and how you can, acknowledging that most of the time, we all wish we could do more. TREC is with you as we collectively imagine into the best of what humanity has to offer.

We hope these reflections and resources help you leverage the opportunity to make December a time of intentional introspection, hope, and joyful anticipation. We wish you a wonderous and restorative holiday season and look forward to continuing our work together in the new year!

–Kellie

Resources from our friends in the field

We’re delighted to share powerful resources from our friends at the Sustainability Network and Conservation Capacity Project to help fuel your essential work. Explore their websites to discover upcoming webinars, events, and support opportunities.

Kellie Colemon

Senior Consultant

Favorite food, hobby, or special holiday?

I use the holidays to perfect my baked macaroni and cheese recipe and unwind by making holiday cards to share with friends and family.

Place that brings joy?

I’ll be basking in the joy of theatre and live music as much as i can this holiday, especially hoping to see a production of The Nutcracker or The Lion King!

Book, art, or music recommendations?

I’m drawing inspiration from Bisa Butler in my own mixed media work, and sparking my imagination by re-reading Poetry as Spellcasting by Tamiko Beyer, Destiny Hemphill, and Lisbeth White.