Five steps to reach your purpose and increase your joy

Original Medium Post HERE

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Lessons from a river

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Joining a current of community members supporting music, education, and positive youth development at ZUMIX’s Run to the Beat

Wondering how to achieve my purpose

Seven years ago, I wanted to focus my work on increasing community joy (sustained emotional wellbeing across one community). I thought about starting a new organization, but wasn’t sure that would be the best path to my desired impact.

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Learning from the river

Each of us is a drop traveling together in the same river (though not always in the same current) toward our purpose and goals. This week’s blog post shows how we can apply the last post’s river metaphor, and introduces five steps to pursue our purposes, increase our joy — and strengthen our communities and democracy.

As I pursued work to increase community joy, I started with . . .

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STEP ONE: Broadly communicate your purpose. You never know who can help you find others with shared purpose. You might be able to join a current, and travel much further and more easily than you would if starting your own current.

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Applying step one to achieve my purpose

I told friends and neighborhood leaders in East Boston the vision for joy. I shared the idea as a Nantucket Project Fellow and through a speech with the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

My good friend Steve (current leader of Eastie Rising and supporter of this blog) had worked in East Boston Social Centers’ School Age program. He told me the Social Centers was seeking an Executive Director.

Since its founding in 1918, the Social Centers had been promoting relationships and connection with purpose. Fitness and fun had always been integral to their approach. It’s longstanding motto: “When all give, all gain”.

I applied.

When I interviewed, I shared my vision. As I met staff and board members, I witnessed their joyful connection to each other and our community.

They gave me the opportunity to lead the organization.

A joy current was already flowing in the river; I jumped in.

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STEP TWO: Assume good intentions. Identify shared top-line values to help work through disagreement.

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I became more committed to East Boston as a member of No Eastie Casino.

At East Boston Social Centers, I have worked with many passionate people who are deeply committed to this neighborhood — and who had strongly supported the casino proposal. Many couldn’t understand why we had been opposed.

We had a shared destination for our river: for East Boston and East Bostonians to realize our full potential. In the casino battle, we believed different currents would get Eastie there there, but since then, we have found many opportunities to travel in the same current in support of this great neighborhood.

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STEP THREE: Talk with people with other perspectives. Understanding those perspectives can make us better, and strengthen our work.

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On a train together in a children’s wonderland — with the children out of the frame — Justin, Vanessa, Michele (my sister) and Jim (my bro-in-law)

My brother-in-law Jim (who has been a loyal supporter of this blog) and I have some political disagreements. I’m grateful to know and love him and others with different viewpoints because (I think), it helps people of all perspectives be more compassionate toward, and make fewer assumptions about, people with different points of view.

Sometimes too, it’s helpful to see a different current — so we can understand the river, and our own current, better, and improve our own navigation.

Occasionally, people might even find a different current is the best path — or those who had disagreed might forge a new current together.

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STEP FOUR: Look for unexpected allies. Don’t assume disagreement in one area implies disagreement in all areas (and vice versa).

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On some of those political topics, Jim and I are in currents that might collide at some rocks and send water into the air.[1] But I’ve learned not to assume we’re always in different currents.

We share a commitment to the environment. He has been the first in our family to install heat pumps and solar panels and to compost. He inspires me to do more.

We share a commitment to health too. When I go to their house, I often plunge in his cold plunge pool.

Over time, our currents can change. The more we can give ourselves permission to be in different currents at different times: to not assume we are only “Current A” type of people, the further we can travel toward a better future. And we will form more interesting, energizing relationships on the way.

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STEP FIVE: Notice when others are supporting your purpose. Thank them, support their success, and recognize your collective progress.

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Nonprofits need funding to achieve our missions. Funders (individuals, grantmakers, and government) need nonprofit implementation to achieve their missions.

Many nonprofits and funders recognize this interdependence and build strong, mutually beneficial relationships. We at East Boston Social Centers are deeply grateful to many outstanding funders who power our work.

Unfortunately, some funders impose so many requirements on grantees that compliance with grant terms can cost more than the value of the grant. Some funders provide funding on a cost reimbursement basis — and when that reimbursement is slow, nonprofits with slim operating reserves can suffer. Sometimes these unintentional barriers are so great smaller organizations that could be key allies in achieving funders’ missions simply can’t apply for grants.

In these cases, funders and nonprofits are in the same current — and yet they are fighting each other and slowing the way.

The trust-based philanthropy movement, whereby funders remove barriers and align funding approaches with nonprofit needs (by, for example, providing reliable multi-year funding) recognizes that we are in the same current, and helps build the current’s strength.

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I too often fail to recognize who is in my current and fail to support that person/ entity as well as I could, as we seek to achieve the same goal. Perhaps you have opportunities to notice the collaborators you haven’t recognized, and build them up too.

Taking these steps together, we can build more powerful, more joyful movements to create the currents of change we seek — and sometimes even change the course of the river.

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Stay joyful, East Boston!

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Please share, subscribe, and join our movement by emailing me or supporting East Boston Social Centers. Look out each week for our posts about boosting joy the only way we can: in community.

[1] Sometimes those collisions might produce a better result, if the water can be channeled the right way after.