What does my life stand for?

In November, we reached out with a quick two-question survey to connect with everyone who chooses to be part of our community.

Thank you for staying with us on this journey and for taking the time to share your thoughts.

 You are shaping the heart of what we do. Thank you.

 Your answers brought valuable insight and perspective.

While our goal wasn’t to draw scientific conclusions, we wanted to get a genuine pulse on how our community are feeling and find small but meaningful PhilPsych ways to support and uplift them.

We’re excited to share our top three learnings, along with some PhilPsych-inspired insights, to help you end the year with renewed hope and energy. 

• The biggest challenges surround within-organisation leadership. These include both practical and emotional challenges. There are not enough resources (time, space, money, understanding) to fundraise properly and there is not enough recognition and gratitude given to fundraisers.

• The second biggest challenges are from outside the organisation. These range from different descriptions of economic pressures in different geographic locations, to the overwhelming pressure imposed by social media, and the generally negative sentiment in the environment toward some charitable causes.

• Most of these are not pressures under the control of the fundraiser. The reason they are “felt” to be the most challenging is that they undermine fundraisers’ psychological well-being in the following ways:

o   People cannot experience autonomy because they cannot change much of the internal or external environment.

o   People cannot experience competence because these unchangeable things are limiting their potential to succeed in making a difference. And

o   People cannot experience a sense of connectedness with either their leadership team, their donors, or their beneficiaries. Even with the people they can manage to connect with physically, these challenges make it really difficult to connect psychologically or emotionally. This quote expresses the feeling well: “Everyone is so busy that actually connecting is difficult.”

What does scientific research say about how we experience challenges?

A moderate level of stress can actually help with creativity, but a severe level of stress hurts it (Guo et al, 2024). A large volume of work exists around how to reduce workplace stress. A selected list of these sources can be found in the reference list (*). One reason why this reduction of creativity may occur is when people are under stress, their thinking becomes more rigid (Westhoff et al, 2024).  

In practice, this could suggest that unless someone else or we, ourselves intentionally switch our attention, it is not easy for us to step outside of the stress, so that we can think about how to gather our resources and seek solutions more effectively. That is, the more stressed we feel, the more rigid our thinking becomes, the less flexibility we have, the less creative we become, and the less effective we are in actually coming up with solutions.

One way positive psychology suggests that we can solve the problem is by explicitly shifting our attention away from stress and onto a feeling that uplifts us (Fredrickson, 1998). This could be joy, gratitude, admiration, or awe (Fredrickson, 2004; Tugade et al, 2004).

In our survey, we split our recipients into two groups. This allows us to help them shift their attention in two different ways after we asked our first question: What’s causing you the greatest challenge in your role right now?

With the first group, we asked:

• What’s one thing that might make things feel a little easier for you, even just a touch, right now?

With the second group, we asked:

• Where is the one place where you can find joy? The kind of joy that can carry you through this season?

By looking at how people answered these questions, we can explore how PhilPsych can help people better shift their attention.

A PhilPsych analysis notes the boundaries of how we shift our attention.

When we focus our attention on what can make an otherwise challenging time a little easier, our attention is primarily directed toward the immediate solutions to the challenges experienced. If adequate budgets are not provided, then an increase in the budget is the solution. If leadership does not appreciate fundraising, then greater education of the leaders is the solution. Very rarely do people expand their attention to search for solutions outside of the immediate challenge. They do not, for example, travel to where they can find joy.

A PhilPsych analysis of the results also suggests that instead of any “random” positive emotions, it might help to find the emotions that are right for us by tracing our identity, love, and psychological well-being. It suggests that we undertake the following three steps:

• Understand your own identity:

In the context of identifying that uplifting and positive emotional anchor, for example, one person may find joy most helpful, while another may find gratitude.

So, to intentionally shift our attention, one option is to clarify how we might complete a sentence like: “My life stands for joy.” You can change “joy” to any other word(s) that feels right to you at this particular time period.

Take a moment, and a deep breath and wait on yourself. Pay special attention to you for 15 seconds and write what comes to mind to complete the sentence: My life stands for ____.

• Take the time to love yourself into that identity:

Once you clarify what positive emotion is for you, you can then tell yourself what you want to hear in order to maximise the emotion you can experience.

Everyone has their own sentence to speak themselves into that identity. One option may sound like: “I see you, I hear you, I know you, and I love you.” What is your sentence?

Take a moment and a deep breath and wait on yourself for 15 seconds. Write down what comes to mind. What sentence do you need to hear?

_____________________________________

• Say that sentence to yourself until you know you are feeling better.

It may take your systems a few minutes to come online with what you say to yourself. But take the time to love yourself in that way. Say your sentences, whatever they are, to yourself, until you feel you are standing in the positive emotional word that you think your life stands for.

When you first start to practice these three little concepts, identity, love, and psychological well-being in this way, you may not notice a very dramatic change. And I heard people telling me over and over again that when they first started to love themselves in this disciplined way, it was REALLY hard.

So, celebrating any noticeable shift is key, and persistence is your ticket to success. For those who went ahead and did it anyway, they often come back and tell me that with a better loved self, they are then able to better love their donors, trustees, families, and friends.

Another common objection I hear for talking about taking care of ourselves in this way, especially in a workplace, is that these practices may seem too “mental-health-oriented.” They do not feel like they belong in a “professional” space about achieving fundraising successes.

We do respect those who prefer to keep their professional and personal lives apart and we appreciate that this may be done with the best of intentions. We suggest that if one is willing, it may be fun to explore whether loving oneself in a professional space can help create the most sustainable fundraising under the most severe pressure.

Usually, it does not take more than eight weeks for these changes to show their effects and make a real difference. And if you ever need any help, we are only one email click away at JenShang@philanthropy-institute.org.uk.

References:  

*Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work. Harvard Business Press.

*Baer, M., & Oldham, G. R. (2006). The curvilinear relation between experienced creative time pressure and creativity: moderating effects of openness to experience and support for creativity. Journal of Applied psychology, 91(4), 963.

*Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological science, 19(12), 1207-1212.

*Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological bulletin, 98(2), 310.

*Cohen, S., & Hoberman, H. M. (1983). Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress 1. Journal of applied social psychology, 13(2), 99-125.

Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of general psychology, 2(3), 300-319.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). Gratitude, like other positive emotions. The psychology of gratitude, 145-166.

Tugade, M. M., Fredrickson, B. L., & Feldman Barrett, L. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of personality, 72(6), 1161-1190.

*Guo, X., Wang, Y., Kan, Y., Zhang, J., Ball, L. J., & Duan, H. (2024). How does stress shape creativity? The mediating effect of stress hormones and cognitive flexibility. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 52, 101521.

* Westhoff, M., Heshmati, S., Siepe, B., Vogelbacher, C., Ciarrochi, J., Hayes, S. C., & Hofmann, S. G. (2024). Psychological flexibility and cognitive-affective processes in young adults’ daily lives. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 8182.