Conducive sounds off with Hillary Rettig, author of The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way. This straightforward and concise text teaches you how to overcome your fears and blocks to live a happy and productive life with a progressive mission. Rettig is a writing teacher and productivity/career coach helping activists, writers, and entrepreneurs manage their time, overcome procrastination, find better jobs, and create profitable entrepreneurships.
Be a Lifelong Activist
BY NATALIE CHEROT
JULY/AUGUST 2009 CONDUCIVE
Conducive interviews Hillary Rettig, author of The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way. This straightforward and concise text teaches you how to overcome your fears and blocks to live a happy and productive life with a progressive mission. Rettig is also a writing teacher and productivity/career coach helping activists, writers, and entrepreneurs manage their time, overcome procrastination, find better jobs, and create profitable entrepreneurships.
Cherot: You already had an established career before you wrote Lifelong Activist. What inspired you to write the book? How do you keep your inspiration? What keeps you going?
Rettig: I was actually working on another project – a book on entrepreneurship for artists – but in 2004 I was distressed by the political situation in this country, and the Bush administration in particular, so I decided that I wanted to devote my energies to supporting progressivism. I thought that writing a book that could potentially help many activists would be the best use of my time.
Cherot: A recent college graduate and promising young activist just wrote Conducive for advice about potential career options she could explore. Because of the recession she is obviously worried about job prospects. I had thought to write her and ask her if she would consider development because nonprofits still need people who can bring in the cash, but I decided to approach you with her question.
Rettig: This is a complex question. My first piece of advice would be for her to examine her skills and talents and experience objectively, and then look across the entire spectrum of available jobs to see where those skills could be deployed. In other words, be flexible and don’t pigeonhole yourself into a narrow range of potential jobs.
Next would be to job search with great intelligence and attention to detail. There are good jobs out there, and it’s also a known fact that 85% of job seekers screw up in elemental ways (e.g., typos in resumes, not sending thank you notes). So if you look, and don’t screw up, your odds of getting hired, even in this economy, are much stronger than many people think. There’s a free ebook on my downloads page with some instructions on how to do this.
Finally, remember that, particularly when you’re young, the opportunity to work with someone who will mentor you, and as part of a team that’s oriented toward strategy and goals, is FAR more valuable than a good paycheck or impressive title.
Development IS a great suggestion, by the way, if that’s where her talents and interests lie.
Cherot: What careers are available for activists that they often overlook?
Perfectionists make a few key errors: they tend to see things in black-and-white, total success or total failure
Rettig: Many activists gravitate naturally to activist, organizing, or human services (nonprofit) work, and those are great options. Others include education (university and public or private schools), foundations, consultancies, and medicine (a vast range of options here). Business is also an option, particularly if you work in a small or entrepreneurial business. We need more strategy and marketing and sales savvy in the activist world, so I’m always happy when an activist gets some business experience. There are plenty of businesses out there that overtly further progressive goals, including green businesses, or that at least aren’t fundamentally ethically compromised.
Cherot: You write in Lifelong Activist and the Daily Kos about how some activists can succumb to procrastination, negativity, and focus too much on failure. You argue that we must reprogram ourselves to be more objective and find ways to have positive internal dialogues with ourselves. What specific ways can we do this?
Cherot: You are also a writing teacher. Many writers confront similar emotional issues as activists, including procrastination, negativity, and fearing failure. How do you address emotional issues with your writing students? Do you propose different strategies for the writers or are they similar to the activist strategies?
Rettig:
Another thing I do with writers is go over the stages of the writing process, which are conceptualizing, planning, outlining, first draft, revision, submission, and (for pros!) cash check. Many cases of block happen because people think they can skip the first few steps and go right to first draft, but when they try to they get stuck. Also, many people set wildly unreasonable expectations for what their first draft should look like, and then get very discouraged when they fall short.
Cherot: You have done a lot as a lifelong activist: fought for animal rights, became a foster mother to four Sudanese refugees, and even donated a kidney to a stranger! What particular things do you do to keep yourself centered and burnout at bay? What is next for you?
I do a lot of self-care and also am careful to stay away from situations and people who could undermine or deplete me
Rettig: At this point in my life, I don’t really burn out because most of what I do enriches me, and because I am very self-protective – I do a lot of self-care and also am careful to stay away from situations and people who could undermine or deplete me.
However, I need to point out that I’m not doing very emotionally demanding activism right now. I’m doing a lot of writing and support of other activists, but am not right now on the “front lines,” which of course makes things easier. Regardless of your history or psychology, however, if you take care to align your activities with your mission and values, as I discuss in The Lifelong Activist, and also to protect yourself from undermining influences, that will go a long way to helping anyone be more productive and avoid burnout.
Cherot: Thank you for taking the time to let Conducive interview you.
Natalie Cherot is Conducive‘s Editor-in-Chief
Related Articles:
The Little Guide to Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism and Blocks
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