Climate Optimist Challenge #5 - Skip Titles
How to start building bridges, not walls
We’ve made it halfway through the 10-week challenge! How’s it going so far? Are you feeling more grounded/ empowered/ optimistic? If you’ve had any sort of climate optimist shift in your life, I would love to hear it! You can always reach me in my DM on Instagram or Twitter!
10 weeks of Climate Optimism is co-hosted with Rêve-En-Vert and based on the article 10 Ways to Be a Climate Optimist in 2022
Challenge #5 - Skip Titles
Here’s what I want to say about titles. You don’t have to be a “Vegan”, an “Activist”, or a “Zero Waste Queen” to make a difference in the world. In fact, I believe you hold more power if you skip titles altogether.
Titles can be good, but they also box us into different categories and, in many ways, limit who we are and can become.
I’m a 99% plant-based eater, but that doesn’t mean that on occasion, I’ll have an egg from a happy country chicken or when on vacation, a little bit of cheese will slip onto my plate. Does this mean I suddenly don’t care for animals anymore? Of course not, and by shedding titles, I allow myself to actually care more.
What I’ve learned is that nothing is black and white and that things are always more complex than they look on the surface. Without titles, you empower yourself, and every choice becomes a conscious one. It’s not so much about who you are, but what you do, which allows you to address each situation with intention and thought.
Besides, if you skip titles, you’re much less likely to exclude people who don’t identify the same way and you allow for inclusivity and deeper conversation.
“Oh, I wouldn’t call myself a vegan, but I looove plant-based foods! Besides, it’s so much better for the environment. Did you know….?”
By approaching a conversation this way, you let the person feel like he wouldn’t be entering a door with no return if he were to try it out. He can always try and choose again. When people feel like they are in control of their options, they are much more likely to take action.*
By skipping titles, you:
Give yourself the power to choose what’s best for any given moment.
Allow for self-reflection, new learnings, and growth.
Invite for curiosity with other people that may spark positive actions on their end as well.
Build bridges, not walls — skip titles and social boxing!
*Tali Sharot, The Influential Mind
Challenge: Ditch A Title
You have a bunch of titles, we all do. This week I want you to identify what they are and how much they influence your life. Excited? This should be fun!
Keep a note or notebook close this week, either a physical one in your pocket or a digital note on your phone. Make it a game to recognize as many titles you identify with as you can. Have fun with it! Are you a sister, a boss, a vegetarian, divorcée? A designer, bus driver, New Yorker, woman? Write them all down, without judgment.
Just for the fun of it, practice how you would describe yourself if you were to ditch the title. For example: “I run a company where my tasks involve managing other people and their work.” (A boss) “I mainly eat vegetables and grains and I love how it makes me feel.” (Vegetarian) For a moment, reflect on how skipping the title might make you feel different about yourself. Would you feel freer? More empowered? More owning of your life?
Choose one or a couple of titles that you’d like to ditch. How might your life change when this is no longer part of your “identity”?
Not all titles are bad nor are they all disempowering.
Sometimes, titles are useful for boxing ourselves into the different categories of society. Sometimes we want boxes. They help make life a little easier. Society to run a little smoother.
So my challenge for you this week is not to lose them all and become a “nobody and an everything” all at once. I simply want you to start reflecting on the choices you’re making based on your titles, as well as how it might empower you to skip one or two.
Do you want to always stay who you are now, or do you want to grow and expand? If the answer is GROW, then start doing you instead of being you. The doing can always change, and your being with it.
Hope I’m making sense :) Have fun, friends!
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