Three Questions To Reinforce Resilience
As we approach year-end, nonprofit leaders are carrying a lot:
📈 Fundraising deadlines
📊 Board reports
🔄 Team transitions
📋 Program evaluations
🌱 And always: the steady weight of the mission
The Q4 wrap up and the Q1 ramp up cycles both demand resilience. Not the kind that’s about pushing through. The kind I’m talking about, that I have the honor of witnessing in grounded, sustained leaders, is a resilience rooted in capacity: Enough steadiness, clarity, and heart to keep leading without burning out.
3 Questions to Reinforce Resillience
Lately, I’ve been asking myself and my clients these three questions:
✨ Where can I be more flexible? (see: Boost creativity. Invite innovation.)
🧭 Where do I need more structure? (see: Protect energy. Focus on the essentials.)
💛 Where can I give my gifts more generously? (see: Center care. Create connection. Lead with strengths.)
What This Looks Like for Me
These questions have helped me make a some important shifts lately:
Flexibility is looking like not planning. A month into this experiment, it’s opened more room for joy, play, and the things I say matter most. The result is more clarity and less attachment to my self-limiting beliefs.
Structure is showing up in a more disciplined daily meditation practice (Japa).
Generosity is taking the form of being more generous with my presence (which looks like leaving my phone behind during in-person conversations).
"Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present" - Albert Camus
These aren’t heroic shifts or big acts. They’re small, repeatable choices that keep me, and the people I support, more steady in a world that keeps shifting.
One Small Shift
As you close out 2025 and begin shaping your 2026, I invite you to experiment with these three questions, and alow for one of your answers to plant the seed of one change. Make it small. Maybe it's:
🔹 A ten-minute creative thinking block
🔹 A “no meetings” window each week for deep work
🔹 Giving one compliment a day to a colleague
Your organization, your team, and your community don’t need you perfect. They need you resourced for the long haul.
Your Turn
Take five minutes. Grab your journal, that voice memo app, or a blank document. Ask yourself:
Where could I be more flexible right now?
Where do I need more structure?
Where can I be more generous?
Then pick one small experiment for the week ahead. Notice what shifts. I'd love to hear what opens up.