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What the Fundraising
311: Why Discomfort Isn't the Problem: A Better Way to Handle Stress in Fundraising
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You do not need to justify your feelings to yourself. Okay, I'm gonna say that again. You do not need to justify your feelings to yourself. And just because you acknowledge and validate a feeling does not mean that you are saying that the reason that you feel that way is correct. Right? So if you are feeling really uncomfortable around something and maybe you don't exactly know why, you're just like, this meeting is making me so uncomfortable. We think that it's like going to throw us off. Or it's counterintuitive to acknowledge and validate the fact that we feel uncomfortable. We think that that's going to make us like, cancel the meeting or not show up. Incorrect. It's the opposite. Hey, my name is Mallory and I'm obsessed with helping leaders in the nonprofit space raise money and run their organizations differently. What the fundraising is a space for real and raw conversations to both challenge and inspire you. Not too long ago, I was in your shoes, uncomfortable with fundraising and unsure of my place in this sector. It wasn't until I started to listen to other experts outside of the fundraising space that I was able to shift my mindset and ultimately shift the way I show up as a leader. This podcast is my way of blending professional and personal development so we as a collective inside the nonprofit sector can feel good about the work we are doing. Trust Join me every week as I interview some of the brightest minds in the personal and professional development space to help you fundamentally change the way you lead and fundraise. I hope you enjoy this episode, so let's dive in. Good morning fundraising friends. Mallory Erickson here. This week we are going to do something really special on what the fundraising it is going to be a solo episode week, but each episode I am going to introduce an executive coaching topic that I think is particularly relevant and important right now, given the amount of uncertainty and challenges and overwhelm and fatigue that I'm seeing inside the sector and in the lives of fundraisers. So they're all going to be mini episodes and each of them, I hope, provides you with a concept and strategy for you to integrate into your daily life and into your fundraising immediately. So today we're going to start by talking about discomfort. So the idea behind discomfort is that discomfort is something that happens in your body and discomfort is not inherently bad. Right? It means that there is an unknown or unfamiliar feeling in your body that feels uncomfortable. Discomfort isn't pain. It just means that it isn't necessarily known or something familiar or something that inherently feels comfortable. Comfortable where discomfort becomes stress or where discomfort creates challenges in our lives and in our fundraising is when we start to prescribe particular beliefs or judgment on top of that discomfort. Okay, so let me give you an example. You're planning to go into a big donor meeting. You're going to ask for the biggest gift that you've ever asked for. Inside your body, you feel some discomfort. Maybe your stomach is tightening. Maybe you've feel like your heart is pounding faster than usual. Maybe you feel some tightness in your shoulders. If you were to notice that discomfort and say to yourself, oh, it makes sense that I'm. I'm uncomfortable right now. This is a really new thing for me. Or this is me pushing outside of my comfort zone, so it makes sense that it isn't comfortable, or I really want this to go well. There's a lot at stake, so it makes perfect sense that I feel uncomfortable right now or nervous about this. Then the discomfort can exist and it can dissipate, and it can be there while you're still moving forward and being brave or courageous, doing the hard thing. But if you start to notice that discomfort in your belly or your chest or your shoulders, and instead of acknowledging and validating it, you say something like, oh, my God, why am I uncomfortable right now? I've done this a million times. Or good fundraisers wouldn't be uncomfortable walking into this donor meeting. Or, oh, my God, get it together, Mallory. You've been worried about this for way too long. All of those messages that we send ourselves, all of those things that we say to ourselves, those things turn that discomfort into stress, right? That further activates our nervous system. Because now we have judged the way that we feel inside our body. We have applied cognitive judgment to it, and that judgment often loop de loops around our discomfort. Maybe it talks us out of even taking the action. Oh, you'll be ready to have that meeting after you finish this report. Or maybe now's a bad time to actually email that donor because it's Thursday, or whatever that narrative is that takes that discomfort, applies judgment to it. And then our behavior and our action following that is often rooted in what we believe to be a good idea or strategic. But it's really rooted in fear and in discomfort that we've now applied a story to that comes from a place of protection or fear. Right? And because all this is happening subconsciously, it makes discomfort drive a lot of our fundraising action and inaction. But discomfort around fundraising is not bad, and it makes perfect sense why we feel uncomfortable. It makes perfect sense that we feel uncomfortable when we're doing something new when we're growing, when we're in uncertainty. And so my invitation to you today is to number one, start to notice when you feel uncomfortable. Okay? This means I'm asking you to notice how you feel and what is happening in your body and with your body throughout the day. Now you might be like Mallory, I'm on back to back meetings all day, I can't even feel my body. I have way too many things going on, I don't have time for this etc. And first of all, I would invite you to get curious around the fact that you don't have time to include your body, your daily life experience because I think your body plays a pretty big role in it. Um, but also I would also invite you to recognize that this I'm not asking for a really big thing. I'm not asking you to do an hour long webinar about something. I'm not asking you to go to a self care retreat. I'm asking you to spend 10 seconds a few times throughout the day to check in with your body. Okay? Whether it's a transition from meeting to meeting, whether you, you know, put a post it on your computer that you just glance at a few times throughout the day. How am I feeling in my body right now? And that you start to notice how you're feeling during different types of activities throughout the day. Now you might be like, well Mallory, when I read that post, it isn't necessarily when I'm feeling uncomfortable. That's okay. Reflection might be the very first step for you. And you might reflect at different points of the day than you're actually feeling uncomfort but slowly you'll start to bring that reflection closer and closer and closer to the moment of discomfort. Okay? So the first thing I would do is check in with yourself throughout the day. How are you feeling? What's happening in your body right now? Has anything happened today that's made you uncomfortable? Okay, these are like three questions that you could put all of them up on post its around your computer and I just want you to start to create this habit of self reflection, of noticing, of letting your body be included in your daily experience. Okay? So that is step number one. Now if you are somebody who's like I'm incredibly aware whenever I am experiencing discomfort because my self talk gets very loud or I start to beat myself up immediately, or maybe you already have a great practice and habit and ritual around how you pump yourself up when you're feeling uncomfortable. If so, this next recommendation is not for You. But it's for all the people who are like, I know when I'm uncomfortable because that self critic in my head starts to get really like, loud. So when you feel that discomfort, okay, so now we've started to notice how we're feeling. We started to notice when we're feeling uncomfortable. Now when you notice that feeling of discomfort, I want you to acknowledge and validate how you feel. I modeled this a moment before when I said, it makes perfect sense that I'm feeling uncomfortable right now. The stakes around this feel really high. Or it makes sense that I'm feeling uncomfortable. I really want this donor to like me. Or. Or it makes sense that I'm feeling uncomfortable and I don't even totally understand why I am. But this job is stressful, okay? And that last point is really important. I want to put a little pin in that. Sometimes we think we only deserve to feel a certain way if we can stack a bunch of evidence up about why we feel that way. My loves, you do not need to justify your feelings to yourself. Okay, I'm going to say that again. You do not need to justify your feelings to yourself. And just because you acknowledge and validate a feeling does not mean that you are saying that the reason that you feel that way is correct. Right? So if you are feeling really uncomfortable around something and maybe you don't exactly know why, you're just like, this meeting is making me so uncomfortable. We think that it's like going to throw us off or it's counterintuitive to acknowledge and validate the fact that we feel uncomfortable. We think that that's going to make us like, cancel the meeting or not show up. Incorrect. It's the opposite. Just acknowledging to yourself. I don't know what it is, but I'm feeling particularly nervous about this meeting. And that makes sense because this is a stressful job or I have a lot going on right now or because my emotions are fluid and something about this is really stirring something up for me. Just acknowledging and validating how you feel and allows your nervous system to downregulate. Okay, talk about self care. Like, I do not prescribe to the way that self care has become this like, industry in our world of like bubble baths and face masks. Like, I love all that stuff too. But that to me, self care is how you allow your full self and your emotions and your feelings to show up without pushing it away or saying that you don't have time or space or legitimacy to feel what you feel. Okay? So you do not need to justify to yourself with evidence why you feel a certain way. You are allowed to. And you need to acknowledge and validate how you feel, no matter what. No matter what. Because you're just acknowledging and validating that you feel the way that you feel. And there should really be no argument to that. You feel a certain way. You acknowledge and validate that you feel that way. Maybe you want to get curious about why you feel that way, but you don't have to figure it out. You do not have to know, okay? You do not have to know. After you have acknowledged and validated how you feel in the moment, then you can enter whatever that moment of discomfort is or that meeting or whatever is coming up for you with curiosity, right? And you can just let your feelings of discomfort exist without it needing to derail everything in some gigantic way, okay? And just that ability to be vulnerable, to be honest about how you feel and notice it, to acknowledge and validate your feelings, that is such a huge step in you actually being able to show up to all of those experiences more open, more connected, more grounded, et cetera. Because all of those things come from a place of a more regulated nervous system, which acknowledging and validating your feelings absolutely creates. Okay? So I'm going to go back to the beginning. Discomfort, not inherently bad. Okay? Not inherently stressful, even. What makes it stressful are the judgments and the narratives that we place on top of that discomfort, that negative self talk that increases our stress and ultimately our chronic stress and our burnout. And so what we want to start to do is notice discomfort in the body, which is a body sensation, a body experience, to start to notice how our body's feeling throughout the day, to start to notice when we're feeling uncomfortable, and then to acknowledge and validate how we feel. You might be like, I can't believe I just spent 10 minutes listening to the simplest concept ever. But once again, my loves, this is something that I actually do not see y' all doing very much at all, okay? And you're like, this is such a simple thing. But you know what? It's not that simple because you're not doing it. And instead, you're beating yourself up and you're being really hard on yourself, and it's leading to overwhelm, and it's leading to negative self talk, and it's leading to you not taking the most effective fundraising action. So just humor me, okay? Just humor me and try this out, okay? If it's so simple, if it's so small, then you should have no problem incorporating it into your daily habits. I'm being sarcastic because this is a hard thing to do, actually, because it is contrary to all of the ways that we've been taught and modeled how to talk to ourselves and how to get ourselves to increase our performance, which is why feels counterintuitive. But this is the way, okay? This is the way forward. And this is what your brain and body needs for you to feel better in your daily life and in your work. Okay? So try it out. Let me know how it goes. I cannot wait to hear. I hope today's episode inspired or challenged you to think differently. For additional takeaways, tips, show notes, and more about our amazing guest and sponsors, head on over to Mallorykson.com podcast and if you didn't know, hosting this podcast isn't the only thing I do every day. I coach, guide and help fundraisers and leaders just like you inside of my program, the Power Partners Formula Collective. Inside the program, I share my methods, tools and experiences that have helped me fundraise millions of dollars and feel good about about myself in the process. To learn more about how I can help you, visit MalloryErickson.com PowerPartners Last but not least, if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love to encourage you to share it with a friend you know would benefit or leave a review. I'm so grateful for all of you and the good, hard work you're doing to make our world a better place. I can't wait to see you in the next episode. Hey, I want to tell you about a podcast I genuinely love, the Small Nonprofit Podcast. It's hosted by the incredible Maria Rio, and it speaks directly to the realities so many of us are living inside every day. Maria, tell us about your show.
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Hi, I'm your host, Maria Rio. I moved to Canada as a refugee, use charitable services myself, and have been fundraising for over a decade. I love exploring ways our sector can grow, change, and make the world more equitable. The Small Nonprofit podcast is where we do just that. I believe small nonprofits are where the most transformative work happens. But we've been set up to fail by systems that expect us to do more with less. Every week I sit down with leaders, fundraisers, and change makers who are doing things differently. They're building sustainable funding without compromising their values, creating power instead of dependence and pushing back on the broken systems we all inherited. You'll walk away with actionable strategies you can use, not just inspiration. So if you're ready to stop scrambling and start building something that lasts, you're in the right place. Let's get into it.
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If you're leading or fundraising at a small nonprofit and you're craving work that feels aligned, sustainable and human, go listen to the Small Nonprofit Podcast. Search the Small Nonprofit Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to listen.