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awesomeersHi all!
So we’ve been around for a few weeks now. And we seem to be keeping up good momentum on the “just one thing” challenge posts, which makes me really happy. (Seriously: you guys are amazing.) But I have been thinking, and brainstorming somewhat with the lovelykaberett, about what else we could do as a community to help improve our self-esteem and beat down impostor syndrome?
I want this to be a discussion, not just a grand handing-down of stuff that’s going to happen from the mods, so I’m going to put the most important part of the post first:
What would help you?
What would help you to feel better about yourself and reduce the impact of impostor syndrome? What could we do here that would help you to feel:
* supported
* included
* safe
* confident
or any other helpful thing? What would you like to see here?
If you don’t want to read any of my ideas and suggestions below, feel free to ignore them - but either way I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you’d find useful!
So I do have some ideas that I’ve been turning around in my head for the last couple of weeks. I’ll put them in sections so it’s easier to read them.
Safer space
* I would like this to be a safer space for us to talk about difficult things if we want/need to
* To this end, I think safer space guidelines or Community Standards would be a good idea
* If possible, I’d like to crib them from somewhere, but I’m not sure where
* It might also be worth thinking about security settings, especially if we’re running a more sensitive challenge
Challenge ideas
I think we could run a variety of different challenges, perhaps instead of or alongside the Just One Thing posts. Here are some ideas:
* “Things this week”, maybe on a Sunday, where we could list all our accomplishments for the week, or talk about hard things, or some combination, and do the give-each-other-props (or a listening ear) thing
* Goals for the week/month, or just “Things I’m planning”, where we could comment with a bunch of goals and then perhaps have regular check-ins where we talk about our progress and stumbling blocks
* Mistakes we’ve made - not a blaming-ourselves thing, but a space where we can safely talk about mistakes, what contributed to them, how we fixed (or can fix) them, how we can figure out how to avoid them in the future. This could get quite emotionally intense, so it might be worth considering making these posts members-only so that the discussions aren’t available on the public internet.
Discussions and linkspams
* I think regular linkspams on topics of interest would be pretty cool, but I’m struggling to think of bunches of topics of interest, or good places to source articles. (Topic ideas: Impostor Syndrome? Mistakes? How to build a supportive culture/community? Self-care? Goal-setting?) Maybe we could have a “drop your links here” post and maybe get someone to curate the links into linkspams? Or something? I dunno.
* I’d also love to have some discussions about Impostor Syndrome and self-esteem and how it affects us. One topic I’d like to start a discussion on is how and in which areas we experience Impostor Syndrome and maybe we can figure out together what might be useful to combat it.
* Similarly it might be interesting to have a discussion on how we experience Impostor Syndrome in this comm! I know I do, and I’m probably not the only one. That could be a useful discussion.
* Another discussion post I’d like us to have is about how to figure out what’s realistic, and how to figure out whether or not we do measure up, and whether or not measuring up is important in a particular context.
Guest hosts, guest posts, and member posts
* Currently any member can post to the comm, which I’d like to keep, but we don’t have good guidelines for what we’d like to see you all post about! Ideas?
* It also might be fun to open the comm up to guest hosts, maybe for a week at a time. You could choose your own linkspam topic and run whatever challenges you felt would be useful. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll put together a scheduling posts.
* Similarly, if you have ideas for stuff you’d like to post to the comm as a guest poster, please let me know! This could be on your own personal experiences or on some wider topic relevant to the comm’s interests. My PM box is always open for this, or leave a comment on this post.
I think that’s it for now. Please do leave any thoughts, ideas or suggestions you have in the comments - any contribution is welcome! And if you’re feeling like your ideas aren’t good enough, feel free to approach me in private so that I can tell you that they are.
So we’ve been around for a few weeks now. And we seem to be keeping up good momentum on the “just one thing” challenge posts, which makes me really happy. (Seriously: you guys are amazing.) But I have been thinking, and brainstorming somewhat with the lovely
kaberett, about what else we could do as a community to help improve our self-esteem and beat down impostor syndrome?I want this to be a discussion, not just a grand handing-down of stuff that’s going to happen from the mods, so I’m going to put the most important part of the post first:
What would help you?
What would help you to feel better about yourself and reduce the impact of impostor syndrome? What could we do here that would help you to feel:
* supported
* included
* safe
* confident
or any other helpful thing? What would you like to see here?
If you don’t want to read any of my ideas and suggestions below, feel free to ignore them - but either way I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you’d find useful!
So I do have some ideas that I’ve been turning around in my head for the last couple of weeks. I’ll put them in sections so it’s easier to read them.
Safer space
* I would like this to be a safer space for us to talk about difficult things if we want/need to
* To this end, I think safer space guidelines or Community Standards would be a good idea
* If possible, I’d like to crib them from somewhere, but I’m not sure where
* It might also be worth thinking about security settings, especially if we’re running a more sensitive challenge
Challenge ideas
I think we could run a variety of different challenges, perhaps instead of or alongside the Just One Thing posts. Here are some ideas:
* “Things this week”, maybe on a Sunday, where we could list all our accomplishments for the week, or talk about hard things, or some combination, and do the give-each-other-props (or a listening ear) thing
* Goals for the week/month, or just “Things I’m planning”, where we could comment with a bunch of goals and then perhaps have regular check-ins where we talk about our progress and stumbling blocks
* Mistakes we’ve made - not a blaming-ourselves thing, but a space where we can safely talk about mistakes, what contributed to them, how we fixed (or can fix) them, how we can figure out how to avoid them in the future. This could get quite emotionally intense, so it might be worth considering making these posts members-only so that the discussions aren’t available on the public internet.
Discussions and linkspams
* I think regular linkspams on topics of interest would be pretty cool, but I’m struggling to think of bunches of topics of interest, or good places to source articles. (Topic ideas: Impostor Syndrome? Mistakes? How to build a supportive culture/community? Self-care? Goal-setting?) Maybe we could have a “drop your links here” post and maybe get someone to curate the links into linkspams? Or something? I dunno.
* I’d also love to have some discussions about Impostor Syndrome and self-esteem and how it affects us. One topic I’d like to start a discussion on is how and in which areas we experience Impostor Syndrome and maybe we can figure out together what might be useful to combat it.
* Similarly it might be interesting to have a discussion on how we experience Impostor Syndrome in this comm! I know I do, and I’m probably not the only one. That could be a useful discussion.
* Another discussion post I’d like us to have is about how to figure out what’s realistic, and how to figure out whether or not we do measure up, and whether or not measuring up is important in a particular context.
Guest hosts, guest posts, and member posts
* Currently any member can post to the comm, which I’d like to keep, but we don’t have good guidelines for what we’d like to see you all post about! Ideas?
* It also might be fun to open the comm up to guest hosts, maybe for a week at a time. You could choose your own linkspam topic and run whatever challenges you felt would be useful. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll put together a scheduling posts.
* Similarly, if you have ideas for stuff you’d like to post to the comm as a guest poster, please let me know! This could be on your own personal experiences or on some wider topic relevant to the comm’s interests. My PM box is always open for this, or leave a comment on this post.
I think that’s it for now. Please do leave any thoughts, ideas or suggestions you have in the comments - any contribution is welcome! And if you’re feeling like your ideas aren’t good enough, feel free to approach me in private so that I can tell you that they are.
HELLO I HAVE SOME MORE THOUGHTS
Date: 2013-07-26 05:25 pm (UTC)I would love to guest-host, though as yet I have no especial ideas what I'd do (oh, hmm, that's a lie, maybe I would ask people to share Just One Thing about... [theme]??) - but I'd also be super-interested in sharing guest-host slots with other people, if that would be useful! (One thing I've seen other comms do, if they have guest-hosts, is ask the hosts to provide the admins with topics in advance, so they can be double-checked for safer space stuff. This is usually done in comments on the sign-up post but needn't always be, I think?)
I super, super do experience Impostor Syndrome about the comm, and would love to have a conversation about it so I could just Say Stuff and bear witness to other people's Stuff and get it off my chest, etc.
I really love the idea of Things This Week - I suspect I'd go back through my One Thing from the week, compile that into a list, and then add a few more to round it up to 10 if necessary, because I like lists of ten good things and I like being prompted to own my achievements :-) I wonder if I'd want to combine my things for the following week in that same comment? Hmm. (It would probably be really good for me, because when I am working I tend to set myself implausible goals - I WILL GET THIS DONE BY NEXT WEEK, and find I've only done half of it - and having public space to practice and make mistakes on setting goals, and get better on them, and maybe even have them workshopped? I guess that would be something I could ask for as and when I posted them? would be AMAZING.)
There. Maybe some more to follow! (Would love to hear feedback on this comment too, y'all, if you are moved to Think Things about it ♥)
Re: HELLO I HAVE SOME MORE THOUGHTS
Date: 2013-07-27 09:43 pm (UTC)Re: HELLO I HAVE SOME MORE THOUGHTS
Date: 2013-07-28 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 07:26 pm (UTC)I think community standards are important, but also don't want to get bogged down in jargon and 'you must use this set of words to prove you are a worthwhile human being' because honestly that happens on LJ a lot. 'Don't be an asshole' can be codified a bit, but we want to keep being encouraging, and tolerant of each other's flaws and failings, or we lose track of the point. Giving people the benefit of the doubt and listening seem like important things for us here.
I think talking about Imposter Syndrome could be good! Also, not so much 'guest post giving a lecture' things, but talking about the challenges we're all facing, whether it's time management or being patient with ourselves or setting realistic goals or whatever. I'm pretty good with 'how to talk to strangers and make friends,' if that helps anybody.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-28 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-28 10:01 pm (UTC)(do you like hugs?)
no subject
Date: 2013-07-27 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 11:49 pm (UTC)nodnod
no subject
Date: 2013-07-27 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-28 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-29 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 10:43 pm (UTC)Goals for the week and month posts would be great.
Hell yes to the mistakes we've made posts, and triple hell yes to locking the fuck out of them.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 11:10 pm (UTC)I love this. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 11:49 pm (UTC)Heh
no subject
Date: 2013-07-29 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-27 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-27 12:44 am (UTC)I like that.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-27 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-28 07:07 pm (UTC)The challenge would be to think of X number, but any responses would obviously be okay. Maybe these could be posted on a weekend when people have more time to sit and think of X things if they need to, and if people aren't keen on a topic one week or don't feel up to participating, they can skip it.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-28 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-29 10:10 am (UTC)(My CBT therapy involves writing at least three positive things about myself EVERY DAY, and I frequently find that a stretch. I could probably do it weekly though, especially if I had a prompt.)
no subject
Date: 2013-07-28 05:53 am (UTC)