What You Can Do and What You Know Will Change the World

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Terri Lyon

The Activist for Activists. Author of Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism and The Happy Activist: Journey the 5-Step Activism Path to Focus Your Passion and Change the World. Teacher, Psychologist, Environmental Activist, Animal Lover.

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Last Updated on October 23, 2024

Conducting a skills assessment and knowledge inventory increases your odds of making a difference in the world. Imagine the power of using your talents to make change.

Maximize Your Performance

You want to make a difference in your activism work, so consider all aspects of your performance. Set yourself up for success.  Read more about how to do this at How to Make Powerful Change in Your Activism.

Instructional design expert Robert Mager encourages us to take a broad view of performance and how it can be improved. His guide to effective performance is asking these questions:

1. Skill and Knowledge Test. Can you do the task if your life depends on it?
2. Motivation Test. Is the task rewarding when you do it right? Is the task punishing when you do it wrong?
3. Obstacle Test. If skill, knowledge, and motivation are not issues but performance is still a problem, can you get tools or remove obstacles?

In this post, you examine the first question – do you have the skills and knowledge to perform the work?

Activism Skills Assessment

Because there are many ways to make change it makes sense to match your skills to your activism. So, you need a skills assessment.

First, gather information that documents what you can do. This might include your resumé and performance appraisals. These are excellent reminders of your skills.

But another way to identify your best skills is to ask yourself these questions.

• What skills do you use regularly?
• What do people say you do well?
• Everyone is the go-to person for something—what is it for you?

Skills You Can Apply to Activism

Your skills assessment may help you identify skills you can use for activism. But if you are new to activism that might be more difficult.

Instead, ask yourself if you have performed skills that can be applied to activism. For example:

• If you can cook Thanksgiving dinner for your extended family, then you can plan a community meeting
• You can organize a group to stop a change of zoning in your town, so you can arrange a boycott
• If you can go door to door to ask neighbors to donate to the March of Dimes, then you can canvass for a political candidate
• You can teach someone how to run a copy machine, so you can teach someone how to keep membership records

Don’t discount the skills you have already, even if you developed them in situations unlike activism.

If you have done activism work in the past, do an activism skills assessment. Activist Randy Schutt created the Activist Skills and Experiences Questionnaire, an assessment tool to allow activists to inventory their skills and experiences. The questionnaire is in The 5-Step Activism Path Workbook, or at The Vernal Project.

[Everyone has an ordinary superpower. What is yours?]

Activism Knowledge

Let’s turn to what you know. First, let me reassure you that you don’t need activism expertise to start. When you decide your best activism match, you can learn what you need.

To inventory your activism knowledge, complete the Activist Knowledge and Experiences part of Randy Schutt’s questionnaire. The questionnaire is in The 5-Step Activism Path Workbook, or at The Vernal Project.

This inventory of your knowledge will:

• remind you of the knowledge you’ve gained in your life.
• help you remember why you acquired this knowledge and whether you can translate it to activism.
• prepare you to talk with others about what you know.

If you have a lot of knowledge or experience in an area, ask yourself if this is related to your passions. For example, perhaps you have a decent amount of knowledge about patriarchy and sexism. You wrote a high school English paper about the subject. When you are browsing on Facebook, you tend to follow links to articles on the subject. How does your interest in this topic relate to the change you want to make in the world?

You also get information about your activism knowledge from noticing the types of publications and blogs you read, what media you watch, what links you follow on social media, what groups you join, and what podcasts you enjoy. The information you choose to avoid is also informative. Topics you dodge are not worthy choices for your activism.

Identify Areas for Growth

Now that you have an inventory of what you can do and what you know, be clear about where you need to grow. As you consider the match between your gifts and your activism opportunities, see what you are ready to do now and where you need development.

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Learn More about Maximizing Your Performance

• How to Make Powerful Change in Your Activism
• How To Fix Your Mixed-Up Motivation
• Don’t Let Obstacles Get In The Way Of Your Activism

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In my Getting Started in Activism path, identifying your skills, knowledge, and motivation is Step 2. How To Take Stock of the Gifts You Bring to Activism

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