Keep Going | What it Means to Calmly Save the World (Blue Moon in Sagittarius)

Zadra Rose closes the series under a Blue Moon in Sagittarius — the sign of the seeker, the philosopher, the one who aims higher. 

This episode moves from awareness into action, introducing the concept of who before how: the idea that identity and feeling must come before action, not after. Using a real-world grant writing example, Zadra walks through the model from circumstance to result — and then backwards from result to thought — to show exactly how this works in practice. She also expands on what calmly saving the world actually means, and closes with an invitation for listeners to practice believing they matter as much as the cause they're serving.

In This Episode

• A recap of the series: what it costs to care this much (Ep 1), the sustainability/nonprofit intersection and the model introduced (Ep 2), and where it all lands today
• Why most of us act first and hope the feeling follows — and why that's backwards
• Who before how: stepping into the identity of the person who has the result, before the result arrives
• The full model walked all the way through — from unintentional thought to confirmed result, and from desired result back to the thought that creates it
• A real example: writing a capacity grant from futility vs. writing it from determination — same circumstance, completely different outcome
• The model as a tool for noticing, not fixing — curiosity over judgment
• Why mission-driven people are often the last to extend care to themselves — and why that has to change
• What it actually looks and feels like to practice believing you matter
• What it looks like to calmly save the world and why it's the only sustainable way to do this work long-term

This Week's Reflection Question

What would it look like to believe that I matter as much as the work I'm doing?

List every reason you can find to believe it's true.

This Week's Tool — Practice Who Before How

Take a goal or project in your work that feels heavy or sticky and write down the thoughts you have about it. It’s helpful to write several thoughts, because we want to find the one that's driving how you're currently showing up. Follow the line from thought through to result. Then flip it: how would you rather feel?  What would you need to think in order to feel that? When you feel that, what actions do you take and what energy do you take the action with? What is the likely result of those actions from that energy?

This Week's Action

Choose one thought that you are going to practice on purpose this week. Find one that you believe. Let’s test it out. What do you notice in your daily life, when you are living into that thought? We are gathering information. We are experiencing ourselves from a new viewpoint.

Have a question or want to share your experience?  Leave a comment on Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen.

Ready to explore what working with a coach could make possible for you? Schedule a conversation at inspired@zadraroseibanez.com or find Zadra on Instagram and LinkedIn @ZadraRose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Keep Going with Zedra. We're under a blue moon in Sagittarius tonight. A blue moon is the second full moon in a single calendar month, and they happen once every two and a half to three years. In a 19-year cycle, there will be seven blue moons. Sagittarius is a fire sign. It's expansive, philosophical, it's always reaching toward a bigger understanding of what's possible. Sagittarius wants to know why, and then it wants to aim even higher. I started this three-episode series on the full moon in Scorpio in April, and we're ending it here in the blue moon in Sagittarius at the end of May. So let's take a moment to look back at where we've been, because this episode will bring it all together. In episode one, we talked about what it actually costs to care as much as you do. We looked at what happens when conviction is running the show without the tools to sustain it. We named the exhaustion, the depletion, the slow erosion of the very joy that brought you to this work in the first place. And we asked, where are you running on conviction alone? And what is that costing you? In episode two, we went deeper. We talked about the intersection of sustainability and nonprofit, why that overlap is such fertile ground for personal and professional growth, and we examined a few aspects that differentiate someone's experience when working in one or both spaces at the same time. Then I shared a brief overview of a tool called the model. We learned to distinguish circumstances from thoughts. Circumstances are facts provable in a court of law. Thoughts are what we make the circumstances mean. We learned that thoughts create our feelings, feelings drive action, and action creates results. The same circumstances, completely different results, depending entirely on what you are thinking. We also talked about the list you made. Every reason this works matters to you. And I asked you to look at that list with fresh eyes and notice everything on it is a thought. Your values, your sense of purpose, your reasons, they aren't handed down as facts, they are thoughts that you are choosing, which means you have more agency over them than you might have realized. And then finally, in today's episode, episode three, we're moving from awareness into action. We're talking about what it looks like to actually use these tools, to build a practice around them, and to step into the identity of the person who does this work sustainably, effectively, and with themselves intact. Through all of that, I'm inviting you to sit with a question I've been threading through the whole series. Not simply why does this work matter? Instead, I'm asking, what would it be like for you to matter to yourself just as much? Let's start with the part of the model we haven't fully explored yet, the action and the result. In our last episode, we spent a lot of time on the C and the T, the circumstance and the thought. Today I want to show you how to talk through this tool in a way that has your action producing the results you want rather than ones you don't want. One of the keys to this is the idea of directionality. Where are we choosing our next steps from? Usually when we want a result, it's because we're thinking, if I do this thing or get this thing, then I'll feel better. And so we go straight to action. We ask ourselves, what do I need to do to get this done? How can I make this happen? Then we take action from a place of panic or frantic energy or feelings of lack. We muscle through and use dogged determination to force an outcome. We act first and hope the feeling of relief or pride or better follows. But that's backwards. And it's one of the reasons that so many of us end up exhausted even when we're technically accomplishing things. Because when we want a result, what we're actually after is a feeling. And as we learned earlier, circumstances don't cause your feelings. Your thoughts cause your feelings. Therefore, your results don't cause your feelings. Your feelings cause your results. Wait, what? The sequence that actually works who, before, how. You decide who you want to be, what you want to feel, and then you take action from that place. The feeling comes before the action, not after. Dr. Benjamin Hardy in his book Who Before How discusses the idea that in order to have what you want to have and accomplish what you're aiming for, you must first become the person who has and accomplishes the goal. You must become the version of you that has achieved the result before you can know how to get it. We don't like that. Or rather, our brains don't love it. Many of my clients will share that it's difficult for them to go to the future and look back. They can't see the next steps because they haven't done the thing yet. This is a self-trust muscle. You get stronger at this by believing the answers are within you. You know you have your own back through any outcome. You believe you will follow through and create what you set out to do. And those beliefs, that certainty, comes from your thoughts. The identity comes before the result, not after. So let me show you exactly what that looks like in a real world example. So we're not just talking rhetoric, we're talking actual. The circumstance, a $25,000 capacity grant. The thought, unexamined and unintentional, is no one funds capacity grants anymore. So how do you feel when you think that thought? I feel resentful. Now is a great moment to show you something else. You might say, I feel like, why bother? Or I feel like this is futile. I feel as though this is pointless. So I want to make a quick distinction. If you put the words like or as if in front of something, it's actually a thought and not a feeling. A feeling is a vibration, a sensation, an emotion in the body. It's one word. Sad, angry, powerless, happy, elated, excited. Those are feelings. So when you think the thought, no one funds capacity grants anymore, how do you feel? From that feeling, what actions do you take? For me, from feeling resentful, I procrastinate. And then I hammer the proposal out at the last minute, feeling rushed and anxious the whole time. I write the grant anyway, because it's due, but I spend hours massaging word choices and over-explaining. I use vague, just trust me language instead of drilling down to concrete action items. I don't proof it as carefully as I could. I'm on edge and I'm tense, so I'm short-tempered and impatient with my team. The proposal radiates, we need this money, instead of, we offer life-changing programs and services. And underneath all of it, I'm already half expecting the no before I even hit send. The result? No funds are awarded. And then that result proves my original thought, which is no one funds capacity grants anymore. I spent real time and real energy on something I was already convinced wouldn't work. And now the thought feels even more true. Okay, so let's run it again, but from a deliberate, intentional place. The same circumstance, a $25,000 capacity grant. But this time, instead of starting from the thought no one funds capacity grants anymore, we start from the result we want and we work backwards. Imagine it's six months from now and you've received the grant funds already. How do you feel from there? Joyful, confident, relieved, determined, magical even? Pick one. So let's say determined. What does someone who is feeling determined do when a grant opportunity is on the table? They start early, they plan and prepare, they do their homework, they research the foundation and understand the funding priorities, they speak the foundation's language, they network and gather data, they paint a clear, compelling picture from the foundation's point of view, not only from the place of organizational need. They engage the whole team, the energy in the office is calm and organized. So what would you need to think in order to feel determined? Or a different way to ask is, what is someone who is determined thinking? It would be something like, we are the best fit for this grant. They want to fund this program. And if those thoughts are a bit out of reach at the moment, if you can't quite believe them, then test this idea out. I am going to write the best proposal I can. The result? You are the best fit. And whether you receive the grant or not, you gather information that makes the next proposal even stronger. Either way, you moved forward from a place of agency rather than resignation. It's the same circumstance with a completely different outcome and a drastically different experience. It started not with the action, but with the identity. We started with who would I like to be in this situation? How do I want to feel? Then we asked, what would someone who feels this be thinking? And from there, we decided the best next action step. Something I want to clarify, because I've seen people misuse mindset work in this way, and I don't want that for you. The model and other tools like it, they're not tools for making yourself wrong. It's not for fixing what's broken in you or forcing yourself to feel something you don't. It's a tool for noticing, for seeing what's actually running underneath your actions, and then deciding with full awareness whether that is working for you or not. The first step is always curiosity. When you catch yourself writing the grant you're sure you won't get, or dreading the stakeholder meeting, or phoning it in on a project you used to love, don't judge that, don't judge you. Simply notice. Hmm, that's interesting. What am I thinking that has me showing up in this way? Is this who I want to be? Is this how I want to feel? Sometimes even asking the question will have you shift your energy. This brings me to the question I've been threading through this entire series. Not only why does this work matter, but what would it look like for you to believe you matter just as much? I've observed something about the people most drawn to mission-driven work. You are often the last ones to extend to yourselves the same care and investment you give freely to everything else. You'll fight for the coral reef, you'll advocate for the underserved community, you'll lose sleep over the funding gap. But ask you to tend to your own sustainability, your own capacity, your own well-being, your own inner life. And suddenly it feels indulgent, secondary, like something you'll get to when the work slows down? The work doesn't slow down. You know that. So here's what I want to offer you, not as a challenge, but as a practice. What would it look like to believe that you matter? Not abstractly, specifically. What would you do differently tomorrow if you genuinely treated yourself as a priority? Not instead of the cause, but as part of it. Sustainability starts within. Because here's the truth, you cannot pour from an empty cup. We've said it before, and it's worth saying again here at the close of this series. The directive to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others exists for a reason. You put your own mask on first, not because you matter more than the person next to you, but because you are no use to them if you're unconscious. Your work needs you healthy, resourced, clear-headed, emotionally regulated, connected to the reasons you showed up in the first place. So tending to yourself isn't a detour from the mission, it is the mission. And finding every reason to believe that, practicing it, returning to it, choosing it again when you forget, that's the inner work that makes all the outer work sustainable. Let's talk about what it actually looks like to build a practice around this, because that's what I mean when I say calmly saving the world. Calmly saving the world is not passive. It is not disengaged or dispassionate. It doesn't mean you've made peace with things that should never be accepted. It's not a spiritual bypass. Sometimes calmly saving the world looks like anger, a clear, grounded anger that knows how to advocate without alienating, how to push without burning the bridge you need to cross tomorrow. Sometimes it looks like grief, fully felt and then released, so it doesn't calcify into resentment. Sometimes it looks like a hard conversation, delivered with steadiness because you've done the work to know what you think and why. What it doesn't look like is frantic, frenetic, burnt out, resentful, running on fumes and conviction with no tools to sustain you. Calmly saving the world means you have a practice. It means you know how to check in with what you're thinking before you act. It means you understand the difference between a circumstance and a thought, and you use that distinction to stay in your agency instead of sliding into helplessness or overwhelm. It means you've identified the thoughts that are serving your goals and the ones that are subconsciously working against them, and you're choosing consistently and on purpose to think thoughts that are more useful, more helpful, more aligned with who you want to be. It means you've decided, not once, but again and again, that you matter, that your energy matters, your clarity matters, your joy in the work matters. From that place you're more effective, you're more resilient, you're more capable of the long game this work requires, not solely for your sake, it's also for everything and everyone you're here to serve. Yet even if it were only for you, that would be enough. That's the point. That is what calmly saving the world looks like. So this is what I want to leave you with as we close this three-episode mini-series. We started in Beltane under Full Moon and Scorpio, asking what it costs to share this much. We moved into the new moon in Taurus, planting seeds, exploring why the intersection of sustainability and nonprofit is such fertile ground for growth and learning to see our thoughts as thoughts. And now we're here, under a blue moon in Sagittarius, aiming higher, asking not simply what we're doing, but who we're becoming, and whether we're taking care of the person doing the becoming. The question I'd love you to take with you is this Who is the version of me that believes I am a priority? And what does that person think and feel? So this week, ask yourself, what would my life look like if I believed that I matter as much as the work I'm doing? Ponder it in the shower, think on it while you drive, journal about it. List every reason you can find to believe that that's true. The practice, take a goal or a project in your work that feels heavy or sticky, and write down the thoughts you have about it. And it's helpful to write several thoughts because often the first one isn't the real one. We want to find the one that's driving how you're currently showing up. Follow the line from thought through to the result and then flip it. What would you rather feel? What would you need to think in order to feel that? When you feel that, what actions do you take and what energy do you take the action with? What is the likely result of those actions from that energy? And implement. Choose one thought. Just pick one that you're gonna practice on purpose this week. And find one that you believe. Let's test it out. What do you notice in your daily life when you're living into that thought? We're gathering information here. We're experiencing ourselves from a new viewpoint. Isn't this fun? So as you're going through your day to day, if things start to feel like too much, if it feels like the goal is really far away and the world seems kind of broken and your cup is empty, you know what I'm gonna say. Keep going.