how to be a successful activist
“As a human being with a voice and an opinion, you are already ALL POWERFUL.”
If I asked you outright what does success look like in the animal rights movement?, I’d expect to hear things like ‘people will no longer eat animals’, or ‘humans will stop killing and hurting animals for human gain’.
With that in mind, there are some creative ways we can think about how we achieve that success. In my early activism days, I became consumed by thinking I needed to build my social media platform and increase my reach to make a bigger difference. If you do social media you’ll know not only is it a constant drain of time and energy, it’s also a total fucking pain in the arse.
It occurred to me one day, as I grew in my activism (which I came to call my animal advocacy work), that I was focussing too much on the process, the nuts and bolts. I decided to flip it and think more creatively about the end result and how I could get there without all the requirements for polished social feeds and engagement stats. Here are a few examples to give you a feel for what I mean.
I wanted more people in my community to try vegan food, so I worked with a local pub to create vegan food options that became available as standard on their menu.
I wanted more space to express my ethical beliefs in my professional capacity, so I co-created the first Vegan Network in a local authority in the UK, which earned me an invite to present at the All Party Parliamentary Group for Vegetarianism and Veganism and provided a template for other government organisations to follow suit.
I wanted to help more people to go vegan in all areas of their life, so I put pen to paper and wrote a book.
My point is, there are a million different ways to achieve success. The social media world we live in wants us to constantly want likes, yearn for validation, for attention, but WE DO NOT NEED THAT TO BE SUCCESSFUL. By all means, if you’re a social media whizz, exploit this useful tool to get the word out far and wide, but if you’re not, I’m here to tell you that, as a human being with a voice and an opinion, you are already ALL POWERFUL.
This is your invitation to think about what you want to see in the world, and creatively approach your activism. Ask yourself the below questions to get to the root of what you’re trying to achieve and get to it. The animal rights movement needs everyone working together at what they’re good at to make real lasting change. The animals do not need perfect Instagram feeds. They need action.
Let’s think about success from this angle, from the end result we want to see, and let that guide our action.
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS FOR SUCCESS
What change do I want to see?
What will success look like when I’ve achieved it?
Who can help me to achieve this?
What other avenues are available to me that I can use to achieve success?
