How to Believe

The first rule of #KeepMarching is to believe in yourself. Remember, this book isn’t about a literal march, but about building a movement. Believe in the women, men, and people around you. Know that the calls, letters, texts, meetings, gatherings, marches, rallies, social media shares—and all the tactics that are described at the end of every chapter in this book—add up and make a difference. The difference may not be apparent overnight, but if you persist, if you organize and strategize, then change will happen bit by bit, moment by moment. Know that if you—and thousands of others—believe that something is possible, then that something becomes very possible.

That’s right: Believing in yourself—knowing at a cellular level that you can make a difference—is a powerful tactic, a core part of change, and is essential to developing your personal power. In fact, believing in yourself is such an important tactic that it’s the first advocacy and organizing tip in a book where tips close each chapter.

This isn’t a platitude. It’s not an empty promise. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count.

The first win I saw happen was in 1992 when underground testing of nuclear devices stopped in the United States. That happened after several years when thousands of people spoke out. Some, including myself, literally walked out onto the nuclear testing grounds so the bombs couldn’t be detonated. All these actions, all these people rising up, added up to real change. Many people walked out into the hot Nevada desert nuclear testing grounds in the early 1990s, putting their bodies on the line for what we believed in. Yes, we were arrested then. But so were the nuclear bombs.

Your body is powerful. Your mind is powerful. Your voice is powerful.

The next wins I saw came in a cluster, working after college for Washington Conservation Voters (WCV). We recruited, trained, endorsed, and ran environmentally responsible candidates at the city, county, and state levels. Some years over one hundred endorsed candidates with several targeted candidates received extensive assistance from WCV on their campaigns—and one great year the win rate was 76 percent. Some of those wins were by a margin of a single handful of votes. A handful. Literally how many people you see in a coffee shop on a busy morning have changed the outcome of elections, especially locally—and it still can happen. But sometimes handfuls of votes can even change national elections, depending if that handful is voting in the right state at the right time. (The outcome of the 2000 presidential race was essentially decided by just 537 votes in Florida, which tipped the entire national electoral college toward George W. Bush instead of Al Gore.)

Your vote is powerful. Your support is powerful. Your belief in yourself is powerful. The lengths that you have already gone to and will continue to go to in order to care for, provide for, defend, protect, and empower the ones you love is powerful.

I’ve witnessed many, many wins due to individual and collective masterminding at MomsRising. I’ve been blown away. I came into MomsRising already a believer in the power of change, but I seriously underestimated the power of women sharing their experiences and speaking out. The members and team of MomsRising have helped advance more wins than I can even count over the last decade: from helping to get healthier foods in every elementary, middle, and high school in the country; to helping to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Affordable Care Act through Congress in the first place (and then rising to protect it again and again); to helping to protect Medicaid many times over (which covers the health care of one in four children and half of all childbirths); to helping get a special prosecutor in New York for cases of police brutality; to helping to advance earned sick days, paid family leave, childcare, and protection for pregnant and nursing women in cities and states across the nation, as well as fair pay policies, and so very much more. As a group, we’re pretty powerful.

And so are you—your voice, your story, your experiences, you are powerful.

More powerful than you think.

The actions you take—even the actions that don’t take a lot of time, like clicking to sign a petition from an organization you respect or joining a Twitter or social media campaign—have an impact, whether you directly see that impact happening in real time or not.

Remember, tiny drops of water create waves. And when we take individual action—big actions like organizing a human resources policy change at work or visiting an elected leader, or small actions like taking five minutes to click in an email to sign an open letter to Congress—a wave of change is created.

This doesn’t mean we’ll instantly win every fight. In fact, persistence is the name of the game. So believe in yourself. Stand up. Put on your imaginary superhero cape and infuse that belief that you are powerful into every step, call, action, you take as you invite others to also believe in themselves, in the power of us together.

Because if we, together, believe in something strongly enough, we can make change happen. That, my friend, is the first rule of change.