When everything feels urgent, where should you spend your time and energy?
Gifted and 2e advocacy is often about prioritizing goals--goals that often seem equally important. This issue discusses how to decide what comes first, without depleting yourself.
Hello Gifted Guides!
We’re so glad you’re here—and we’d like to extend an extra special hello to all the new friends we met at the 2025 NASP Convention last week!
How are you doing?
February can be a time of dull drudgery, especially if you’re in a place where it is wintery, cold, and gray. In moments where our external environment is seeming depleted, frustrating, or lackluster, it can be easy to take that same energy and turn inward.
Have you ever been in a place where even the smallest of things are going wrong or seem hopeless? Where one bad thing seems to feed another and another? Where even if something does, by chance, go right, you’re still holding your breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop?
In these moments, all that is wrong seems to float to the top of your attention. At the same time, anything that is good or hopeful seems to be outshone by all that is wrong.
And is there anything more infuriating and isolating than for someone to point out the alleged bright side or silver lining when you feel like you’re drowning in terrible? (It is almost like when people tell you to calm down when you’re upset, right?!)
This month, we won’t tell you to see the bright side of things or go searching for an elusive silver lining. Instead, we’re going to explore how to decide if—and when—to act when it feels like everything is a hopeless or overwhelming crisis that is out of our control.
Advocacy is slow work—and honestly, I’m sick of it! Can I make it go faster?!
As we’ve discussed over the last year, advocacy—in particular, advocacy for gifted and twice-exceptional (2e) learners—is slow, thoughtful, ongoing work. It takes collaboration and planning and research...and then probably more collaboration. That takes time and effort, which are not always in abundant supply.
For many Gifted Guides, they are finding themselves revisiting the same advocacy topics year after year—explaining and reexplaining what their learner(s) need. The Davidson Institute team has often worked with parents who hope that a grade acceleration, an especially good IEP meeting, or some other positive intervention or advocacy result will pave the way for smoother educational experiences going forward. They feel hope and relief, only to find themselves in similar situations and meetings the next quarter, semester, or year. This, understandably, can leave those Gifted Guides feeling disillusioned and discouraged.
If advocacy—whether educational, medical, etc.—for gifted and 2e learners is inherently slow, ongoing work, how can you stay motivated and engaged for the long term? Even when things look especially bleak and out of your control?
While there is no fast forward button for advocacy, it is helpful to remember that you don’t always have to be pressing play.
Pause is an important feature of advocacy, that many Gifted Guides—motivated by the very best of intentions—may be reluctant to employ.
You get a pause! You get a pause! Everybody gets a pause!
Won’t a pause just make advocacy work even slower? What good can a pause do?
We don’t know your specific advocacy situation. Ultimately, you’ll need to do what’s right for you, regardless of what others say. So, as with all resources we share: Take what you need and leave the rest!
That said, if your attention and effort is divided too much, you may find yourself in a space of cognitive overload, decision fatigue, or even decision paralysis.
Now, at this point, we could say, “If everything has your attention, nothing has your attention.” To which, you could very rightly rebut, “But everything NEEDS my attention! How can I decide which needs get met and which don’t?” That is a more than fair response.
Instead, let’s try this: What type of attention do you want to be able to give to your advocacy work, or really any part of your life? What is getting in the way of you attending to these areas of your life in the ways you’d like to?
Another way to think of this is as a practice in priority setting. When everything is emergent, it is hard to know where to start. This is often because, if we make a decision to start, it typically means we are choosing one emergent situation over another. This can feel unfair or insufficient or just plain bad.
Let’s try and make that decision process feel a little better...or at least have it better serve our goals. You can use the questions below as a type of screener to help you assess the priority of everything on your Advocacy To-Do List:
Is mental or physical health and/or safety being impacted or at risk?
Are there time limits/deadlines to be considered?
Am I the ONLY one who can do this?
Note: There is a difference between being the only one capable of doing a task or project and being the only one who will do it exactly like you will. Make sure you’re making this distinction!
At the end of the day, is “done” better than “done the way I would do it” or “done as perfectly as possible”?
What are the short-term and long-term consequences of this not being done immediately?
Focus on the facts here. This is a practice in “what do you KNOW to be the consequences” vs. “what do you fear to be potential consequences.” For example, missing the registration for math camp means your child won’t attend that specific camp for that specific session. It does not mean your child will never learn math and their dream of being an engineer is destroyed.
What impact will the most minimal progress in this area have on your life? For example, if you just send that one email, asking to set up a call, will you feel a little relief knowing that the ball is rolling (and currently in someone else’s court)?
These questions can help you work through your list of goals and projects to help you start to determine what type of effort you may need for each.
Still, if something has to be your main focus, how do you pick what that will be?
Here, we typically turn to our “Magic Wand Question.”
If you had a magic wand, which three things would you address right now? Poof! Addressed! Exactly as you’d like them to be!
These three things can be for your gifted or 2e learner(s), for your entire classroom, for yourself. They can be for your family, community, etc.
Once you’ve identified your Magic Wand Three, you are better positioned to prioritize your advocacy work. You’re better positioned to not have 100 different things pulling your attention all with the same amount of force.
These three things do not always need to be your driving force or top priority, but at least you now have a place to start. You also have shifted your mindset somewhat, to allow you to better discern what in your life needs immediate action and what does not.
Conclusion
You cannot be all things to all people at all times. Yup. Even you. The one reading this thinking, “That might be true for other people, but I HAVE to be show up and do everything otherwise it won’t get done.”
If you show up for everything, with the same exact same amount of time and energy for each thing, there is a better than good chance you’re running yourself down, and you aren’t always showing up as much as you think you are or in the ways you wish you were. By focusing on your Magic Wand Three, you can start to reevaluate how you spend your energy.
Not every advocacy goal or concern has the same importance and impact. All your goals may be needed in one way or the other, but that does not mean you have to invest in them all at once, in the same exact ways. Give yourself the grace and space to work toward your goals in ways that do not deplete you.
We often say that advocacy is slow work to comfort ourselves when things are taking longer than we’d like. However, there is also room to understand the slow work of advocacy as a reflection of the fact that not everything happens at once.
Advocacy—whether in the classroom, the doctor’s office, or anywhere else in life—is a practice of hope. This work is done with the hope of making it possible for someone to move through the world in more accessible ways.
The advocacy work of a Gifted Guide is slow, good, important work. This is not a marathon. Take time to rest and hydrate and nourish yourself along your Gifted Guide journey. We see how hard you’re working, and it’s an honor to be in community with you as we all work to support the gifted and 2e learners in our lives. Remember, through the ups and downs of your advocacy work, you’re never alone. The Guiding Gifted and Davidson community are here to support you.
Advocacy work is not work done in isolation. We are a community. We are excited to see where 2025 will continue to take us together!
What’s New at the Davidson Institute?
Apply to Young Scholars! 2025 Application Open Now!
If you’re interested in joining the Young Scholars program, you can learn more and start your application today! Get started by visiting our How to Apply page!
Testing Opportunities – SPRING TEST SESSIONS ARE OPEN TO REGISTRATION!
Through our partnership with Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, throughout the year, we are able to offer low cost, remote testing for students in grades 3-10.
This testing can be used to apply to the Davidson Institute’s Young Scholars program, along with the Davidson Academy, Reno and Davidson Academy Online.
To learn more and register for Spring 2025 testing (or to join the Fall 2025 waitlist), check out our Eligibility Assessment page today!
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We’ll see you next month. Stay well, Gifted Guides!