| How do I remain optimistic in the face of so much stress? | Learn to recognize the common stressors you'll face doing communications work. |
Activists today talk openly about mental health and the darker sides of advocacy work. They do it, not because they care less than more tight-lipped older generations; they talk about mental health because they know they need to find better ways to do good work if they’re going to stick it out for years to come.
Communications workers are the ones whose roles have changed perhaps most dramatically in recent years and who face unique stresses. Comms people are on the front lines of activism. They are amongst the most likely people in social impact work to engage day in and day out with experiences that fuel burnout, anxiety, and depression.
If you are in this line of work, you should know what to watch out for, and how to find a balance that’s right for you.
Stakes are what make stories interesting. Whether you’re lobbying for a new bill or working up the motivation to send the next fundraising email, thinking about what’s at stake gets the juices flowing.
In storytelling, “stakes” represent whatever the hero gains if they prevail or loses if they fail. In nonprofit life, stakes may be the life you save or an extinction you can prevent. Generally, the higher the stakes, the more people — including you — care about the outcome.
Activists spend a great deal of time building awareness of stakes. This aspect of your work means that you spend a lot of time thinking about what happens if you and your cause fail. You think about it, write about it, speak about it, infect others with it.
The better you are at your job, the more every action feels important. Every campaign, every funding appeal, every case, every client, every email, every task feels terribly important; after all lives and communities and entire species are on the line.
This constant sense of pressure and stress — exhilarating at first — can be exhausting if it never ends. If you find yourself constantly focusing on the bad things that could happen, it’s a sign you may need to reconnect with what you’re working for. For your mental health, give yourself permission to be happy, even in difficult times.
Urgency is the sense that everything needs to happen right now. It may come from someone else, or it may come from you: We have to launch this project immediately! People need to act now! We’re running out of time!
Comms people don’t just live in a demanding, impatient culture. You don’t just work for organizations and funders who want the world saved stat!.
To do your job, you probably manufacture urgent calls-to-action that reinforce a fear that we’re all running out of time. You tell people to pay attention and act now, because that is what needs to happen. It comes from the right place: climate change isn’t sitting still; gender-based violence is taking place every day.
You are right to feel a sense of urgency about the cause — but it shouldn’t carry over to every task. Some tasks really can wait until Monday. That new project could launch next year when you have the bandwidth to do it properly. Some great ideas don’t actually need to be implemented at all.
Comms work is the kind of work that can fill any void. There are an infinite number of messages to send, people to meet, audiences to engage; you need to prioritize. If every moment of every day feels urgent, re-evaluate before you run out of steam or drift off- course. Urgency can be the enemy of strategy.
Many of the best comms people don’t work regular hours. You don’t get to decide when community events are happening, when issues blow up in the media, when something sparks on social. Your work rarely fits inside a predictable 9-to-5 box.
This lack of control over your schedule can be stressful — in fact, sense of control over your schedule is one of the main things experts recommend to help prevent burnout. Comms people often don’t have this privilege, if they want their work to have an impact.
You may also feel a sense of guilt or isolation for being in the “wrong” place — you feel like you should be out in the community when you’re in the office, but you feel like you’re supposed to be back at the office when you’re out in the community. There’s always a tension between what your community needs, what your team needs, and what you need.
If you work with a foot in both worlds — the community and the office — you’ll need to fiercely defend your schedule. Make time for the public and your team, but save time for your family, home, health, and hobbies, too.
Comms people spend a lot of time with their noses buried in the news. They monitor media and social media — not just one or two of their favourite outlets like normal citizens, but many outlets and many channels. This immersion in news is not new, but the never-ending stream of stories makes it more overwhelming than ever before.
It’s easy for your worldview to become distorted when you are surrounded by news. News plays on our negativity bias, capturing people’s attention by hammering the dangers and threats that surround them. That bias is tolerable for a half-hour newscast, but the world starts to look like a fractured, terrifying place when you spend hours a day consuming these stories.
Social media is even more distorting. It “succeeds” by amplifying negative stories and activating emotions like anger. From a constant stream of negative stories to outright harassment, social media teams are exposed to a level of conflict, graphic detail, and vitriol that most people don’t experience at work. They may step in front of a firehose of negativity just by logging into work every day. In the worst cases, they may even be subject to personal attacks and threats.
The best way to navigate these difficult engagements with the public is by having a community of staff, friends, and family to reconnect with routinely. The dark corners of the internet are just that — corners. For communications mental health, you need a safe space filled with people you trust to come home to.
These four stressors (constant exposure to news, irregular hours, urgency, and high stakes) can fuel mental health issues in communications work. Isn’t it strange, then, that these stressors are also some of the best parts of the job?
You’re drawn to this work precisely because the stakes are so high. Something needs to be done. Something can be done. The sooner the better. When that’s true, it’s hard to imagine spending time on anything else.
You’re drawn to the community; the people you work with, work for, work alongside are often the reason you get out of bed. The belonging and community in activism is unrivalled in other fields. The fact that your personal life and your professional life are aligned creates a feeling of integrity and cohesiveness that people who punch a time-clock may long for.
Even the news headlines and social media chatter are alluring. Being attuned to ever-shifting trends and public sentiment makes you better at your work, more responsive to your community. Seeing your work in the news reminds you that what you’re doing matters — your efforts are casting ripples in the world. You matter.
No one can avoid burnout and stress by making the “bad” parts of communications work go away. Those difficult parts are the inevitable shadows cast by the good parts — the mission, the people, the chance to make a difference. You can’t avoid them if you want to create change; with the right approach, you can harness them for good.
Reminding an activist to rest or urging them to find balance in a world that isn’t balanced itself is a difficult message to deliver.
Finding balance doesn’t have to mean “stop caring”. It just means “do other things, too”. If you’ve got a lot of urgency, negativity, and obligations in your life then you need to work hard to create space for rest, family, fun, low-stakes experiences.
Balance means finding ways to engage with world without losing touch with yourself, your community, and the reasons you love your mission. It means spending as much time in the light as possible, so you don’t get consumed by the shadows.
“I used to think burnout wouldn’t affect me, that I could push so hard, invest so much, and be OK. I thought because I was fighting for something bigger than me, because I believed so strongly in our ability to pull ourselves out of the climate crisis, that I could keep burnout at bay. Turns out I was wrong.”
The Organizer is a newsletter for people working to create equitable and sustainable communities. Whether you are part of a nonprofit, a charity, or a social enterprise, this newsletter is for you.
Each edition, we explore one aspect of social impact work. We answer a common “How do I …?” question, and we tell you about a tool that will help make your work a little easier. Subscribe for free at Entremission.com.