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Burnout at work and sustainability are in constant tension. If you think you can avoid the tension, you’re wrong; you have to embrace it, if you want to perform.
Work is a lot like sport, except when it comes to sport we remember that we need to train to perform. We don’t just assume that passion or talent will carry us through.
If you decided to swim or run a long distance, you’d know you needed to train your brain and your body. You’d practice the running and the swimming. You’d also practice tuning out that voice in your head that says, “you should stop.” (It’s a powerful voice, and it sounds wise: “it’s cold”, “you’re wet”, “you’re bored”, “you’re hungry”, “your body is tired”, and so on.)
You’d also practice hearing that voice when it really counts. Athletes know there are times when they need to listen. When a storm comes or the waves shift, runners and swimmers will stop. When pain turns into injury or when a team is in danger, athletes stop. Learning when to listen is also an important part of training.
Can you bring the same mindset to your work?
Persistence can be a sign of strength, but sustainability is just as important. To make real progress, you need to shift between moments when you press forward and moments of rest. After all, strength is built in the moments after we push ourselves the hardest.
Persisting until you get where you’re going can be a show of true strength. In this, endurance sports are very much like social impact work: there are a thousand reasons to give up, but you need to keep trying anyway.
Much of your work involves muting the voice in your head that tells you this work is too hard or focuses on obstacles in your way. “You don’t have enough money,” the voice might say, “Or enough people, or time, or power.” The voice isn’t wrong, but it isn’t right either.
That voice is a trickster, and effective leaders learn how to tune it out.
Sometimes the wisest, bravest thing you can do is to rest. Social impact work doesn’t have to embrace the same kind of extractive values that fuel environmental, social, and economic injustice.
When you are truly burnt out or when your organization’s actions are causing harm to people, it’s smart to reset. When you see that you are heading towards burnout, it’s wiser to pivot.
Social impact work, after all, is not an endurance sport. It’s not a sport at all. There is no finish line, no off-season, no long break between events and competitions. How do you give all that you can today and be able to come back tomorrow to do the same?
This is one of the most important questions we face. If this is your full-time job, then this is your life: today, tomorrow, and for many many years to come. When you think about what it takes to create real social change over a period of years, you see the importance of sustainability.
How do you keep doing this work – to persist – while still finding opportunities to rest and build strength? How do you give all that you can today and be able to come back tomorrow to do the same?
Two of the words social impact folks seem to be talking about a lot these days are burnout and sustainability.
We talk about burnout at work because we’re worried about individuals. People are leaving the sector in droves and citing burnout as the cause.
We talk about sustainability because we are worried about organizations. We’re seeing groups desperate to find funding and management models that will sustain their work before they run out of resources.
It’s a precarious time. If we can’t build organizations where social impact workers thrive, then they won’t be able to do the work required to address the social issues of our time. But until we address those same issues internally — like gender and economic inequality — workers will struggle for support and resources.
In the next issues of The Organizer, we will explore different aspects of burnout and organizational sustainability. We’ll look a bit at the individual aspects of burnout, but we’ll also explore the leadership, management, communications, and financial forces that influence life in our sector.
Burnout at work doesn’t happen by accident. Sustainability isn’t found by magic. There are tangible actions you can take to improve conditions for yourself and your colleagues and practices that help organizations thrive. If you’re looking for ways to ensure your organization can persist in its mission, we’ll help you spot the winds that may push you off-course. The questions we’ll explore are also some of the most frequently-asked questions we hear.
Before we launch these organization-focused articles, you may want to take a moment to check in on yourself. If you’re worried about burnout, you should learn how to recognize the signs of burnout vs sustainability. To help you out, try the Entremission burnout risk test.
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.