Fatigue: On Burnout
Some days are tougher than others.
Work requires early mornings, late nights, and hustle in the wake of organizational deadlines. Products require tireless testing, budgets call for deliberation, and design projects are filled with iteration after iteration. Even in the most flexible of office environments, schedules can often become packed with the essential tasks of running a business. That constant grind often calls for us to shut down for a few days in order to reboot.
But what happens when people’s lives are on the line?
If you’re anything like me, you do what you do because you want to change things for the better. Whether that translates to a full time job at an affordable healthcare nonprofit, or a few days volunteering at your local family shelter, fatigue can creep up on the best of us. In situations like these, where the work is abundant and the hands are often few, it can be a difficult decision to take the time to rest rather than push through to “maximize your impact.”
An extreme example of this dichotomy came to me this summer: In “Battling Racial Fatigue During the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” Phillip Jackson described the “Racial Battle Fatigue” that often affects those individuals fighting for the equality of black lives. The cycle of despair and inequality can seem endless and protesters are often left wondering if “there may actually be no answer to the issue.” In his own words:
“Many of these issues being faced, whether it be, police brutality, unequal opportunity, racial hate and unfair justice…are issues we have experienced for more than 50 years and have continued to…plague the community with a feeling of being overwhelmed by the amount of issues that seem to be piling on top of another.”
Indeed, in situations where lives are on the other side of our work, the weight can feel enormous. The idea of taking time off can evoke feelings of guilt and unworthiness. Who are we to be taking time off where there are students who need us?
While not always as extreme as protesting against police brutality, individual causes can be draining when combined with the sociopolitical climate that frames them. Burnout can make fulfilling missions into exercises in exhaustion. Constant recollection of the systematic barriers to food, health care, economic opportunity, and safety can exacerbate depression and anxiety. What’s more, coming to grips with those feelings can cause those doing important work to feel overwhelmed and step away from the mission entirely. When that happens in droves, it isn’t just bad for us, it’s a nightmare for the communities relying on our support.
So what can be done? Most of us recognize that while we have made tangible strides in increasing access to an array of opportunities for problems like education reform, affordable housing, and food security. These are all ecosystem-level problems that will take more than a lone volunteer to fix.
Still, feeling the pressure to be “savior” can be overwhelming when you are also a member of a marginalized community.
As someone who grapples with this dichotomy on almost every day, I can’t say I’ve found the perfect solution. There are more days that not where I wonder whether I’m doing enough to advance the mission of my organization. However, I do take tiny, daily steps to keep myself motivated:
1. Ramp up self-care. Self-care looks different to all of us. While the need to go out and see others might be your remedy, I prefer the solitude of my bed and a good book. Some of the things that I do to keep myself in check can be found in this post.
2. Celebrate success. Our organization’s impact, thankfully, is extremely tangible. Those successes can be held and measured: the voice of a newly hired student can transform my longest days, and the accolades of a company that made a sincere breakthrough in their hiring processes gives me hope that things can change. As an office, we celebrate achievements with bubbles and team kudos.
3. Be shameless. As a woman of color, I often have to remind myself that I, like the rest of my team, am contributing to our successes (and that my admittance of this contribution is valid and necessary).
4. Shut down. Very few people can be “on” all the time. I recommend that all people, especially those of us working in mission-driven fields find a good therapist and some solid off-duty time. Sometimes you need to take a step away from the wall and recharge.
In addition to these suggestions, there are a million more, including setting solid boundaries and finding a network of supporters who understand your specific brand of fatigue. A feature on the women of color I follow in times of both jubilation and distress can be found here.
Most importantly, it helps to admit that I’m human. As a kid, I was once angry when a friend told me that I wasn’t magnificent. Truth be told, I now understand their point. Their words were less a rebuttal of my “special-ness” and more an acceptance of my limits. I have vast dreams for the world we can create and I (now) recognize that I am only human. Recognizing that I am but a tiny speck in this amazing, complex world gives me solace I can’t quite put into words.
Remember why your mission moves you. Today, as you put on your armor and fight the good fight, be kind to yourself.
