by Shannon Harris
Image from here
What is burnout?
When I was 15, I was angry at a lot of what I was seeing in the world. I was angry at billionaires for not caring about how their actions impacted the earth. I was angry that regular people didn’t care about the plant. I was boycotting and protesting and emailing and fighting and it felt like I was doing nothing. I got angry at 15 and by 17, I was exhausted. That is what burnout is. It is that feeling that nothing you are doing is making a difference and the hopelessness that comes along with that. Every environmental activist has felt this hopelessness before or will feel it. We hear that plastic straws hurt the environment, so we switch to metal or reusable straws, but they take more time and effort to deal with, so we get frustrated. And then we hear that corporations make up more than 70% of environmental pollution. The problem is not made by individuals, but the pressure is put on us to fix it. This leaves a hole in people. A hole that wants to be filled with hope. If I only use metal straws and stop using plastic bags and carefully separate out my recycling, I can solve the problem. I can save the earth! How disheartening is it, then, to watch the recycling pick up go straight to the landfill or corporations dump thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean? Burnout takes good activists and fills them with cynicism.
How to identify burnout in yourself?
Identifying burnout can be difficult because it looks different for everyone. We are all at different point in our activism journey and how we deal with stress and frustration is different. Activism in personal and, therefore, so is burnout. Some things to watch out for when it comes to burnout are:
Feeling hopeless or like your contributions don’t matter
Feeling like your whole life is taken over by activism
Loss of enthusiasm
The personal nature of burnout can make it feel so isolating, but it is important to remember that you are not alone. Burnout will happen to every activist at some point. It is just important that you can identify it so that it doesn’t feel like the end of your activism journey.
It is so common in activist circles to act like burnout is the end of an activist. I have even heard other activists talk about a burnout activist like she had died, but that is far from the truth. Needing to take time away from your activism to work on yourself is not shameful or the end of your work as an activist. If what you need to do for your own mental health is to permanently step away from activism, that is your choice, but for most people, it may only take a few days or weeks to recover from a bought of burnout.
Dealing with burnout:
The most effective way to deal with burnout is to prioritize your own mental health. You have to take care of yourself before you can deal with larger issues. Trying to push yourself to do more than what you care currently capable of because you see other people doing more is a recipe for disaster. How you contribute to environmentalism is up to you and doing what you can is enough. Idolizing others and pushing yourself past your limits in order to be like them will only hurt you in the long run. What you are doing matters. If you only focus on getting results, you will burnout worse and quicker. Making use of environmental activist resources is also incredibly important. You need to have a support system around you to help you through times of burnout. Activist communities aren’t just for career activists. You can form or join a community of activists even if you do not feel like a ‘real’ activist. You are enough and your mental health matters. Taking a few days away from activism will benefit you more than it will harm your movement. Taking a step back to deal with yourself is not shameful, it is necessary. We have to try to make a greener world and we all need support to do that.