When you’re exhausted and overwhelmed, it’s easy to feel as though it’s all your fault. Our culture encourages this through individualism – the illusion that it’s all about personal choice – both the cause (why don’t you manage your time better?) and the solution (why don’t you rest more?).
I’m all for time management and plenty of rest. But what if your workload is simply too massive and stressful? What if your personal commitment to stopping that damaging new legislation, or getting this family housed doesn’t really yield to the discipline of a new colour-coded to-do list? What if it’s all urgent, all of the time?
And what if, at the same time, the organisation you’re working with can’t employ you for longer than six months? What if it might not even survive that long? What if, to add insult to injury, the collective pressure you and your colleagues feel mean that it’s hard not to take it out on one another?
This list could go on, but my purpose is not just to create a litany of despair. I want to float the idea that our sector is system of behaviours and beliefs that reliably push people into burnout. No one designed it like that, and it’s possible to change it. But only if we take a closer look.
I’ve had a first go by experimenting with what I call a Butterfly Systems Map of the sector. On one side are the drains on a person’s wellbeing, resilience and ability to flourish. On the other are all the things that support them – which can be both personal and systemic, too. The map represents both sides at once as very few of us are stuck totally in one side or another.
Once the drains are too big and the support too low, exhaustion can build to burnout, or people deciding that they’ve had enough and leaving the sector. This has two major effects – human suffering for the individual, and a loss of experience, expertise and community as the inevitable brain drain to other sectors occurs.
These are big problems. Firstly, human suffering is something we’re supposed to be working to reduce – why are we ok with a system that creates it for our own colleagues? And lastly, a sector with less expertise, experience and community is less effective at doing what we do – making positive change in the world.
I wonder how this lands with you. Does it chime with your experience? Am I way off? What would you add or change, map-wise? If you’re interested in these ideas please drop me a line or edit the map directly. Or, for more ideas like this as well as resources and the latest news you can sign up for the monthly-ish mailing list, below. Either way, you’re welcome anytime.
