Working in the field of sustainability, the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges are front and center. In our day-to-day work we cover increasingly extreme weather phenomena, social injustices, and extinct species, to name a few.
Working with such proximity to this reality (as well as in other professions that focus on caring), can result in burnout. The Maslach Burnout Inventory describes three aspects of burnout, including emotional exhaustion (you’re tired), depersonalization (you’re becoming less yourself), and reduced personal accomplishment (you feel your contributions or work don’t really matter).
In sustainability, burnout may also be characterized as eco-anxiety. Eco-anxiety is a mishmash of the negative emotions we associate with anxiety – like worry, guilt, and sadness – but directly related to the environmental state of the world. It is defined by the American Psychology Association as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations.”
In the wise words of the Bear Hunt nursery rhyme: We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it – we’re just going to have to go through it. So, how do we keep ourselves dedicated to the work, bringing positivity and optimism along the way?
When navigating and addressing the challenges of eco-anxiety and avoiding burnout, there are some skills and tools we can lean on. One of the great modern examples of turning this feeling into action is Greta Thunberg, who took her depression and drive to affect change and turned it into global activism.
At Context, we believe that positivity and joy are essential to progress. In the face of serious challenges, celebrating achievements is an important part of the journey. Below are some ways our team brings joy into our work and daily lives.
- Lean on community
- Be in nature
- Incorporate mindfulness practices
- Accept that change doesn’t happen overnight
- Know that knowledge is power
Lean on community
When down in the climate-related dumps, one of the ways to pull yourself up is by surrounding yourself with other folks who are also dedicated to conservation and sustainability. In fact, collective engagement with environmental issues can increase feelings of efficacy, leading to hope and wellbeing. To make this possible, we need to co-create spaces where people can imagine the kinds of lives we want to live and how to make them happen. Look for community spaces, like those provided through volunteering, to find your people.
Be in nature
Getting outside and spending time in greenspaces is actually linked to lower stress, anxiety, and depression than those who visit public greenspaces less often. A recent study of 20,000 people found that 120 minutes in nature per day was the hard threshold for folks to report feeling healthy and having a strong sense of well-being. Playing outside – regardless of occupation, ethnic group, socioeconomic class, and ability – had this impact.
Incorporate mindfulness practices
Harkening back to burnout, the first critical step to addressing it is acknowledging, with compassion, that feelings of burnout are happening and are an expected reality of this kind of work. One way to acknowledge this is through mindfulness—the practice of learning to focus with an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance. Mindfulness-based stress reduction, which originates from Buddhist spiritual practices, can have broad antidepressant and antianxiety effects. You can use mindfulness apps, like Calm and Headspace, to help guide some simple mindfulness practices.
Accept that change doesn’t happen overnight
It’s no secret that waiting to see the fruits of our labor is tough. And this is common— difficulty delaying gratification can play a role in anxiety and depression. It requires time and patience to affect large scale systemic change. One way to learn how to sit with the discomfort of delayed gratification is through understanding this theory of change (ToC). ToC is a description of why and how change happens within a specific context. In the context of sustainability, the framework of ToC in Sustainability Science can be useful:
- Identify a goal or problem
- Identify the contextualized causes of unsustainability
- Explain how change may happen to address these causes and, in turn, the goal or problem.
- Bring in subject matter experts to fill gaps.
- Specify activities and pathways to lead to intended outcomes and impacts.
- Operationalize this process and repeat!
This process takes time, but it’s proven to lead to long-lasting and meaningful change.
Know that knowledge is power
It’s understandable to want to dig our heads into the sand ostrich-style and tune out the realities of the world. However, in addressing our eco-anxiety and burnout, we need to acknowledge how serious the situation is. Luckily for us (and the planet!), the climate crisis is becoming more visible in the West, and, as a result, we’re better suited to tackle it.
Google Ngram illustrates the popularity of certain words in general discourse. This chart shows a snapshot from Google Ngram, tracking a steady rise in discussions of conservation since the 1900s to the mid-2000s (which peaks correspond to major US periods of national legislation) and the rise of “sustainable” since the 1990s. It is becoming more and more part of our conversations, and the more we’re able to name the problem, the better suited we are to tackle it.
The Main Take-Aways
In the journey towards sustainability, it’s essential to acknowledge the weight of the challenges we face, but we can’t allow them to dampen our spirits. By cultivating joy, leaning on community, and embracing the slow and steady march towards progress, we can navigate the complexities of sustainability with optimism and purpose.
