By Adam Berrey
Threshold Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 4, February/March 1996

I never thought it would hit me. Then one morning I simply could not get out of bed. The thought of attending another meeting, talking to another activist, explaining SEAC yet again, making one more flyer, or dealing with another coalition sent chills down my spine. Hearing words like strategy, tactic, and crisis made my eyes glaze over.

Three days later I was back in the SEAC office. I made it another four months until my lung collapsed, and I spent three days in the hospital – I had burned out.

A lot of Activists burnout, often to a point which interferes with their lives and work. Considering the gravity of the problems we face, unsustainable activism is irresponsible. Preventing burnout personally and organizationally is a critical part of building a long-term movement for progressive social change.

Preventing Burnout: Personally

Manage your time well: Good time management doesn’t simply mean accomplishing everything you set out to do. Time management is about establishing clear objectives, setting priorities, and organizing your time to accomplish these without the constant feeling that you are too busy or overwhelmed.

Integrate school and struggle: If you are a student, look for opportunities to integrate your school work with your activism: independent studies, internships, and research projects on the issues you are organizing around.

Create a support network: Foster relationships with people who will give you love, guidance, support, friendship, and advice. This should include a mentor who can provide another perspective on your work and who will challenge you to take care of yourself. Your community may include activists, non-activists, friends, family, and colleagues. Organizing shouldn’t prevent you from participating in the relationships which sustain you.

Meet your personal needs: We all have personal needs – physical, spiritual, and psychological. Develop simple habits like eating well, sleeping, washing your laundry, exercising regularly, taking breaks, having fun, doing art, and participating in a spiritual life.

Participating in a culture of struggle: Challenging corporate power, capitalism, etc. is exhausting and frightening. The most powerful movements in history have sustained themselves in this work through a shared culture of struggle – in songs, poetry, dance, music, and solidarity which express a commitment to a fight and a deep love for each other.

Ground yourself in history: We are part of a centuries old struggle for justice. Thousands of organizers have come before us and thousands more will come. There is a history to the conditions we face today which can inform our work and provide a source of inspiration.

Preventing Burnout: Organizationally

Use a good organizing practice: A wide array of books, magazines, and trainings provide organizing information. All of the practices which lead to successful organizing also help prevent burnout.

Make your issues winnable: Many of the problems we face seem unwinnable. The effort to stem the environmental and social hemorrhaging on this planet is overwhelming. One way to deal with this challenge is to build a long-term struggle based on fights for partial solutions which are winnable in the short-term.

Celebrate your victories: Don’t take winning lightly. Every victory is an excuse for a party, a chance to congratulate each other, and an opportunity for a bottle of sparkling apple cider.

Create an affirming environment: Constantly fighting overwhelming social forces can sometimes lead to a culture of criticism within our organizations. We can blame ourselves and each other. In desperate attempts to make social change, we wield what little power we gain from organizing to attack the closest targets which are often our own peers and organizations.

Create a just community: Good organizing means working to create the conditions within our organizations which offer people the freedom to realize their full potential. This means actively working to overcome systems of oppression which are constituted along lines such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation.

Surviving Burnout

Take a break: Breaks are good. Everyone needs rest, down time, and a change of pace. Travel, spend time with your family, take an extended sabbatical for study and reflection. Do not be afraid to stop before you burnout.

Change what caused the burnout: Before you go back to organizing after your break, think about what lead to the burnout and find ways to change your work habits or organization to make your activism more sustainable.

Get fired up!: The best way to recover from burnout is to go back to the source of your energy and get tired up about an issue. Returning to the reason you became active in the first place.

There is nothing impressive or glamorous about driving yourself to burnout. Burning out is a privilege. Because of my race and class privilege in society, my family had the resources to support me when I returned to school. I had the freedom to move away from immediate environmental problems and the luxury of other opportunities. Organizations with burnout as the natural course of activism limit themselves to people who have the privilege to burnout. We will never achieve a just world if the process of fighting for it excludes the people whose conditions are the most unjust.

Adam Berrey lives in Minnesota and is currently a SEAC Trainer (as of Feb/Mar. 1996)