Why You Can’t Bubble Bath Your Way Out of Burnout.

Part of why I’m a big believer in strategic planning, standard operating procedures, efficiency, productivity, good management, and more is because I see it as a way to keep nonprofit professionals from being consumed by stress. Yes, very importantly those things help you raise more money, get more done, and ultimately achieve more good in the world; but they also keep stress at bay.

Here’s what I see far too often. Nonprofits have unrealistic goals and expectations (for all the best reasons, but still…). That means they haven’t thought about realistic timelines on which to achieve their goals. They push their employees and volunteers to their limits, to the point they take over all their time. Nonprofit professionals are working 60 or 80 hours per week, paid tiny salaries—often with no benefits—so supporting their personal goals (like buying a home or travelling) becomes a challenge. Under enormous pressure at work and at home, nonprofit professionals simply can’t manage the enormous stress loads. Leadership is as stressed out as the junior staff; nobody gets enough support, and rather than see the problem as the unrealistic expectations, we blame individuals for not caring enough about the mission. 

It’s rugged individualism at its finest, in an industry where we’re supposed to be advancing the common good. It shouldn’t go together, but it does.

According to Nonprofit HR, 45% of nonprofit employees they surveyed in January 2020 said that they planned to leave their current employer, and of those, 23% said they intended to leave the field entirely. And the number one reason I hear from nonprofit professionals that they plan to leave their jobs is BURNOUT. The numbers are even starker for fundraisers…with nearly half of professionals saying they plan to leave in the next two years (according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy).

It makes so much sense! When we get stressed and stay stressed for long periods of time, we burn out. And burn out most often means we leave our jobs—it doesn’t matter how critical the mission is or how much we care. And all too often, I see the nonprofit professional being blamed for this failure, not the culture and environment that pushed them to that extreme.

But first, what is burnout? 

According to Psychology Today, “Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress.” Burnout is defined by its symptoms: “Physical and mental exhaustion, a sense of dread about work, and frequent feelings of cynicism, anger, or irritability are key signs of burnout. Those in helping professions...may notice dwindling compassion toward those in their care. Feeling like you can no longer do your job effectively may also signal burnout.”

Here’s another way to think about it. When we experience a stressor, our body goes into fight or flight mode (you’ve heard that info before, right?). While helpful when running from predators in the wild, it’s not a helpful response when your boss comes in with a ridiculous request or unmeetable deadline. You can’t fight your boss. You can’t get up out of your desk and run away. So our body keeps the adrenaline, cortisol and all the other stress hormones in our body. It builds up and builds up...and when your body tries fight and flight repeatedly and it doesn’t work, your body tries another response: FREEZE. In wild animals, that manifests as playing dead. In humans, we call it burnout. 

I was nearing ten years into my nonprofit career when I hit some major burnout. I was actually at a wonderful organization where the Executive Director was a fabulous leader. I had a good salary, great benefits, and doing work that made me feel fulfilled. But I was also working 60 hour weeks, was dealing with a new physical disability, and experiencing a really tough pregnancy. The stress of my job collided with the mounting challenges of my personal life, and my body and brain gave up. I left that job for a new one that was closer to home, had significantly lower expectations, and (to be honest) had a mission I cared about a lot less (which was a self-preservation tactic so that I wouldn’t fall into old habits of staying super late or caring so much about a project that it hurt).

My story has a happy ending. I stayed at my new job two years, I recovered, and stepped back on track with my career with organizations whose missions I was on fire for. Then I took a bigger leap and started coaching and consulting—helping nonprofits change their cultures to prevent burnout. It’s been the most meaningful part of my journey so far.

But down in the depths, I learned some really important lessons that I share with you now.

1. You can’t bubble bath your way out of burnout.

I don’t know when we decided bubble baths were the best thing ever, but I was over them once I was old enough to not care about my rubber ducky. Most of what is passed off as self-care is not really burnout prevention; they are band-aids. When you’ve got a little cut, band-aids are great! They help, they heal, all good. When you’re hemorrhaging, that band-aid is of no use to you. When you’re barreling toward burnout, that’s hemorrhaging; that’s not a little cut. And self-care band-aids aren’t going to do a thing for you.  

2. It’s not YOU, it’s the system.

We like to place responsibility for stress management squarely on individuals. It’s BS, especially for women, people of color, people with disabilities, and many other groups. It’s double BS when you represent more than one of those categories, which so many of us do. When we face microaggressions on a daily basis, have our experiences denied by colleagues, get talked over, get asked to conform...the stress builds up. It’s death by one thousand cuts; and, again, band-aids won’t stop the bleeding after a certain point. 

At some point, you have to look at your environment and realize that—without radical changes to your environment—things simply won’t get better. At that point, you have to assess. Is it worth staying and fighting for change? Or do I need to get out and find a new situation? I’ve done both for different reasons in different situations. But the main point here is that you need to stop looking inward and blaming yourself. Instead, you need to start assessing your environment to know if recovery is even an option.

3. We’ve got to cure Human Giver Syndrome.

My hands-down favorite resource on burnout is the book “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. In the book, they identify “human giver syndrome” as the root cause of burnout. In their assessment, “human givers” are people (read: women, people of color, etc.) who are expected to sacrifice their wellbeing for “human beings” (the people who have historically expected to be taken care of). We can be human givers and human beings at different points in time in different situations, but the balance is heavily weighted toward human givers in certain populations (again, women, people of color, etc.). In fact, “human givers” are punished for trying to assert themselves as “human beings.” We are punished by others. And it’s so pervasive, we internalize it and criticize ourselves for doing things to care for ourselves. 

An example I love from the book is to think of the last time you got a great night’s sleep and shared that information with someone. Was their response “Wonderful! I’m so happy you’re taking care of yourself.” Or was it “oh, lucky you, I wish I could get a good night sleep…”? The authors’ guess (and mine) is that it was the latter. That’s human giver syndrome. When human givers do anything good for themselves (even sleeping), they get punished for it.

I’m doing my part to cure human giver syndrome by having my clients tell me about what they’re doing to take care of themselves, and then I celebrate it. And when they share things that are not taking care of themselves, I ask them why, what can they do to care for themselves more? If it’s a tight deadline, fine, go ahead and hustle, but then I hold them accountable to taking an afternoon off or doing something restorative over the weekend. I do my best to spot human giver syndrome in my clients and root it out. (And I no longer apologize for taking care of myself because I’m leading by example—not just for my clients but for my young daughter.)

4. Self-care is non-negotiable...and (again for the people in the back) self-care isn’t a bubble bath.

The book “Burnout” is chock-full of amazing recommendations for how to manage stress. First and foremost, the book helps you spot what in your environment is keeping you burned out and how to deal with that. But then it walks you through daily stress management and self-care because even in best case scenarios stress is inevitable.

I refer you to the book (or the awesome accompanying podcast, if you’re a more auditory learner) for ideas that work for you. But you need to find what works for you, and then you need to figure out how to make it non-negotiable.

My husband and I have worked together to identify those for ourselves, and we fiercely protect each other’s restorative time. My thing is running, and he makes sure that I have the time to get in my daily run, no matter what. (He even pushes me out the door sometimes when I don’t want to.) For him, it’s his art practice, so I make sure that he has the time he needs in his studio. He is also awesome at coming into my office and turning off my computer at 5 pm. Find people to hold you accountable for keeping yourself well.

5. Boundaries are the best! 

Setting boundaries, especially at work, can be game-changing. Establishing your work hours, and then pushing back when you’re asked to work outside of them is critical. Holding to the boundaries of your job description (because along with mission creep, nonprofits are really good at asking employees to work outside their areas of responsibility) is an important practice. We care, so we fudge our boundaries at work. But that’s part of how we burnout.

And while your colleagues may initially balk at your boundaries, I’ve seen people make important changes to their nonprofit culture by holding their boundaries. For nonprofit leaders, this is doubly important. If YOU don’t hold your boundaries, you’re setting your employees up for failure because they emulate you. YOU set the culture, so don’t be that boss… 

Furthermore, holding your boundaries in your social life is good too. Don’t see that family member that makes you feel bad. You don’t have to go to every socially-mandated baby or wedding shower just because you were invited and don’t have a conflict. If your friend’s destination wedding is going to drain your bank account, tell them you love them but you have other financial priorities.

You can just say no to protect your time, energy, and money. I give you that permission right now.

So what next?

If you’re struggling with burnout, I highly encourage you to read the book and listen to the podcast. If you’re really in need of support, I recommend looking into mental health and therapy services. I’m a big, big fan of therapy!

The worst case scenario, in my mind, is that a talented, caring individual leaves the nonprofit field because of burnout. Every single person who leaves our field is a monumental loss, in my opinion. We need to stop seeing it as inevitable. We need to stop blaming people for not being able to stick it out. We need to stop acting like loyalty or deduction to “the mission” is enough to keep people from hating their jobs. We need to stop treating unbridled stress and burnout as a personal failing. 

We need to start treating burnout for what it is: a systemic failure to support our employees. It’s unacceptable in a field that is committed to “making the world a better place.” Before we change the world, we need to look at our own cultures.

If you learn nothing else from this blog post, let it be this: YOU are not a failure for getting burned out, nonprofit culture is. You deserve care and support. You have the right to take care of yourself above others when you need to. You can’t serve others when you have nothing left to give.