When you are working on a campaign, it’s important to prioritise and support your wellbeing. Campaigns can be all-consuming, especially when you’re hugely passionate about the topic and it resonates with you on a personal level. If you are leading a campaign team, lead by example in terms of looking after your wellbeing. Make sure you are treating yourself with kindness and compassion, communicating your boundaries and following through on them, taking space and a break, and practising self-care.
The following resources below might help support you (and your team) as you campaign.
Activism burnout
Burnout is defined by the World Health Organisation as “a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Burnout can look like; exhaustion, feeling disconnected from your job, and poorer efficiency at work.
Burnout can apply in professional settings, volunteering, and in activism and campaigning, hence the term ‘activism burnout.’ If you are experiencing activism burnout, it may manifest for you as worsening physical and mental health, losing passion for your activism/campaign, or feeling like what you’re doing isn’t good enough (even when it probably is).
If you feel you are burning out, there are a few things you could consider doing to support yourself:
- Back to basics: sleep, eat, hydrate, incorporate movement/exercise, get sunlight, take your medication, tidy your space even if it’s just a corner of your room.
- Talk to trusted friends, family, or fellow campaigners about how you are feeling. Ask for and accept their support.
- Do things you used to enjoy maybe as a child; get out in nature, paint, draw, make something, bake, play a sport, play an instrument, read, listen to music, watch comfort movies.
- Spend time with people you love without it being about your activism or other things which stress you out. Give yourself permission to just be and have fun.
- Acknowledge and celebrate your successes honestly (hint: there will be many across your campaigning, academic life, and personal life).
- Communicate your boundaries, and strengthen them if you need to.
- Practice self-compassion (see below).
- Seek professional support if your symptoms persist. Speak to your GP, Student Services, or other external professionals.
- Reduce some of the stress of your campaign by:
- Taking a step back a little while
- Delegate more to your campaign team – do not take this all on your own.
- Refocus or reduce the number of aims or projects within your campaign. Focus your energy on the aspects which bring you the most joy.
- If it is really affecting you, consider if you should step back from the campaign fully.
Here are some further resources which may support you (we take no responsibility for the content of external resources):
Self-compassion
Self-compassion is a term created by Dr Kristen Neff, and it is where you give yourself the care, respect, and empathy you would give to a loved one. We often have very loud inner critics that tell us we messed up, did something mortifying, or that we aren’t good enough. Self-compassion helps us to quiet that inner critic.
Imagine someone you love or like. Imagine if they said to you “I’m not good enough. I can’t get anything right.” What would you say to them? You wouldn’t say “yeah, you’re right, you’re not good enough,” you’d say something like “you are so creative/intelligent/caring/brave, you’re doing an amazing job.” Self-compassion helps us to give ourselves the same comfort we would give to our friends.
You might find self-compassion extremely useful when dealing with burnout, tiredness, anxiety, or other mental or physical health issues. It can also be great when you’re facing self-doubt, imposter syndrome, or just having a bad day.
With self-compassion, you:
- talk to yourself with kindness and respect,
- acknowledge and accept your feelings,
- stop being so hard on yourself,
- remind yourself of your successes, big and small.
Some examples of self-compassion include:
- “It’s ok that I feel sad/tired etc. right now.”
- “I am doing the best I can today.”
- “I have put together an amazing campaign about X and so far we have achieved Y.”
- “I am proud of myself for how I’m showing up for myself, my friends, and my community today.”
- “I don’t need to believe every negative thing my brain tells me, it’s just trying to keep me safe.”
Here are some resources on self-compassion that you might find useful (we take no responsibility for the content of external resources)::
Boundaries
Boundaries are the limits or extent of our relationships and define what is healthy and appropriate for everyone in that relationship. You can have boundaries with your work/volunteering, with friends and family, and with campaigning/activism. For example, a boundary with your friends might be that you don't discuss certain topics that you find upsetting. Boundaries are personal and will change depending on context. They sound harsh, but they're actually a kind thing to put in place so that everyone in that situation knows what to expect from each other.
Boundaries ensure there’s some separation between you as a person, and you in your activism role. One way to create boundaries is having limits around social media and what you can be contacted that way for. For example, you could make sure that only use your campaign social media account for campaign work, and your personal account is just for you. With your campaign team, you might ask that they don’t contact you about the campaign outside of certain hours as you are working/sleeping/spending time with friends. You might also need to consider how much you share about your own experiences, if your activism directly relates to your personal life and experiences. Your boundaries will be personal to you, so you get to decide what they are.
You should communicate your boundaries clearly with people who need to know them. Don’t expect people to be mind-readers! At the same time, give them the opportunity to express what their boundaries are with you, and respect them.
Here are some resources about boundaries that you may find helpful (we take no responsibility for the content of external resources):
Fear of being visible to others
If you are out there on social media or in the street campaigning so people know your name and face, you might be a bit scared or unnerved about the idea of being so visible. This is totally normal and ok!
You may sometimes experience this because you’re afraid of what other people will think or say about you. Gentle reminder: people are much more focused on themselves and really don’t care about what you do or how you behave,
While you can’t control what people think about you, you can control how you treat yourself. Perhaps try some affirmations like “it is safe for me to be seen,” “I can do this,” “I am capable,” “what I have to say is important,” or any other affirmation that will help you.
You may find some of these resources helpful (we take no responsibility for the content of external resources):
- A blog post on the fear of being seen
- A TED talk on the power of being seen
- A TED talk on feeling anxious in social situations and what to do about it
It is also important to be note that visibility within campaigns can carry greater personal risks for those of marginalised identities. For example, someone may identify as LGBTQ+ but not be out to family or are from a country where these identities are illegal, and visibility of their identity may cause them harm in other parts of their life. Therefore, it is important to centre intersectionality within your campaign and be mindful of the risks that come with campaign exposure. Examples of this include making sure that you don’t share photographs of activists where they can clearly be identified without their permission, and anonymising names/only using first names if you share quotations from activists as part of your campaign promotion.
Fear of public speaking
As part of your campaign, there might be times when you want to speak publicly, such as:
- Leading a protest or vigil
- Facilitating a panel discussion
- Introducing an external speaker
- Holding a stall to get people interested in your campaign
Speaking in public is scary for most people (except perhaps the most outgoing people). Whatever your plans for speaking in public, here are some general tips:
- Plan what you are going to say ahead of time if you can. Think about your campaign aims, or the purpose of the event you are holding. What key messages do you want to get across? You can always have some bullet points of things to remember if that will help jog your memory. You might practise in front of the mirror if you would find that helpful., or just say it aloud till it’s in your head without the mirror.
- Remind yourself that you can do this! Before you start, you might repeat positive affirmations to yourself such as “I am brave, I can do this,” “everything is ok,” or “I’m proud of myself for taking on this challenge.” These can help you to calm down and focus on the positives.
- Take some deep breaths. One pattern that may help you is ‘square breathing.’ You breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, and hold for 4, and then start again. You can increase or decrease the count as you need, the important thing is to keep the counts the same at each point. The aim here is to get your breathing and heart rate at a slower, calmer pace, which will help you to come out of any fight or flight response. If a breathing pattern like this isn’t available to you, just focus on however you normally breathe, or try to make breathing out longer than breathing in (e.g. breathe in for 3 and breathing out for 4).
- Be gentle with yourself around your fears. When fears or anxiety come up, we can often tell ourselves to “get over it” which isn’t helpful. Often, these feelings are a way of our body/brain trying to protect us from what it sees as threats. Perhaps you might like to say to yourself “thank you for looking out for me, but I am safe.”
Some resources that might be useful (we take no responsibility for the content of external resources):
Signposting
No matter how you are feeling, you might find you’d like to talk to someone. Here are some resources that might suit your needs:
University
External