How To Stay Sane In Sustainability

As I write this, my fingers are slipping across the keys. London’s infrastructure isn’t built for heat, and Londoners are even less adapted to today’s unprecedented roasting weather. When I try to imagine writing this article in the hellish 49c heat of Delhi, my brain melts a little more.

The threats I’ve spent my career fighting against are starting to bite, and that’s hard to handle.

Climate emergency, injustice, poverty, biodiversity crash, inequality surge, youth exclusion, water crisis etc etc etc. Working in sustainability means thinking about the worst, every single day. It’s exhausting, overwhelming and often just depressing.

Of course, we all work on these grim issues in order to solve them. Our job is to create solutions, turn the tide and capture the huge benefits from doing so. Sustainability people are some of the most tenacious, optimistic and creative people I know.

But it doesn’t mean keeping that balance between problem and solution is easy. And when that balance shifts inside you – the weight of these ‘meta-crisis’ can feel crushing. It’s all too easy to start panicking - am I doing the right thing/enough? Should I be gluing myself to paintings instead? Or running for political office? Or maybe, like the proponents of ‘deep adaptation ’, I should just give up and brace myself for total societal collapse?

So far so upbeat, eh? Don’t worry, I’m still Chief Solutionist, and during two decades of keeping my head above burnout, I’ve learnt some beautiful and powerful tactics to keep going – even on my worst days. ??

I’m sharing them because I need you to keep going. Every changemaker is precious and valued in this colossal effort to shift from problem to solution.

You are important. That is true.

Yet, it’s also true that this isn’t about you.

Stick with me. Because de-centring yourself is the most healthy and uplifting thing you can do in sustainability.

Sustainability is about service. Service is a weird word – and one that’s been devalued by so many ‘public servants’ actually being self-serving. What I mean by service is to make yourself useful to others, to do duty to society, and to help achieve what is needed.

And living up to this verb has an extraordinary secret power – because service is its own reward.

So many of us feel overwhelmed (and some are even bitter) because working to make things better doesn’t always seem to work, at least not immediately. That lack of perceived impact can make us feel worthless, or even stupid for trying. I’ll come in a moment to why that’s not true and you are making a difference. But, being in service means you don’t demand the world validate your efforts.

I’m convinced that despite decades of overwork in sustainability, and some achievements that others are impressed by, the biggest impact I’ll make is probably some small talk I gave once and can’t even remember – but it inspired some kid who then went on to make a real difference. I’ll never know, never receive feedback, never have proof that I’ve made a difference.

And that’s ok. Because putting yourself in service to society means you do it anyway. Even when you’re overwhelmed. Even when things look bleak. Especially when things look bleak. Servant leadership is about the service, not feeling like a leader.

I firmly believe that a better world is possible and even likely . It will happen because of people like you, doing the work, and hopefully a few positive wildcards we don’t expect. But I don’t expect to see that it. Even if things get worse, I’ll keep working for them to get better, never losing hope that it’s possible. As I’ve said before :

Most of the suffragettes never got to vote.

Most early LGBT+ activists never got to marry.

Most civil rights activists never saw the first black President.

Inventors of electricity died by candlelight.

These people dedicated their lives to a better future they never lived in.?

This service mindset is the most healthy, resilient and sane one in times of crisis. And there are active ways you can nurture that attitude:

• Stop doomscrolling . Obsessively scrolling through negative news makes the world a worse place – it pushes those stories up the social media algorithms. Stop doomscrolling for society's sake! Look at the problems just long enough to invent solutions, but no longer.
• Remember - bad days are necessary. The gut punches will come, and sleep will go out the window. Don’t block days like these – surf them. Being in service to society is who you are, not just what you do. There will be failures and success, and the servant leader treats them both the same – milestones on the journey.
• Don’t turn on each other. When people feel we’re failing as a movement it often sparks a pang of personal guilt that’s hard to bear. Too often that guilt switches into anger at others who are also trying to make a difference. If others had been more effective then you wouldn’t feel so bad, right? But that’s making it about you, and your concern should be with your own service. Fight the bad guys – there are more than enough of them. And support the other servants of sustainability, they need it.
• Accept joy. This is the hardest and MOST IMPORTANT THING you can do! Even though things look bad for so many other people and the planet itself, that doesn’t mean you should block yourself off from fun, laughter and happiness. As the wonderful Ayana Elizabeth Johnson puts it - don’t just accept joy – seek it out , make it, and gift it to others. Joy is the whole point of this – isn’t it??

That’s the real trick for avoiding burnout. Think of something or someone that brings you relief or makes you smile and go and chase that joy, right now. Because taking joy in the moment is the reward for service – not saving the world and walking off into the sunset.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you’re doing, and I wish you sanity whilst doing it!