Community and Burnout

It's been a while since we were last together, but that’s the joy of the journey! We are figuring this out together and taking it one episode at a time. What is the saying - “building the plane while we are flying”? Since we last were together we have welcomed the Fall and are moving right along through 2022. I have a lot of big dreams the Shine Brighter movement as a whole and I think all of these things will come and change in seasons. So with every seasonal shift, I see so many cool opportunities for growth and change! I love it!!

If this is your first time joining us, WELCOME! I am so excited that you are here! This is a place where we are learning together how we can identify and prevent burnout in all areas of our lives.

You can listen to this Shine Brighter Podcast episode and others on all your favorite platforms. Check it out here: https://linkin.bio/shinebrighterpod

---

Community: WHAT you share with WHO

A common question I hear in the dating world nowadays is “what are you looking for?” and my answer is always “connection”. When I meet new people, in any context, I am looking for a spark of connection- could be romantic or platonic, but I know that connection is a non-negotiable when looking to invest time and energy into a new person. As human people, we crave connection. Even those who describe themselves as introverts or “non-people” people still attest to needing a source of friends or family who recharge them in their own unique way.

This article is about the importance of that healthy community. I suppose I shouldn’t say “community”, but instead “communities”. Our community is made up of small mini-communities that create our circle of influence. Different parts of your life require different kinds of support. There may be some crossover in your communities, but it’s all about what you share with who. This is our differentiator between friends, family, or network and your Community. Each of these groups experiences a niche version of you and a specific insight into your world. But a healthy community will help us fight off, spot, and prevent burnout.

A great example: If you’re a teacher (one of my go-to careers when I think about burnout) you may have people in your Teacher Community who can relate to your Work Struggles and Victories, but can’t fully relate to your experience as a parent or as a single person. In the same vein, you’ll have people in your Parent Community with whom you can talk about your worries and celebrations of your family, but just can’t understand what it feels like to juggle a room full of 20-something kids and then come home to your own crew to manage.

There may be a few people who can relate to the many hats you wear, but when it comes to burnout, it’s important to foster those relationships that lend directly to your stressors. People who know what it looks like to struggle in the same way you struggle, that understand the joy of success through the lens you experience it, that you can tell about a work issue without having to try to explain molecular biology JUST to tell a simple story about your day are worth having.

3 Qualities of a Healthy Community

You can identify community (versus a different type of relationship or connection) by looking at the people that you go to in times of stress, uncertainty, or difficulty and possess these 3 things:

1. Common Ground - they understand your struggles and successes in a specific part of your life

2. Trust - you trust them enough to be honest with your questions, worries, and struggles and you believe they have your best interest at heart.

3. Encouragement - a group that is rooting for you to succeed! Even when you disagree, these people only want to see you win.

We run to friends, family, or coworkers to vent or share sometimes, but your community is built around those people who you share that common ground with, who you trust enough to be authentic with in times of stress, and who you know will build you up and cheer you towards success.

My Community

One of the reasons that I have been looking forward to sharing this post is that I wanted to tell you about some examples of a great community - my community! I knew I couldn’t have an episode where we talk about community and not mention these incredible people:

I have a Ministry Community: This was my first real community and, even though I am professionally removed, I still have this community today. These are my people who understand the struggles and pains of working in full-time ministry. They see the injustice and change that is needed in the church today as well as the beauty that exists in the contributions of the local church. They know the pain of convincing someone that this is my career and not just a “volunteer” or the knife to the heart that comes when someone asks you what your “real” job is. But they also understand the joy of investing time, energy, and love into kids and families. They know the importance of a well-stocked Skittles collection and why I have 3 bins in my storage unit labeled “Beau - Costumes” including, but not limited to, a red-sequin blazer and an inflatable man-riding-an-ostridge costume.

I have a subset of my ministry community and that’s my Educator Community: granted, I have never been a public school educator, but both of my parents were educators and I grew up behind the scenes of the school system. I have a deep connection to this community and am privileged to have a deeper understanding than the average bear. I say it’s a subset of my Ministry community because the celebrations and hurdles of these two careers overlap heavily. They both love what they do more than most and never get enough credit for their work. The people I have in this community are invaluable.

I have, what I call, my Corporate Community: these are my coworkers and business-minded friends/connections. These are the people I invest in and who understand the context and struggles of my work. These are the people in my circle who I can ask for advice on growth, development, and strategy in navigating the corporate world (a world I had not navigated until my career shift in 2021). This community has provided sage wisdom and been a sounding board for decisions and direction. This community pushes me to be the best version of myself from every angle and put up with a lot of big ideas and dangerous ramblings from me.

I have my LGBTQ+ Community: Something I didn’t understand about this group until I fully embraced my place with them is that anyone outside of this community will never fully understand what it feels like to be a part of it. What it felt like to grow up as a queer kid in the south. The behaviors and ideas we had to learn and unlearn as we started to fully accept who we were made to be. There also is so much “underground” language and information to navigate with the gays. Jokes and “common knowledge” that people outside of this community just won’t get or fully appreciate. I have lots of friends who are very affirming (a church word for supporting LGBTQ+ people) and are always willing to learn more about what the queer community experiences, but there’s just something about having someone on the inside who has those shared experiences that transcend explanation.

And of course, I have other friends and family who fall into many and none of these categories. They are a part of my life community, but as it pertains to burnout, they may not fall into a community that I lean on for support or go to in times of stress.

Enough about MY community though, let’s dig deeper into why community is so important and how we go about protecting ourselves from burnout by surrounding ourselves with the right people.

Why Community is Important

Andy Stanley recently said on his podcast “The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast”, and I’m sure by many others and in many other instances that “transformation happens in community, not because of content”. If we were able to get everything we needed from content - books, podcasts, articles, then we would have it. We would be the most well-rounded, brilliant, richest, wisest, leaders, parents, managers, and kids in the world because we have access to ALL that content! But it’s a community that takes that content we have access to, makes it stick, and creates the growth and transformation we are looking for. It’s the people around us that we trust to hold us accountable to stick with our goals and boundaries. It’s our tribe, as many call it, that brings their experiences to the table to help us navigate new terrain when we are unsure or shaky about our next move.

And we all have community. These people that we allow ourselves to regularly be surrounded by. Some members of our community build us up and some wear us down. Some do both if we are being honest.

Connection vs. Communication

In today’s world of constant access to the masses through social media and the internet, it’s easy to think that we always have access to the kind of community we are looking for. Covid has changed the impact of virtual connections for us forever, in both negative and positive ways. Namely blurring that line between virtual and authentic connection. With the click of a button, we can find ourselves in a thread of people who have been through the same experiences and seem to genuinely care for our success. Online relationships have the potential to foster connection over simple communication, but it has to be fostered.

Not to say that social media and online relationships can’t be beneficial, but the kind of community we are talking about happens most effectively outside of the facade of social media. To get to the community we need to effectively support ourselves and fend off burnout, we need authentic connection versus surface-level communication.

Sure, we can out-pour our feelings and struggles into the depths of the internet, but the reality is that even when we get feedback or input from people on the other side of the screen, it’s no replacement for that genuine, trusted connection - more than just messages, comments, and dms. Authentic relationship is what cultivates true connection in place of surface-level communication.

What Healthy Community Looks Like

What I really want us to focus on though is identifying our healthy communities. Healthy community builds you up and encourages you while also relating to your struggle. These are voices that speak into your world to encourage and validate you.

For example, the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program is incredibly intentional about developing a healthy community. These groups come together with the united mission to stop drinking.

“A.A.'s Preamble states that Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from Alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.”

I have never been in AA, so I can’t speak to the full breadth of the experience, but the people I have spoken to who HAVE participated in the program have resonated this truth - “transformation happens in community, not because of content.” Again, the content is available and ready to be soaked up and digested, but it’s the community of support and encouragement that makes the difference.

Trust

A key element in a healthy community is trust. A community that inspires growth and transformation has to include people whom you are willing to be vulnerable. When trust is missing from a community, it is likely because of one of these two personalities: Untrustworthy Listeners and Overly-Guarded Sharers. Healthy community can’t exist without trust and these two types of people are toxic to your community

Untrustworthy Listeners

If you don’t trust the person that you are sharing with, it makes it nearly impossible to share authentic struggle, hurt, or questions. If you believe that the person you are trying to be vulnerable with will turn around and use that information against you, share it outside of your conversation or safe space, or make you feel less than because of what you shared, you, understandably, aren’t going to want to share with that person. This Untrustworthy Listener contributes to a toxic community, which we are going to talk a bit more about in a minute.

Overly-Guarded Sharer

The other side of this coin though is an Overly-Guarded Sharer. This is someone who refuses to open up and share their perspective or authentic self. This could be for a lot of different reasons, all of which could be valid, but it still makes them unhealthy members of your community. Community requires authentic contribution and if you can’t offer that, you aren’t going to be able to receive the full breadth of support from your community. Trust is everything in building a healthy community.

Fight me Bro

Trust also means that you have created space for your community to fight back and disagree with you when they see things differently. A healthy community is NOT a team of “yes men”. I believe that in a truly healthy community, your people will openly disagree with you and challenge your thinking when necessary. I think the best community consists of people who you trust, and who trust you, enough to allow for disagreement and even debate.

Common Ground & Encouragement

Having a group of people who know what it’s like to struggle in the way you do and want to encourage you to be the best version of yourself through advice and challenging your perspective makes for a healthy community.

It's in this community that we are able to wrestle with the tough seasons and use our resources to fight off the incoming darkness of burnout. Surrounding yourself with people who understand our struggle can help us to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They cheer us on as we chase it and fight back against burnout.

When you have more eyes and ears watching for burnout, when you have a team of supporters you can honestly share with, you’re more likely to see burnout coming and can take the steps you need to push it back.

What Toxic Community Looks Like

It’s also important to be able to identify a toxic community. Just like burnout prevention includes identifying the signs of burnout before we can manage it, we have to be able to categorize the members of our community before we can determine if we need to uproot the plant or water the soil.

Toxic Community can look like an unhealthy group of people or just an individual infiltrating an otherwise healthy group. Toxic people or communities drag you down with negativity and provide no solutions. Toxic Community often brings negativity for negativity’s sake. These are people who don’t understand what you’re going through when you open up. Sometimes they think they do understand, but actually are making their problems seem like yours in an attempt to talk more about themselves.

“Good people” can be a part of a toxic community, unfortunately. Your friends and family may be nice and supportive people, but that doesn't mean they should be a part of your community as it pertains to burnout prevention. Remember, our community can be determined by what you share with who.

It’s about the vulnerability we are offering and how much we are allowing these people to influence our life. There will be coworkers or leaders who you can’t include in your community because you don’t trust their insight or what they will do with what you share with them. There are friends who don’t understand enough about what you do to fully contribute to your future success. There are members of your family that might not want to cheer you on toward success.

This might be a boss or leader that you might initially see as a part of your community because you go to them in times of stress, but upon further reflection, you don't trust them enough to share the full picture of your struggle for fear of the consequences. Or worse, they don’t use their insight and influence in your life to support or build you up.

Maybe this looks like a coworker who you have common ground with and trust wholeheartedly with what you share but does not provide encouragement. Instead of encouraging you or listening to you, they just pile on with their own frustrations and issues. One of those “misery loves company” types. They aren’t cheering you on, they are dragging you down deeper toward burnout.

What about people that we have already included in our community that, as it turns out, might not be healthy community members? If a toxic community pulls us down, then we have to stop giving them rope to pull. We have to make the conscious, and often difficult, choice to NOT take our stress, problems, and questions to them. If they have no ammunition, they can’t drain you by not understanding, using your worries against you, or tearing down your ambition. BUT that stress still exists, right? We run to these toxic communities because we need insight, advice, or a safe place to vent! So, we have to intentionally reroute our brains to reach out to a healthy and safe person.

Building Your Community

How do we create this healthy community though? Many people are already around us. They ARE friends, family, and coworkers. But they are also out there in the form of competitors, mentors, sponsors, and coaches as well. Sometimes we need to look outside of our immediate circle, our comfort zone of connection, to find genuinely helpful community.

“Networking” is a corporate buzzword that, if you know it, you either love or hate. I love networking. I love meeting new people and learning about how we can benefit learn from each other’s life experiences. Networking is more than climbing a ladder or building up a “little black book” of contacts and resources. Your network can be a great start to building a community. But a community is deeper than a network. People in your network don’t always check those 3 boxes: common ground, trust, and encouragement. We usually aren’t just going to stumble into community though, so we have to pursue these people that we have connected with to see if they could be assets to a healthy community.

It’s great to understand who in our lives check the boxes of being a part of our community, but we also have to be intentional about inviting them into that space. We need to let them know that they play an influential role in our work, life, relationships, or career. Tell those people in your community that their voice is playing a significant role in your world. Maybe it’s just by thanking them for the way they have shaped a decision you made or how much you appreciate what they have done for you and the impact they’ve had.

Who’s in Your Community

James Clear, an author and speaker has said “If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.” When we have a healthy community, we establish a system to help combat symptoms of burnout. When we have a place to bring our stress and feelings of being overwhelmed, we are allowing people we trust to come in and see where we struggle. We create space for others to offer perspective and guidance as to how we can put practices, behaviors, and boundaries in place to keep us on the path away from burnout.

In closing, a healthy community includes these 3 things:

1. Common Ground - they understand your struggles and successes in a certain part of your life. This could be your family, your work, your hobbies, or your faith - any part of your world that might cause stress or lead you toward burnout.

2. Trust - you trust them enough to be honest with your questions, worries, and struggles and you believe they have your best interest at heart.

3. Encouragement - they are rooting for you to win! Even when you disagree, these people only want to see you win. They build you up and steer you toward success.

I challenge you to think about the communities you have created. Think about the people you spend most of your time with. The people who you go to in stress and lean on for supporting these different areas of your life. Who are 3 people currently in your community? Do they meet all 3 qualities of a Healthy Community? Think about why or why not and if you need to make some changes.

Now think about the areas in your life that you don't have anyone speaking into. Think about the communities that you HAVEN’T built: Do you have a professional community? Do you have a spiritual community? Do you have a community for any of your hobbies? Again, all of these little, mini-communities build up your community of influence.

Think about those 3 qualities again, 1. Share a Common Ground, 2. You trust to be authentic and vulnerable, and 3. They encourage and empower you to be the best version of yourself. Who are 3 people that you can actively bring into your community?

You can listen to this Shine Brighter Podcast episode and others on all your favorite platforms. Check it out here: https://linkin.bio/shinebrighterpod