Beyond Burnout

Building resilient communities

Editor’s note: this is a guest post from Evy, a frequent contributor to Supernuclear who also writes about communal living on their blog.

Recruiting new residents is one of the most stressful things a house does. The stakes are high: you’re choosing a person who you’ll see almost every day, who will collaborate with you on house projects, who will be part of tense decision-making moments. They’ll sometimes be around when you’ve had a tough day and aren’t at your best. You’re also relying on them to pay their portion of the rent on time.

I’ve led recruiting at The Village many times. In earlier iterations, it felt like I was nagging people every day -- “post our ad!” “review candidates!” “who can take this interview?” -- often met with the silence of people avoiding stressful and time-consuming tasks.

I tried motivating people through threats: “If we don’t get more applicants, we could start losing rent money! If we’re in a crunch with few options, we could bring someone in that isn’t a good fit! The future of the house is on the line!” But as a large house that is frequently recruiting, it’s exhausting to feel that the future of the house is constantly on the line. We were all getting burned out on recruiting. So, one recruiting cycle, I tried a new strategy: accepting the possibility of failure.

I reframed my role as someone who was organizing recruiting but not responsible for its success. I communicated the risks of not doing the work, but I communicated them once and then stopped nagging people about it. I pulled my attention away from ruminating on the potential of catastrophe, and recruiting was less stressful for everyone! Until the end, when we had only one candidate we were seriously considering and were two weeks away from losing money on the room. Several people were stressed about the house losing money, and at least one person wished we had more candidates to choose from.

We extended the candidate an offer and they luckily accepted and it worked out great, but in that final recruiting meeting I said: “If you wish we had more time or more options, I encourage you to consider doing something different next time, like posting our ad more quickly and in more places. The situation we’re in is a direct consequence of our collective behavior from two months ago.” The next time we kicked off a recruiting round, people got more involved.

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A fear of failure, of a community collapsing if certain things don’t happen, is common in community organizing. Our communities mean a lot to us, and for those of us with perfectionist or anxious tendencies many things can feel like existential threats: procedures not being followed or not existing in the “right” ways, ongoing unresolved conflict, spending “too much” money. But there’s another threat that we often don’t consider: our own perfectionistic and fear-driven behavior.

Acting from fear can look many ways. I’ve seen people send frequent or long messages that community members are overwhelmed by and intimidated to engage with. I’ve seen people express frustration or anger that trigger fear responses in community members. I’ve seen people cling to their idea of what “should” happen with such strength that community members have difficulty sharing their own different opinions or avoid taking action out of fear of doing it “wrong”.

Fear-driven behaviors can make it less pleasant for others to engage with the situation, which can result in people participating less or even leaving a community. This is generally the opposite of what the original person wanted, but they don’t always realize they’re getting in the way of what they want. Even if they do, it can be very difficult to change these behaviors.

Getting out of this cycle often isn’t easy, but noticing it’s happening is a great first step. Healthy communities don’t have individuals resentfully doing large amounts of work. The people doing most of the work get burned out, the people not doing much work feel disconnected, and the community lacks the resilience to handle its “leaders” stepping back.

If you’re in the resentful burned out leader role and looking for a fix, it will be easier to control your own behavior than anyone else’s. Here are some suggestions, inspired by what has helped me:

Wait a little to see if someone steps up.

A housemate was once complaining to me about always being the one to take out the compost, and in this conversation I realized they consider the compost to be full before the point that I would consider it to be full. If they waited, someone else would likely do it. Waiting can be unpleasant, especially if you really would prefer the thing be done earlier, but it’s often worth it. When people have the space to contribute on a timeline that makes sense to them, they’ll contribute more regularly and work will be more distributed.

Recognize when your desires aren’t objectively correct.

Sometimes the thing you want or think is best for the community isn’t what others want. This isn’t always obvious, so it’s helpful to get curious -- if something isn’t happening the way you want, does that mean others don’t want the thing you want? Do they prefer more mess and less cleaning work? Do they prefer more risk and less intense recruiting efforts? Do they prefer a fuller compost bin and less frequent trips to take it out? It’s possible that other people aren’t understanding the impacts of their preference, and it’s also possible that you’re not understanding the impacts of your own preference. If you can all talk about it with curiosity and an open mind, you’ll likely find a community solution that considers everyone’s desires.

Be flexible towards the average community desire.

Finding a solution when different desires are present is much easier when people can be flexible around what they’re willing to live with. I’m not suggesting you abandon the things you care about, but rather take some time to think about how important they really are. Is it worth it to have something different than your ideal, if it means more people are happy and participating? If compromising on your ideals doesn’t feel acceptable, do you feel capable of regularly doing the work you want done (e.g. extra cleaning, extra recruiting work) without being resentful about it and without pissing people off? And if not, does it make sense to step back from this community and find more like-minded people?

Accept the possibility of failure.

When I have the thought “if XYZ doesn’t happen then things could get really bad”, I’ve grown the ability to sometimes respond “maybe, and if so I’ll be able to get through it”. Developing the tolerance for failure helps me manage anxiety and really helps me be more flexible. Our lives are full of risks and things can always go wrong in some way or another. I like to ask “what am I afraid of?” and “if that happens, then what?” and “if that happens, then what?” -- usually I eventually realize the situation is not as bad as I thought or the thing I’m particularly scared of has a pretty low chance of happening. Sometimes the thing I’m afraid of really is something I’m quite invested in preventing, and in those situations I invest more deeply. But I pick my battles.

Do the emotional work.

This can be therapy, but it can also be a men’s group, a meditation practice, a series of workshops, or a helpful friend. I read Self Therapy to learn how to do Internal Family Systems therapy on my own and with friends, and it’s changed my life (and also helped several of my friends). Learning how to notice and process intense emotions helps my actions come from a more grounded place, showing up as a more effective collaborator in my communities.

Emotional work also helps me with all of my previous suggestions -- distress tolerance skills help me wait for others to step up and give me confidence in my ability to handle potential failures, emotional awareness helps me realize when I’m feeling objectively correct and helps me cultivate curiosity about others, feeling overall happier helps me be more flexible and desire less control over my environment.

This is hard work, but it’s meaningful work. And each time we develop these skills, we’re building the foundation for the more collaborative and community-centered future we dream of.

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Thank you to Erika Herrera for his help in creating several of these memes. And thanks to Evy for this post! We always appreciate their dives into the details of coliving. Suggested further reading: