Why Our Needs are Non-Negotiable

Most changemakers find it easier to put others before themselves. When we look at the glaring needs in our communities, our countries and the world, it's easier to work an extra hour or three than justify going to yoga or meeting up with friends.

If others are so much worse off, struggling to survive or make it to the next day, we tell ourselves, isn't self-care a luxury? If others have needs that must be attended to, shouldn't we give up our own need for well-being so that theirs’ can be met?

This kind of false logic gets changemakers into real trouble. It’s responsible for most of the burn-out, cynicism and quitting we see in the social sector, whether from start-ups or aid and development.

Our needs aren't optional. Thinking that they are is not only untrue, but it sets us up for misery and failure, again and again.

I'm not just talking about work failure, although I mean that too. Putting others' needs before our own means our closest relationships  are going to be fraught with suffering, anguish and despair, including the relationship we have with ourselves.

If you don't already agree with me, my guess is that you've been ignoring and postponing your own needs for far too long. It's just a matter of time before you reach a breaking point, one that will force you to reckon with the aftermath of years or even decades of self-abnegation and neglect.

What do they tell you whenever you get on a plane? Put your own oxygen mask on first before trying to assist other passengers.

What happens if you don't? If you try to sacrifice your own need for oxygen in the name of helping someone else? You pass out, without succeeding in helping your neighbor or yourself – and now they're out of luck as well.

Sacrificing your own needs in the name of helping someone else isn’t just silly, it can be downright dangerous.

Over the years that I've been working with changemakers, I've come to recognize a familiar pattern. Someone will come to me for support and 80% of the time, they're not eating right, sleeping, exercising properly or even drinking enough water.

It's crazy. How are we expected to change the world if we can't even remember to exercise? What kind of strange martyrdom are we playing at when we try to work long hours without giving ourselves any time to relax?

It makes no sense, but I do it too. Here's the thing.

Unless we honor our material needs, we're not able to do the work.

Maybe we'll last a few international postings, or make it past the start-up stage of our social enterprise, but sooner or later, the chronic stress will catch up to us. We'll end up exhausted, sick, hysterical, tired and so burned out that it takes a fundamental shift of lifestyle and priorities to get back on track.

I've seen founders walk away from successful impact businesses and humanitarian aid advisers take months off work at the peak their careers, just because they didn't believe in self-care.

If you want to be here, doing the work that matters until the work is done, you need to see your needs as fundamentally necessary.

You need to believe self-care is an investment in your own staying power, more essential than any networking opportunity and more fundamental than answering your email.

Here's the other thing.

Most changemakers are terrible at acknowledging and meeting their own needs. We just are.

Maybe it's because we come from people-pleasing families, or because we see the world getting darker and more stressful for most of the people living in it. But the "why" doesn't really matter.

What matters is we figure out how to fix this fatal flaw in our do-gooder nature before it kills us, metaphorically or physically.

I'm not joking. Changemakers suffer chronic stress, which when left untreated causes premature death from things like heart disease and stroke. I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just helping you see how non-negotiable your physical needs are.

The thing is, when most people realize how badly they're treating themselves, they follow that realization with intense bouts of guilt mixed with manic motivation. They'll start a rigorous fitness program or a drastic diet, or become uncompromisingly rigid around a certain piece of their self-care.

These quick self-care fixes don’t last, and instead our self-esteem suffers when we start to wonder why we can’t manage to do the things we know are good for us.

How do we turn this around, so that we changemakers can becoming thriving examples of health and happiness?

For starters, we have to move away from the paradigm of martyrdom that tells us that impact work demands pain and sacrifice.

I refuse to believe that is true and have helped over a thousand changemakers bring more health and happiness to their lives – all while making more a difference in the world.

New behaviors take time and support to stick. They work better when adopted in community, and when they align with your deepest vision and values, for the kind of future you want to make for yourself.

Us changemakers spend a lot of time working for the good of others.

It's time to figure out how to optimize what works for us, so that we can have real staying power and impact in a world that needs us now more than ever.

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Finally, sharing is caring. We all know someone who's skating at the edge of burnout. Send them this article and start a conversation about how you find it hard to see and meet your needs too. There's no shame in needing a little help from our friends.