Have you put on your oxygen mask?

From the CEO with Marion Short

While there has been much talk about masks, lately I have been thinking about another type of masks – oxygen masks.

We all know the safety instruction given on airplanes that in case of an emergency you have to fit your own oxygen mask before helping others to fit theirs. Whilst I’ve travelled on a lot of airplanes, thankfully I’ve never actually had to follow through with this instruction. In real life, with feet firmly planted on the ground, how easy is it though to care for yourself before caring for others? 

For engagers especially I have really strong feeling that we have to work really hard to nail this whole wellbeing and self-care thing.

As community engagement professionals, we spend a lot of time checking in on others – our communities, our clients, stakeholders and our teams. Often we operate in a highly stressful and emotional environment, and so we put a lot of effort into making sure everyone else is comfortable in that environment.

Last year, we surveyed our members to check in on their wellbeing. While many felt that they had a handle on managing work-related stress, there were plenty of engagers feeling burnt out, stressed and fatigued. And this was before the effects of COVID-19 was felt!

So, in case anyone needs to read this today, here is your reminder to keep taking care of yourself. Especially now. I don’t need to provide you with a long list of wellbeing tips – you have seen them all before and hopefully have your own self-care strategies in place.

To hear from engagement professionals on how they fit their own oxygen mask, then you may like to revisit some of our recent IAP2 TV moments:

Wellbeing and the Engagement Practitioner with Joel Levin from our Tales with Giants series.

Feel the burn! Managing burnout as a community engagement practitioner with Rebecca Spencer in the IAP2 TV studio.

Or, join a virtual place network event – a supportive environment for engagement practitioners.