Whether it’s abstinence from alcohol, a new gym membership or Veganuary, the start of a new year often equates with resolutions around health and wellbeing. For event planners, achieving that healthy work-life balance from the outset is no easy task.
In fact, event management is consistently talked about as one of the top ten most stressful professions in the world (usually just after being a fire-fighter or serving in the military).
Every day, eventprofs juggle last-minute changes, client demands, rapidly approaching deadlines and more recently, the accelerated responsibilities for managing both in-person and online audiences for hybrid formats.
Planning for hybrid may result in feelings of dread that costs will escalate, being over-whelmed by the amount of attendee data, having a heightened sense of technology considerations you’d never imagined (when did you become an expert on a speaker’s home broadband speed?), plus that nagging fear that either the online or in-person attendee will feel neglected or disengaged, despite your best efforts.
During last year’s Event Wellbeing Week, cognitive behavioural expert Alycia Angle presented the Re3 method of managing such negative thoughts and emotions.
Her advice is to recognise feelings of professional anxiety, give them a name so that they can be expressed and become more manageable, reframe those feelings by getting someone else’s perspective on your performance or the challenge keeping you awake at night, and then practice replacing those feelings with a go-to action such as taking the dog for a walk to clear your head or listening to music that makes you feel joyful.
It’s easy to get bogged down by all the new terminology associated with virtual events or the little things that didn’t go as intended. So don’t be afraid to speak up and ask questions of platform providers or production suppliers and make a conscious choice to focus on the positives first, and then consider what you would change.
Remember, there really is no such thing as a silly question since, when it comes to hybrid, eventprofs are all on a learning curve together that will continue upwards for some time yet. And secondly, embracing what went negatively allows you the opportunity to grow in your craft.
Over the past two years, working from home and up-skilling to virtual may have done little to calm the nerves of talented planners who have always thrived under the pressures associated with staging live events. So this year, don’t let the new challenges associated with staging successful hybrid formats impact mental health.
Keep it simple, speak openly and build-in positivity, mindfulness and self-care into both your work-life, home-life and even your event programme.
When you’re the best you can be, your hybrid or virtual event will be too.
If you're looking to reframe your approach to virtual and hybrid event planning this year and hear tips on how to optimise your event channel for a less stressful experience, register and tune into our upcoming webinar, New Year, New You, New Cvent Experience, taking place on 20 January, 2022.
