How To Avoid Burnout

Many of us love to help others in various ways, from caring for elderly parents to assisting those struggling with emotional or physical disabilities. But you might need to learn how often helping others can lead to burnout. Let's explore ways together to avoid burnout and keep assisting others for whom we care.

(Please note: this is a talk not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. If you've chosen to listen to this podcast, There's a high probability that you like to help others. You feel that giving to others is a great way to live life, And I couldn't agree more. After I moved away to go to university, My parents decided that they were getting tired of the midwestern winters and they wanted to move to the Sunbelt where it was warmer. So they sold everything they had and they moved to Arizona. And of course, They didn't know anyone there so they had to decide what were they going to do after they got jobs and got settled in. I actually don't know how it happened, But my father, Who was always a very kind soul, Saw so many people in Arizona living homeless that he decided to start visiting them and getting to know them and spend time with them. And then he and my mother would go to local markets and get food that they would give away to the homeless and they would bring it to them. And after time, He actually started a nonprofit where people could donate to him and he used all that money to buy tents and sleeping bags so that the homeless people wouldn't be cold at night. He and my mother did this for years and it was a beautiful thing that they participated in. And it wasn't only beneficial to the homeless people, It was beneficial to my parents too. They loved getting to know these people's lives and how they could help them get them jobs sometimes, Places to live. They were involved with the homeless for years. And then after my mother died, My father, Who was not very domestic, And a lot of people knew that, But one of the homeless people who had gotten off the streets who they helped, She started coming over and taking care of my dad by doing his laundry and cleaning his place. So when we give to others, We do receive back in so many different ways and it's a beautiful thing that we're able to do. I would encourage all of us to find ways to make our world a better place for others to live in because other people just aren't as fortunate as we are. And if we can help others, I do believe our world can improve. Maybe it's small things, Maybe it's little things that we can do, But doing these things is a beautiful thing that we can all participate in. But today I want to talk about something we need to be careful with because as I said, Most likely many of us listening today do like to help others and feel that service towards others is a very important part of all of our lives. One of my relatives, When her husband got older, He ended up getting sick and developing Alzheimer's. He was very kind, But he needed a lot of care. But being the loving wife that she was, She wanted to take care of him and she really wouldn't let other people help her. She wanted to do it herself, Which she did. But after he passed several years later, She was totally exhausted and had a lot of health problems of her own after that. This past week I was up in Monterey Bay and there's a beautiful aquarium there and it's just gorgeous. But I remember walking into a store and there were two parents and two kids sitting down, Just sitting in the entranceway. And I looked at the parents and I could tell they were just utterly exhausted. And I do mean tired. But this isn't an uncommon sight to see with younger parents, That they love being a parent, They love giving to their kids, But they often do it to the point of exhaustion. Then many years ago when I was in university, Some of you may know this, I had the opportunity and the privilege to go to India and I visited Calcutta. And while I was in Calcutta, I visited Mother Teresa and her place of ministry where she helped the people that were dying and sick in India. Now Mother Teresa is as good as it gets. She was an absolutely beautiful soul. But at the same time, If you didn't know this, She was sick very often, Including the day I was there. She was sick, I was able to see her, But she wasn't feeling well. And she spent a lot of her time finding illnesses because she gave and she gave and she gave. I really do believe that it's very important and one of the best things we can do for our souls and others of course too, Is to help others. And I actually don't believe we can criticize people who end up getting sick themselves or who get burnt out because they're helping others. And they're contributing to making other people's lives better because so many people in life struggle. And sometimes we may go through times where we need other people's help. And isn't it wonderful when the community wraps your hands around us and takes care of us and protects us? It's beautiful that when we can do that to others. And it's beautiful when we can receive it. It's really one of the key essentials of life. Of a happy life. Helping others and allowing others to help us too when we need help. But what is incredibly common when it comes to helping others, Like raising our children, Like taking care of our parents when they get sick by allowing them to move in with us, Or getting professionally involved in a system like a social worker, Or someone who volunteers their time at a homeless shelter or a food bank, Or someone actively involved in helping making our planet healthier and more sustainable for the future. These are all such admirable activities. But if you hang around people long enough and do these things long enough, What you'll learn is any of these professions or these activities can and often do lead to burnout. I'm a clinical psychologist and I've been helping people now for decades. And the one thing I've seen in my profession is that it's a high burnout profession because you're giving throughout the day and sometimes people forget to take care of themselves so they get burnt out. But that can be true in any profession or activity where we're helping and supporting others. This is the thing we have to be really careful of. And what I want to spend the rest of the time talking about is how do we avoid this? How do we make sure that we don't get burnt out? Well, We want to start out with why it is important not to get burnt out. And this is from the perspective of a helper because you see helpers want to help others. We get such joy and satisfaction from helping others and improving people's lives. And it really is something that brings us great pleasure. But if we get burnt out and a lot of people get burnt out, We're done helping people and often for the rest of our lives. So if we're able to take care of ourselves and avoid burnout, Then our helping others or helping our planet instead of being for a year or for six years or for 10 years, It could be for decades. It could be for our entire life if we're careful. But we have to be careful. So there is good reasoning to do self-care because today we're going to talk about self-care. By being selfish in a sense, By not helping others sometimes and focusing in on our own needs and what do we need, What will happen is we can help others much, Much longer. I often tell people I've been doing what I've been doing for over 30 years. I hope to do it for another 30 years. But I do have to be careful to take care of myself. If I really want to keep doing it for another 30 years, Self-care is critical because no matter how passionate we're about anything, Whatever it may be, We can get burnout. We may keep doing it, But we'll start having illness problems. We'll start getting sick. We'll start getting depressed. Giving and giving and giving leads to problems. Even Mother Teresa, Beautiful Mother Teresa of Calcutta struggled with depression. We discovered that after she passed, That emotionally, That spiritually life was hard for her. She didn't stop giving, But she was sick a lot as I said and later we discovered she also struggled with depression. It is wonderful when people get involved in helping others, But if they're only there for six months because they get tired, Because they get burnout, Because they get negative, They're really not much help. The person that's there for 30, 40, 50 years, Now that's a person that we can look up to and say, Wow, They made a huge difference, But they were able to do that through self-care and self-care keeps us in the helping game. If we want to help others, We have to do self-care. Otherwise, We are going to get burnout. The number one thing we need to acknowledge if we really want to avoid burnout, The number one thing we want to do if we want to not get exhausted is self-care and it is that simple. If we don't believe it's important, If we think why do I need to do that, That's stupid, I need to give and give and give. Well, We can, But then we're going to get burnout. Instead, We realize, Oh, If I take care of myself, I can do this a lot longer and I can help others then throughout my life instead of having one stint or perhaps taking care of my spouse and it makes me so unhealthy that now my kids have to take care of me for the next 20 years because I didn't do self-care. Self-care is critical, Period. If we realize that all the benefits from taking care of ourselves, Then we'll start doing things to take care of ourselves and self-care is very simple. We do things that fill our cup up, Things that make us motivated, Make us excited to go back to work, To go back to what we're doing to help others so that when we're done with our vacation, We say, Wow, I'm ready to get back in there and keep helping others. Think of it this way. We are a plant waterer and other people out there are plants. They come to us or we go to them to water them because they're wilting, Because they're struggling, Because they're not doing well and they need our water and we give them our water, Which is great, But we need water too. So we have to do a couple things. We have to make sure that we water our own plant so that we're healthy to give to others and we make sure we fill up that pitcher where we're giving them water so that we can keep giving it to them and we do that through self-care. Again, The main point I'm making here is giving validity to and seeing the benefits of self-care. It is critically important. If you don't see that, You're not going to do that. So we have to say, Yes, Dr. Puff, I see how critically important self-care is. Now what you do for self-care is going to be pretty much up to you. You're looking for things that you do that afterwards, Again, Feel like I have something to give back to people. I'm ready to go back there and keep giving. So let's say, For example, You say, Well, I'm exhausted. I'm going to do some self-care. I'm going to go to the bar with my buddies and my girlfriends and get totally plastered and then I'll be ready to go back to work on Monday. That probably isn't a good idea. That may numb yourself from being exhausted, But it's definitely not going to fill your pitcher up. You need to find things that make your pitcher full so that you can keep giving to others. And again, What you're looking for is after you do this activity, This self-care, You feel better. You feel rejuvenated. It's like a really good night's sleep. Like, I got this. I'm ready to go for another day or two a week, Whatever it may be. And then when it's time, You do it again. And it's time you do it again. So I want to end with things that I do. There's a plethora of things that people can do for self-care and that is completely up to you. It's very simple. You just see the importance of self-care and then you do things that fill you up so that you're ready to keep giving to others. I'll end with what I do, Some of the things I do, And perhaps there'll be things that you'll want to do. But I found them to be very helpful for me over the decades of helping others. I meditate every day, Every single day, No matter what. I find that very helpful. I do some form of physical activity every day. I go to the gym these days, Three days a week to lift weights. I swim two days a week and on weekends I tend to do yoga or go hiking. I make sure on weekends I'm doing things that are relaxing, That are rejuvenating. Being out in nature, Going to a beautiful play or concert, Getting together with friends. There's so many different things we can do to rejuvenate. I find not doing anything work-related is very critical on the weekends. And then in regards to seeing clients, As a clinical psychologist, I limit myself to a three-day work week. I see clients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, And Thursdays and I don't work Fridays and Mondays. I'll do things like the podcasts on Fridays and Mondays and my billing and my notes. But I only see clients on those three days and I find that's a good schedule. And as I've gotten older, I go in a little bit later, I come home a little bit earlier, And I also go on vacations a little bit more often than I used to. Now you may be saying, Well Dr. Pup, You're able to do that. I can't. But remember, I don't get paid when I don't work. So I'm not making money. I'm choosing not to make money to do self-care. It comes with a price, Self-care, Sometimes. So we have to make that choice. And the truth is, There's always something we can do. And we start by just making little changes, Taking a little longer lunch break, Coming home and meditating or working out every day instead of having a glass of wine. There's so many little things that we can do to make ourselves rejuvenated and better. And then with time, If we really adapt this, I actually think we all can reach a point where our lives are very balanced. We find that's enough vacation, That's enough time off, I'm ready to go back to work. But when we don't balance, We really get burnt out. I mean, Why do so many people want to retire or retire early? Because they're burnt out. Wouldn't it be better if they just kept working and found balance in their lives? You may again say, I can't do that, Dr. Puff. I need to work a lot to get by. I understand that. But just little pockets of time like watching the sunset, Like just sitting outside and having a cup of tea at the end of the day, Like going to bed a little bit earlier, Like not drinking as much. These are all things that we can do, Little things that we can do to make our lives a little bit better. And then over time, We probably will reach that point where we reach a state of equilibrium. We say the self-care is there, I'm good. The giving back to the world is there, I'm good. And that balance allows us to keep doing it to the day we die. I've known people that work into their 90s and hundreds, But they do it with balance. They do it with self-care. We can all do that, Possibly. And if you're like me and you love helping others, Wouldn't it be better to do it for much longer if we took care of ourselves and avoided burnout? So may I encourage you to go watch that sunset? May I encourage you to sit and meditate? May I encourage you to come home a little bit early? May I encourage you to get help with the person that you're taking care of and find that taking that break, Taking that time in the long run, Not only helps you, But it helps others. Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast. Until next time, Accept what is, Love what is.

Reviews

This was great. Having run out of gas and definitely feeling burnt out, this was a great reminder to regain perspective. Thank you!

I really enjoyed it! Thank you. My only comment is that the fast rate of speaking made me feel alittle anxious. Other than that, the info is so helpful, thanks again! 🙏🏼

Self care is self love! Thank you for sharing it’s importance in having balance in our life. 💜

As a practicing Chiropractor for over three decades, then a single dad to two beautiful daughters, then a single dad that lives with child loss (my 12 year old passed) I find myself going through another cycle of burnout. This talk helped me recognize that burnout might be what I’ve been feeling lately. I meditate daily, lift weights daily, cycle regularly, and go out in nature frequently, so it’s hard to know. I haven’t been on vacation for over 20 years though. Perhaps I’ll do that aspect of self-care soon. Best regards, Dr. Les🙏🏻

This was just what I needed to hear this morning! I don't recall where but I remember hearing a quote saying that your heart is a container and as such its capable of being empty or full to overflowing. Hearing you talk about people as plants and you going about watering them meshed so naturally with that visual of the heart! When your heart is full of love and overflowing its nearly impossible not to spread it! But when you try and give from an empty vessel you do more harm than good. Allow yourself to be a plant in need of water just as much as you are capable of watering others! Thank you Dr. Puff!