Have you ever found yourself coming home from work, exhausted and with nothing left to give?
This is a common occurrence for those that work in helping professions. Nurses, teachers, and counselors experience higher levels of mental health challenges that others. These careers call for long hours, emotional support, and a myriad of other challenges.
What are the helping professions?
The helping professions involve providing assistance to individuals who are facing difficulties in their lives. These professions often involve working with people to help them improve their mental health, emotional wellbeing, and overall quality of life. Examples of helping professions include:
- Social work
- Counseling
- Nursing
- Teaching
Overall, the helping professions are dedicated to providing support and assistance to individuals and communities in need, and are an important part of the social fabric of our society.
Common Personality Traits of Helping Professionals
Helping professionals often exhibit these incredible personality traits and skills. By exploring these, we can uncover why helping professionals are so good at what they do, plus why helping professional burnout is widespread.
These same skills can be used to help helping professional overcome burnout.
Here are some common skills and traits that those in helping professions have:
- Caring and compassionate
- Empathetic
- Resilient
- Great at time management
- Critical thinkers
- Leadership
- Great listeners
- Patient
- Excellent communicators
- Adaptable
- Perpetual learners
If you're in a helping profession, take a moment to reflect on your professional skillset and how these skills help you do your job well.
Then, consider where these skills or traits have led to your burnout.
Finally, explore how these skills and traits can help you prioritize your own wellbeing.
How to Support Your Wellbeing as a Helping Professional
As a helping professional, it's important to take care of your own wellbeing in order to be able to effectively support others. Here are some tips for supporting your wellbeing as a helping professional.
1. Prioritize your basic needs
When facing helping professional burnout, it helps to start simple.
Are you taking care of your basic physical needs of sleep, exercise, and nutrition?
Here are some resources to help you prioritize each of these:
Sleep
- Why Sleep is Important for Employee Mental Health
- The Employee’s Guide to the Best and Worst Foods for Sleep
Exercise
- Road to a Healthy You: How to Start Working Out
- Too Depressed to Work Out? Try These Simple Workouts For When You’re Feeling Depressed
Nutrition
Skills to Utilize: Perpetual learner, patient
2. Practice self-care
Prioritizing your self-care is crucial for overcoming helping professional burnout. This can be anything that helps you revitalize and recharge. Here are some ideas:
- Doing hobbies you love
- Spending time with loved ones and your community
- Taking a hike
- Journaling
- Reading
- Exercising
You may already have some self-care tools, which is great! Have you tried finding more self-care tools to add to your toolkit?
If you're having trouble taking time for yourself without feeling guilty, practice being patient and empathetic with yourself.
Skills to Utilize: Perpetual learner, caring and compassion, patient, empathetic
3. Set boundaries
It's important to set limits on your time and energy, and to say no when necessary. This can help you avoid burnout and maintain a healthy balance between your work and personal life.
Boundaries for helping professionals can look like:
- Not looking at emails or doing any admin tasks after 5:30 pm on workdays or on weekends
- Sticking to your appointment start and end times and not running over
- Taking a sick day if you need it, not just pushing through because you feel like you must all the time
- Scheduling vacation time and filling that time with self-care
- Putting limits on your working hours, if possible
- Recognizing that you are not responsible for fixing anyone, and the only person you can control is yourself
For more information on boundaries, check out these articles:
- How to Set Family and Work-Life Boundaries
- Narrow Your Focus with Boundaries: Determine Your Non-Negotiable Boundaries vs. Your Flexible Boundaries
- How to Set Remote Work Boundaries Around Working Hours
Skills to Utilize: Time management, adaptable
4. Seek support
Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. This could mean seeking support from colleagues, friends, or family, or seeking professional help from a therapist.
If you work in a field that involves providing therapy or counseling, it's important to seek supervision or consultation from a more experienced professional. This can help you process your work and gain insights and perspective on your practice.
Skills to Utilize: Resilient, excellent communicator
5. Take breaks
It's important to take breaks from work in order to recharge and restore your energy. Make sure to take regular breaks throughout the day, and consider taking a vacation or time off when needed.
Skills to Utilize: Time management, empathy
Remember: by prioritizing your own wellbeing, you'll be better able to support others effectively.
How can organizations support helping professionals?
There are several ways that organizations can support helping professionals:
1. Providing resources and support
Helping professionals often need to stay up-to-date on the latest research and best practices in their field. Organizations can support their employees by providing resources for continuing education and professional development, such as training programs, workshops, and conferences.
2. Offering flexible work schedules and time off
Helping professionals often work with individuals and families who have complex needs, and may need to work irregular hours or be available outside of normal business hours. Organizations can support their employees by offering flexible work schedules and time off when needed.
3. Providing access to mental health resources
Helping professionals can experience high levels of stress and burnout due to the demands of their work. Organizations can support their employees by providing access to mental health resources, such as counseling services or mental health or wellbeing programs.
4. Encouraging a healthy work-life balance
Helping professionals may find it challenging to balance the demands of their work with their personal lives. Organizations can support their employees by encouraging a healthy work-life balance, such as by offering opportunities for work-from-home or flex-time arrangements, if possible.
5. Promoting a positive work culture
A positive work culture can have a big impact on the wellbeing and morale of helping professionals. Organizations can support their employees by creating a supportive and positive work environment, and by recognizing and valuing contributions of their staff.
Whether you are a helping professional yourself or are looking to support helping professionals in the workplace, we hope these tips are helping in the journey of helping professional burnout recovery!
For more on burnout, check out: 5 Major Signs of Employee Burnout and How to Address Them
Disclaimer
By participating in/reading the service/website/blog/email series on this website, you acknowledge that this is a personal website/blog and is for informational purposes and should not be seen as mental health care advice. You should consult with a licensed professional before you rely on this website/blog’s information. All things written on this website should not be seen as therapy treatment and should not take the place of therapy or any other health care or mental health advice. Always seek the advice of a mental health care professional or physician. The content on this blog is not meant to and does not substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
