You Can’t Pour from an Empty Cup-Protecting Your Energy in the Helping Professions
Working in a helping role means showing up for others, listening, supporting, teaching, and caring, often on repeat. It’s deeply meaningful work, but it also asks a lot of us. Over time, that steady outpouring of energy can start to feel heavy.
Burnout doesn’t usually arrive all at once. It creeps in quietly, through exhaustion that rest doesn’t fix, irritability that’s hard to name, or the sense that your work no longer feels as fulfilling as it once did.
In The Resilient Practitioner by Thomas Skovholt and Michelle Trotter-Mathison, burnout is described as a common risk in relationship-intense professions-jobs that rely on empathy and emotional connection. Counsellors, teachers, nurses, doctors, clergy, and social workers are especially vulnerable, though really anyone who gives deeply of themselves can be affected.
Taking Care of the Professional Self
Staying well in this work doesn’t mean caring less, it means caring smarter. Here are a few ways to do that:
Stay connected to meaning. Remember the reasons you started doing this work. Even small moments of impact matter.
Redefine what success looks like. You can’t control every outcome, but you can control your presence, effort, and compassion.
Find your people. Supportive colleagues, mentors, and peers make all the difference. Laughter and honest conversations go a long way.
Drop perfectionism. “Good enough” is often what sustains us; chasing perfect leads to depletion.
Hold boundaries. Saying no creates space to say yes with genuine energy.
Taking Care of the Personal Self
Many helpers feel guilty prioritizing themselves. But caring for your own well-being is what allows you to keep showing up for others.
Build in small moments of renewal. A quiet morning coffee, a walk, a laugh with a friend — these things matter more than we give them credit for.
Seek balanced relationships. Notice if you’re the constant giver. Make space for people who give back to you too.
Nurture all parts of yourself. Emotional, physical, spiritual, playful — each one needs attention.
Let go of guilt around rest. Rest isn’t a reward; it’s maintenance.
What Resilient Practitioners Tend to Do
Research in The Resilient Practitioner found that well-functioning helpers share a few common habits:
Spend time with people they love
Keep work and personal life in balance
Use humor and play to release stress
Stay self-aware and reflective
Take breaks and vacations
Move their bodies regularly
Seek supervision or peer support
Keep learning
Make time for hobbies or creativity
Hold onto a sense of purpose in their work
Early Signs of Poor Self-Care
The same research also identified some red flags that can slowly wear us down:
Taking work home mentally every day
Feeling disconnected from joy or humor
Struggling to say no
Perfectionism
One-way relationships where you do all the giving
Carrying others’ pain without support
Defining success only by how others respond
Neglecting your own rest, growth, or relationships
From One Helper to Another
As psychologists, we understand burnout not just in theory, but through lived experience. Many of us have felt the same pull, the desire to help others while quietly running on empty. It’s part of the reality of working in professions built on empathy and care.
The truth is, sustaining this work requires us to prioritize ourselves with the same compassion we offer to others. Tending to your own well-being isn’t a distraction from the path, it’s part of it.