Burned out, compassion fatigue, or ???

As I've worked my way through the stack of half-read books on my nightstand, Give and Take by Adam Grant has recaptured my attention.  When I lost interest in the book, Grant had been sharing stories of individuals that were givers, takers, and matchers--those who attempt to giving and taking. Grant's research indicates that those who are givers are more successful over time. Made sense to me. Yawn! I generally tire quickly of books that share too much data, and that is exactly what occurred with Give and Take.

When I went back to the book to see if I would abandon it or dig deeper, the last half of the book called to me.  Yesterday I read more.  "The Art of Motivation Maintenance" was compelling. Grant described that, while givers tended to be more successful over the long run, some givers burn out while others, like Energizer Bunnies, seem to find an inner reservoir that keeps them going.

In the late 1990s a colleague and I wrote two cover articles for Family Practice Medicine, a journal for physicians who practice family medicine.  One was on burnout.  I loved the cover artwork of a charred landscape, devoid of life except for a single daisy in bloom in the foreground.  The image so spoke to the feeling people suffering from burnout often have of feeling almost dead and struggling to keep what remains alive. The other piece focused on compassion fatigue, a related condition suffered in the giving professions. I've read and thought about these topics a lot and had some success coaching those who struggle with them.

Grant's more recent research on these topics was new to me. Grant describes "Otherish Givers" and "Selfless Givers."  While it might be intuitive that Selfless Givers would be less likely to burn out, it is actually just the opposite.  The Otherish Givers are ones that, when exhausted by giving, give more. When they are exhausted though, they give somewhere else, and they give to a program that results in a personal reward or pleasure.  In other words their alternative giving recharges them. It's been too many years for me to remember my clients circumstances exactly, but I do believe that the ones I recall were the Selfless Givers, who didn't recharge.

All of this is timely personally.  Over the last few months, I've really been feeling burned out with long hours and client groups which demand more and more of me, leaving nothing for the things that bring me joy. Well, duh!  Grant would say that this is just the time I need to find some joyful giving to recharge me.

The funny thing is that in just this week, I've flirted with five different volunteer opportunities, and each time I passed on them because I thought I needed to be better at protecting my boundaries and saving time for myself.

As counter-intuitive as it seems to me, this recharge by giving makes total sense. Rather than just picking whatever opportunity presents itself, I want to be thoughtful. In each case that Grant described in "The Art of Motivation Maintenance," the alternative giving activities that burned out givers chose were to programs about which they had personal passion.  It seems to me that the personal passion they had is what allowed the alternative giving to be so rewarding to them.

As I write this, I have pondered, when was the last time I felt energized by something I was doing. In the instant that I had the question, I knew the answer.  For over a year, I wrote this blog almost every day, and I had a small (50-60) following, scattered around the world. Although I was often challenged to fit the writing into my schedule, when I did so, I found the time deeply rewarding.  I can only assume that what I wrote must have had some value to my readers as well, since they kept coming back.

When the work has been more demanding, one of the corners that I've rounded has been writing for this blog, and I am pretty certain that doing so is the very thing that could have been recharging me. Not only am I giving value to a small group of people, but I am using a natural talent to do so. That recharges me and brings significant joy into my life.  Finally, I learn so much about myself and what my intentions in life could/should be by working through these ideas with my readers.

The answer to the question inferred in this title, "Burned out, compassion fatigue, or ???" for me must be "Write!"