Wellness Matters Webinar - Understanding Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

This webinar will dig into common issues each of us may face. Whether symptoms of burnout start to develop from parenting, work, loss, life transitions, or otherwise, understanding the warning signs, and engaging in proactive rather than treatment-based strategies can help to reduce this well-known facet of life that many experience. We will also explore the co-occurrence of compassion fatigue that many individuals may find themselves experiencing when dealing with various parts of life.

In this talk, you will learn:

• key warning signs, triggers, and symptoms of burnout and compassion fatigue;

• treatment, prevention, and proactive strategies for managing each of these components;

• and coping techniques to overcome when burnout or compassion fatigue may already be present.

You will develop an understanding of what each of these terms mean, beyond the idea of being ‘stressed’, and gain the tools and knowledge to empower yourself to manage symptoms at any stage that you may be experiencing them.

The goal of this webinar will be to encourage the mindset of strength and resilience, despite whatever storm you may be weathering.

Facilitated by: Nikita Eglinski

FAQS

• What’s the difference between burnout and compassion fatigue?

  Burnout usually builds up over time from ongoing stress and overload, often tied to work, parenting, relationships, or caregiving. Compassion fatigue is more acute and is linked specifically to caring for others who are distressed or experiencing trauma, which can lead to a “secondhand” stress response.

• What are common warning signs of burnout?

  Burnout often shows up as deep exhaustion (physical, mental, emotional), irritability or cynicism, feeling ineffective, trouble focusing, sleep issues, and stress-related body symptoms like headaches or stomach problems. You might also notice withdrawal, reduced motivation, or feeling like everyday responsibilities are suddenly too much.

• What are common warning signs of compassion fatigue?

  Compassion fatigue can look like feeling emotionally numb, having trouble empathizing, feeling hypervigilant or “always on,” avoiding people or situations, increased anxiety or sadness, and disturbances like nightmares or poor sleep. It can also affect relationships and lead to neglecting self-care.

• What can I do to prevent or manage burnout and compassion fatigue?

  Start small and focus on what’s most realistic: protect rest and recovery, build in basic self-care that actually fits your life, and set clearer boundaries around time and emotional energy. It also helps to check in on workload and supports, adjust expectations (yours and others’), stay connected to supportive people, and get professional help if symptoms are persistent or escalating.

Transcript

Hello everybody, nice to have you with us for our webinar this evening about understanding burnout and compassion fatigue with Nikita Eglinski. My name is Nicole Imgrund, and I’m the owner and director of Rivers Edge Counselling Centre.

Nikita is a Registered Provisional Psychologist at Rivers Edge Counselling Centre. We’re very fortunate to have her. She sees children, teens, adults, and couples in her practice. She has a special interest in couples therapy and 2SLGBTQI+ and gender identity counselling, as well as many other areas of specialty. If you look at her bio online, Nikita’s approach to therapy is through a person-centered and cognitive behavioral framework. This means that she works through the lens of listening to a client’s story, and respecting that they themselves have a wealth of knowledge and perspective about their own therapeutic needs. Additionally, Nikita draws from solution-focused brief therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy.

She has a background in classical music. That was new to me; that was fun to learn about you, Nikita. I’ll ask you more about that. She also has experience with the intricacies of cultural diversity in clinical practice. Nikita promotes a space for clients to feel safe, supported, and heard. Nikita believes in the ability to explore and reflect on our identities without judgment, to ask for help in the ways that we need, and to express ourselves through ways that bring us comfort. Most importantly, Nikita believes that clients have unique and transformative knowledge to offer.

With that, Nikita, I’m going to turn it over to you to share your presentation. Hopefully everybody is able to see this okay.

Nikita: Thank you for the introduction, Nicole. As mentioned, I’ll be talking about burnout and compassion fatigue today, and I’ll try my best to cover as much as I can with our time together.

My name is Nikita Eglinski. I’m a Registered Provisional Psychologist, and I’m excited to share some of the knowledge and research I have with tonight’s topic. It’s a very near and dear interest of mine, as I myself have experienced a lot of the symptoms and triggers that we’re going to be going over in today’s webinar. I’ve also seen many people close to me go through both burnout and compassion fatigue. So, if you’re in a helping profession, or you care for someone close to you, you may find the portion about compassion fatigue interesting, because it often gets overlooked and labeled as burnout.

For today, we’ll be doing a very in-depth exploration into the topics of burnout and compassion fatigue. Please keep in mind that tonight’s webinar is educational in nature, so there’s no actual therapy component to tonight. I’m drawing from extensive research and clinical practice for the points that we’re going to be going over today.

So, the goals of today’s webinar are: to understand what burnout is, what compassion fatigue is, how the two are related, and what separates them from one another. We’re going to be learning about key warning signs, triggers, and symptoms that people may have when experiencing either burnout, compassion fatigue, or both, and implementing strategies on how to treat, prevent, and be proactive for managing symptoms and triggers.

So, let’s start with one way of understanding burnout. Burnout is a state of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted beyond a normal level of baseline functioning for what’s typical of an individual. Putting it a little bit more simply: burnout makes you feel as though your physical, mental, and emotional needs are fatigued, and you’re unable to keep up with your daily routine. Often, this can come about from prolonged stress, or exposure to repeated stress over an extended period of time. This means that people in situations that feel high-intensity, or intense enough over an extended period of time, are more susceptible to feeling burnout.

Two researchers named Maslach and Leiter break down burnout into three different dimensions. First is exhaustion, second is cynicism, and third is inefficacy.

The exhaustion dimension is described as a decrease in energy, debilitation, fatigue, feeling worn down, and depletion of functioning. The cynicism dimension is described as depersonalization, or the idea of forming negative attitudes: generalized irritability, a loss of positive thought patterns, and withdrawal from social situations. Finally, the inefficacy dimension is described as a decrease in normal productivity, a decrease in mood, and an overwhelming feeling of being unable to cope with typical stressors in your life.

So, looking at this image, we can see that there are these three dimensions outlined, with burnout in the middle. The idea is: you can experience any one of these precursors within your life—sometimes one at a time, or two at a time—but when all three dimensions are occurring simultaneously, this will inevitably lead to burnout.

What makes burnout such a buzzword these days is the fact that many of us feel a lot of these precursors, or dimensions, as ebbs and flows within our lives. You may be thinking, “One day I feel all of these things at once, and it feels like a landslide of stress,” while other days, you’re able to manage and cope with this uncomfortability, and you can continue to move yourself forward.

The thing is: in such a high-speed world, where everything is quick and instant, and that’s become the standard expectation, we’ve learned to adapt to the three dimensions of burnout quite quickly. You may be experiencing all three precursors at the end of the workday, thinking to yourself, “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve had enough.” And then you drive yourself home—maybe you see your family, you unwind, watch an episode of a TV show, or read—and then, boom, you feel better. Maybe not 100% better, but better than you did an hour or two prior.

And it’s in these moments that we often question whether the feelings that occurred prior to feeling some relief are as bad as they seemed. It can become really easy to downplay your feelings or thoughts as overreacting, not getting enough sleep, or other reasons. And all in all, this will lead to a cycle.

The cycle could look like experiencing burnout, breaking down, and then bouncing back. You could experience a cycle within hours. You could experience a cycle over an extended period of time. For example, you may have a stressor at home that overtakes most of your attention and thought processes. The stressor can become all-consuming and lead to feelings of fatigue, exhaustion, lack of motivation, irritability, and so on. These are some of the symptoms associated with burnout, and it could lead to a breakdown within your life for potential days, weeks, maybe even months, before a bounce back occurs.

This can often become a continuous cycle for people. It’s the idea of experiencing stressors, followed by a symptom, a breakdown of some sort, a way to bounce back, and then you start the cycle all over again. People might find themselves going through the motions within areas of their lives, or wondering where the time has gone from one stressor to the next, as your ability to manage the stressor becomes continuous and just a part of your routine.

The length of the cycle can depend on a variety of factors within your life, such as the number of stressors, the frequency of stressors, and the severity of stressors. It can also be impacted by your support system, your thought patterns, your coping mechanisms, and your awareness of what might actually be causing the stressors in the first place. For example, some stressors may take longer than others to bounce back from. If you’re used to feeling workplace burnout, you might find that that cycle goes quicker, whereas a new and maybe unforeseen stressor—such as the loss of a loved one—may require a longer period of time within that cycle.

To add more depth to our understanding of burnout, it’s also important to be aware that there’s more than one form of it. One of the most common causes is work-related, but burnout can exist in a ton of different areas in our lives. It can exist in relationships, parenting, and caregiving, just to name a few.

It can occur in the facets of our lives that involve us being aware of others’ expectations, and the expectations that we have of ourselves. When you think of the roles you have within your life, you may find that you fill multiple roles for yourself and for others. This may look like you being a student, an employee, a coworker, a friend, a child, an aunt or uncle, a parent, a partner, a caregiver. The point is: we each have multiple roles that we must fill, and this can lead to pressure from others and ourselves.

You may wonder: “Am I a good employee? A good child? A good partner? A good parent? A good friend? Or a good caregiver? Am I fulfilling the roles that I’m involved in? And if I’m not, what does this mean for me?” Burnout can seep into all of these areas of your life, and if we think back to Maslach and Leiter’s three-dimensional properties of burnout—if we feel exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy—we may find ourselves experiencing negative ways of seeing ourselves in these roles.

This can continue to pile onto an already heavy, full plate of really hard feelings. When you’re in a state of burnout, it becomes more than just feeling overwhelmed and stressed. You feel like you’re truly no longer able to function appropriately within each of these roles, and the responsibilities that you may have might feel like an impossible task to complete. So, finding a way to manage the expectations that you have of yourself, along with the expectations of others, and how they may see you, is important in coping with burnout as a whole.

This is a good place to take a step back from just burnout and to introduce compassion fatigue, as it has many similarities to burnout, but it is distinctly its own concept. The Canadian Medical Association describes compassion fatigue as caring for others, and the resulting physical, emotional, and psychological impact of this. This can be the result of exposure to stress or trauma, but unlike burnout, the exposure is acute, or for a shorter amount of time.

Compassion fatigue often leads to similar outcomes as burnout does, with an emphasis on fatigue as a symptom—hence the name. Compassion fatigue is often referred to as secondary traumatic stress, a secondary stress reaction, or vicarious trauma. This all means that you may have been in a situation where you’re caring for others, experiencing stressors, leading to similar outcomes as burnout—such as Maslach and Leiter’s three precursors to burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy.

Compassion fatigue is more likely to occur in individuals who are in a caregiving role, especially in the workplace. The reason why it’s important to outline what compassion fatigue is when describing burnout is due to the idea of roles and expectations within our lives. If we’re constantly wondering how to prioritize our responsibilities with each role that we carry, burnout can become a common side effect of this. Even more so, compassion fatigue can become present as well. Both burnout and compassion fatigue present in similar ways, but the key component of compassion fatigue is that it’s a more specific experience compared to burnout.

Compassion fatigue involves a secondary reaction, or a secondhand reaction, to stressful situations—often caring for others—that will lead to similar outcomes as burnout. It’s very common in careers that involve being put in stressful situations, or being placed in a caregiver role. So you may find compassion fatigue commonly experienced by parents, children of older adults, volunteers for organizations, medical professionals such as first responders, social workers, and so on.

As mentioned before, we each have multiple roles that we must fill, which can lead to pressure from others and ourselves. These roles, and wondering if you’re good enough, can lead to burnout or compassion fatigue—sometimes both.

To understand the warning signs and symptoms of burnout and compassion fatigue, I think it’s important to understand the triggers and causes of both. Burnout is not simply an overexertion with a role within your life, or trying to manage too many tasks at once. Maslach and Leiter explain that burnout will have different factors for everyone; there are situational and individual causes that may cause people to burn out. But a study conducted by these researchers found that there are six domains that can cause burnout: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values.

The first domain is workload. When workload feels as though it’s too much, and an individual does not feel as though they can handle the expectations of a task, there must be a chance to rest, recover, and recuperate from these stressors. However, when you feel as though you’re unable to bounce back from these stressors, burnout is possible.

The second domain is control. Maslach and Leiter found a link between the two: the idea of perceiving an inability to influence a situation, a lack of autonomy, or an inability to utilize resources can lead to disengagement, which can cause burnout.

The third domain is reward. Reward has been seen to reinforce behaviors. The idea of insufficient acknowledgement, recognition, or reward can lead to feelings of invalidation or lack of understanding. This can be through social reward, financial reward, or institutional reward. So a lack of appreciation or satisfaction can also lead to burnout.

The fourth domain is community, and it’s related to burnout, as relationships with others can have an impact on feeling a sense of support—or not. The idea of relationships lacking support or trust, unresolved conflict, or breakdown in engagement with others, can lead to susceptibility to experience burnout.

The fifth domain is fairness, which can contribute to burnout due to the idea of feeling as though things for you compared to others are equal. The study finds that cynicism, anger, and hostility can occur in individuals who do not feel as though they’re being treated similarly to others, and that a social injustice has occurred.

Values is the final domain, according to Maslach and Leiter, which is explained as one’s motivation towards tasks. When there’s a conflict between motivation to do a task, people may find themselves feeling as though their intrinsic values don’t match the reason for doing something. This can lead to burnout, as people may question why they’re spending their time and energy towards a particular area in their life when they’d rather be doing another.

On top of these six domains, burnout can be caused by pressure, interpersonal interactions, chronic stress, helplessness within a situation, stressful environments, unattainable responsibilities, and engaging in tasks for long periods of time.

Next, we’ll explore the causes of compassion fatigue, because to understand burnout, an understanding of compassion fatigue is better explained according to a researcher named Brown. The two main causes of compassion fatigue are secondary traumatic stress and burnout. This is why, when we’re talking about the two terms, they have so many similar and overlapping areas with one another. Essentially, compassion fatigue is caused by helping others who may be traumatized, distressed, in need of a helping hand, and requiring emotional energy from another individual. This emotional energy can lead to secondary trauma, where we take on similar feelings to the person we’re helping, and then we can experience burnout. Burnout can occur when we feel as though our actions are not having a profound impact on the situation. So feeling like we’re helpless and unhelpful can lead to compassion fatigue.

What are the warning signs and symptoms for burnout or compassion fatigue? For burnout: exhaustion—physically, mentally, and emotionally—are key warning signs. There may be feelings of anger, irritability, cynicism, and an inability to effectively manage stressors or tasks involved. Specifically:

Exhaustion can look like having to drag yourself into doing tasks such as going to work, cleaning your home, meeting social obligations, caring for others, or caring for yourself. Being cynical can look like finding that you have a lack of interest in tasks, and becoming negative towards completing tasks, as well as towards yourself and others. Helplessness can look like feeling as though you can’t accomplish or be productive with tasks, or an overall feeling of being ineffective.

Depression: while burnout is not classified as a mental disorder, depression is a clinical diagnosis. If you find that depression sets in, it can be another symptom associated with burnout, and it can be linked to exhaustion, cynicism, and helplessness.

Dislike for roles: finding that there’s dissatisfaction at work, home, or other roles you may be engaged in can lead to absenteeism and can be a component of burnout.

Irritability: when little inconveniences begin to become too much, and you notice that you’re snappy with people within your life, or even strangers, this can be a symptom of burnout. Sometimes irritability can even lead to anger.

Feeling unfocused: when your mind begins to wander, and you find that you’re forgetful, there’s a loss of idealism, or there’s disillusionment—the feeling of being disappointed when you find that something is not as good as you thought it would be—burnout could be the cause.

Having sleep issues: finding that you’re having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep can be a symptom of burnout.

Having somatic issues: headaches can be a symptom of burnout, or the stress perceived from burnout. Experiencing gastrointestinal issues—pain with your stomach or bowels, changes in bowel movements, or nausea—can be a symptom associated with burnout.

Engaging in substance use: finding that you’re coping with food, drugs, or alcohol may be a symptom of burnout.

More on the medical side: hypertension, and sometimes finding that you’re tachycardic (a fast heartbeat). This somatic issue may be the result of burnout. And again on the medical side: type 2 diabetes. This is more obscure, but another symptom of burnout is an increased chance to develop type 2 diabetes. This can lead to an increase in thirst and blurry vision. Finally, absenteeism may be another symptom associated with burnout, as avoidant behavior begins to occur.

Now, the key warning signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue are similar to burnout. However, a significant difference between burnout and compassion fatigue is the time for symptoms to occur. Burnout takes place over an extended period of time. Sometimes burnout can take months to occur; it’s the result of an individual being pushed to their full limit with stressors.

If you take this chart, for example: each person has a threshold for stress, which can serve for optimal functioning, and it can lead to a crash. This crash could lead to burnout or compassion fatigue. The difference is: with compassion fatigue, the time a person may experience the stress cycle, or symptoms associated, will happen much more quickly than with burnout.

Warning signs for compassion fatigue can be as follows: hypervigilance, where there’s excessive alertness for potential threats or dangers in and outside of work; the idea of always being on and on the lookout. Boundaries may look like lacking a sense of balance with your control, so that you end up taking on too much; you’re stepping in and trying to take control; or you’re struggling to leave work at work and taking work home personally. Avoidance is when you cope with stress by shutting down and disconnecting. The inability to empathize, and numbness, is when you’re not able to emotionally connect.

Experiencing addictions is the idea that you find distractions to check out from other areas and roles within your life. Chronic exhaustion and physical ailments is when you’re experiencing physical, emotional, and spiritual fatigue, or aches and pains that are exceeding what you would normally expect within a typical day or week that may be busy. Experiencing minimization is when you trivialize a current experience by comparing it to another situation that’s supposedly more severe—for example, the idea of: “Well, someone has it worse off than me.” Anger and cynicism is when you use cynicism or anger to cope with intense feelings that you might not know how to manage on your own, or you may not understand. Feelings of professional inadequacy is the idea of becoming unsure of yourself, doubting yourself, and feeling insecure in tasks that you once felt confident to perform.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health outlines symptoms of compassion fatigue as: feeling helpless when observing someone else’s suffering; a decrease in feelings of empathy that were once existent; a general feeling of overwhelm and exhaustion with other roles in one’s life; feeling disconnected emotionally, leading to feelings of numbness; a loss in activities that you once enjoyed; an increase in feelings of anxiety, anger, irritability, and sadness; trouble making decisions or concentrating; sleep disturbances such as nightmares or night terrors, as well as trouble falling asleep or staying asleep; somatic symptoms such as headaches, gastrointestinal issues, dizziness, and fatigue; conflict in personal relationships; neglect of self-care; withdrawal from social settings and self-isolation; and an increase in self-coping strategies such as substance use.

As you can see from the list of symptoms associated with compassion fatigue, there are many similarities with burnout. The cause of compassion fatigue is dealing with victims of trauma and exposure to traumatic material, whereas the cause of burnout is stress and overworking. The symptoms of compassion fatigue are headaches, gastrointestinal issues, mood swings, depression, irritability, anger, hopelessness, pessimism, a weakened sense of empathy, or being violent towards loved ones or neglecting them. Whereas the symptoms of burnout are withdrawal, depression, irritability, anger, changes in appetite, difficulty sleeping, and exhaustion- both physically and emotionally.

Once again, this chart outlines the idea that compassion fatigue can have a quicker recovery time than burnout, as it’s more acute, whereas burnout is often gradually developed. One thing to note as well is that there is crossover between these terms, especially in the symptoms you can experience with both. You can experience symptoms from compassion fatigue such as headaches and still be burnt out, or you can experience a symptom from burnout such as changes in appetite and still experience compassion fatigue. The symptoms listed on this chart are not exclusive from one term to another. The point is: it’s important to recognize that these symptoms can give a really good outline towards whether you’re feeling one or both of these things, but they’re not the defining things for each of these terms.

So the question becomes: how do we manage symptoms of burnout and compassion fatigue when they begin to occur? Out of all places, I saw a metaphor for burnout on a video from a podcast that I think did a really good job of explaining how burnout can deplete ourselves. The creator’s name was Laws, and she explained that to think about burnout as Wi-Fi in your house. You may have a ton of devices hooked up to the Wi-Fi: televisions, laptops, tablets, phones, home devices, smart technologies, and so on. Sometimes, when there are too many devices, you may notice that the Wi-Fi becomes slow and it needs to buffer; it isn’t operating at a regular speed, or running optimally. And this is similar to how burnout works. The devices, or stressors, within your life may lead to a breakdown in being able to run at optimal speeds. The same can be said for compassion fatigue, but the difference would be the speed at which the symptoms of compassion fatigue occur.

To prevent and manage symptoms of burnout and compassion fatigue, we can review the situational factors first. Oftentimes, changes in our lives towards healthier habits can alleviate symptoms associated with burnout. Some healthy habits may look like the ones you often hear: getting enough sleep, exercise, staying active, practicing mindfulness or meditation, cutting out caffeine or alcohol, taking breaks, avoiding substances, staying connected with others, finding routine that builds upon healthy habits, and so on.

This might also look like looking at what your workload is, and trying to delegate areas of your roles to other people—whether that’s in the workplace, at home, or within relationships. For some people, the roles that they’re involved in become difficult to pick and choose what is even possible to delegate to others, or how to prioritize all of these healthy lifestyle changes amidst the lack of time and energy you may already have.

One of the hang-ups people find themselves in is when they know that they’re experiencing burnout and compassion fatigue, and they know that something has to change. Their current routine and ways of managing their roles and responsibilities have led to procrastination, and not being able to take the time to implement any of these positive lifestyle changes. This is where the importance of expectations and boundaries is crucial within your life.

What are your own expectations of these roles? The idea of: “Am I a good employee, a good child, a good partner, a good parent, a good friend, or a good caregiver? Am I fulfilling the roles that I’m involved in? And if I’m not, what does this mean for me?” Where are your boundaries within your role goals, and what takes priority?

For example, let’s say you have a deadline at work for a big project that you’ve been working on, your child has sporting practice, and your friend asks you to meet up for dinner. In this scenario, you want to go for dinner, but the other two tasks may take priority for various reasons. You may think to yourself, “My child’s hobbies matter and they’re expecting me to go to their practice. My work project deadline is important towards the expectations that my work has of me, and the deadline is drawing near. But I have also been working hard and deserve time for myself.” What would you do in this situation? Where does your mind go if you choose yourself over others in this scenario?

A lot of people’s answer is something along the lines of: “I’ll do what’s on my to-do list first, and I’ll find time for myself another time.” And sometimes that is the case, and it’s what’s necessary, but if that’s your response day in and day out with all the roles you have to manage within your life, the sustainability of achieving success through this lifestyle isn’t realistic. Operating at a level where everyone else’s needs come before your own can further lead to symptoms associated with burnout, and exacerbate any negative feelings you may already be experiencing. Therefore, the importance of taking care of yourself is crucial in treating, preventing, and being proactive with these symptoms.

There are three factors that can set you up for success when managing burnout and compassion fatigue: caring for yourself (or self-care), implementing boundaries within your life, and managing your expectations.

Self-care often feels like a buzzword these days, where the idea of drawing a bubble bath, or going to the spa, or having an entire “me day” is highlighted in pop culture. But self-care is so much more than all of these things. Self-care is the idea of putting yourself first in the roles that you have when it’s needed. It can look like simply saying no to a task, watching a 30-minute TV show, sitting in your car for five minutes before going inside, all the way up to more grandiose gestures such as spa days, a trip for yourself, and so on. Self-care is what fills your cup, and it makes you feel as though you’re doing something for just you, and just your expectations.

Self-care sets you up to be the best version of yourself. Self-care can enable you to be a better you in all of the roles that you’re engaging in. It can seem counterintuitive, especially when your plate is already so full of tasks, but by caring for yourself, you are better able to arrive within your role with more patience, understanding, and energy.

Self-care can also model positive behaviors for those around you. At work, if you’re engaging in self-care, it models an appropriate work-life balance. At home, if you engage in self-care, it can model to your children how they too can develop healthy habits, and the idea of individuality as an important quality to strive for. And finally, self-care can create a healthier version of yourself.

Going back to our example of the work deadline, sporting practice for your child, and dinner with a friend: you want to do the dinner with a friend, so why not find a way to incorporate that into your life? It may look like going for dinner on a different day, or switching the medium from dinner to coffee if you’re strapped for time, but the intent is still the same: you are intentionally carving out time for a social outing that you want to do.

This is similar for anything that arises within your life. Maybe you do want to finish the deadline for work above all else because you genuinely enjoy the project that you’re working on—maybe it’s a passion project. Maybe you love taking your kids to sporting practice because you get to watch the joy it brings them. Whatever the case, the idea is the same: trying to adjust your lifestyle to meet the expectations that you have within the roles in your life can set you up for success in preventing symptoms of burnout, managing symptoms of burnout, or treating symptoms of burnout.

With the idea of boundaries, a similar way of thinking can be implemented. If you have a role or task that needs to be done, or a role or a task that you would like to do, placing boundaries in the relationships or tasks you engage in is important as well.

Back to our example: let’s say that you know if you take your child for their practice, you can finish the majority of your work project, and then both tasks are out of your hair. You may want to place a boundary with the friend who asked you to go for dinner, such as: “I want to go for dinner, but I can’t until I finish these two tasks.” This can be for the better, because these tasks will no longer be causing guilt or stress within your life because they will be done. Therefore, you can say yes to dinner with your friend later this week.

Placing a boundary in this scenario allows you to still engage in the self-care activity, but maybe at a more appropriate time for you. You are in control of being able to truly know for yourself what you’re okay with versus not. By placing boundaries within your life, it doesn’t have to look like a firm or difficult conversation. It can simply be following simple goals that you set for yourself, or making promises to yourself that you know you want to keep.

Each of us has thresholds, or deal breakers, in what pushes us to our limit. Boundaries can help us manage these thresholds and avoid getting near our upper limits at all.

Managing expectations may look like having honest conversations with yourself and those around you. It may look like being realistic with your goals and what your priorities are, being transparent, recognizing that other people may have expectations of you alongside your own, asking yourself questions on how you truly feel about decisions that you make, compromising with yourself and those around you if there are any discrepancies, communicating with the appropriate people within your life, and asking for help if you need it.

Your expectations play a role in the way you view your identity and roles within your life, and your expectations can create or dismiss motivation towards tasks, which can propel burnout and compassion fatigue. This is why it’s a crucial component in setting yourself up for success.

So with all of that said, you may be thinking to yourself: “Okay, so I have my roles within my life. I have tasks within each role. I may start to feel overwhelmed with this, which can lead to symptoms associated with burnout or compassion fatigue. And now on top of this, you’re suggesting I think through my expectations, my boundaries, and somehow time-manage all of this?” Well, kind of. According to Jung (a psychologist from the early 1900s), there are five pillars of happiness within a person’s life: good physical and mental health; good relationships (whether that be in marriage, friendships, familial, or acquaintances); appreciating beauty in nature; having realistic standards of work and lifestyle; and a philosophical outlook that works towards creating resilience.

The idea is: you want to have all of the pillars in your life supporting you. And when one of the pillars is in need of assistance, your focus should be on finding support internally or externally. Therefore, you want to ask yourself: “Am I satisfied with my health, relationships, work, connection to the world, and my own personal values?” If any one of these five areas seems to be neglected, you may need to ask yourself: “Is there a way to delegate tasks, shift my expectations, or place boundaries?” Yes, this does require time, but we’re not talking about hours’ worth of time. It could be a simple five-minute exercise you do with yourself. I find that when you brush your teeth in the morning, it’s enough time to think through these areas of your life, and it can serve as a check-in with yourself. It isn’t time-consuming because you’re already brushing your teeth, and it gives you an appropriate amount of time for you to think through each pillar in your life.

Aside from these suggestions, here are remaining ways that you can combat and cope with symptoms associated with burnout or compassion fatigue: psychoeducation—the idea of doing research into what each of these terms mean, how they appear, and how to manage them, which hopefully this webinar has helped with in some ways; finding hobbies for yourself, which can lead to overall satisfaction and a balance between yourself and the roles that you’re a part of; engaging in healthy relationships outside of the roles you’re a part of, such as meeting with friends or joining a club, so you can take your mind away from stressors and individuals involved with stressors; journaling, which can provide a space for just yourself to write down thoughts or feelings you may have about situations within your life, which can work to reduce suppressed emotions; and implementing strategies to reduce overworking or overloading of tasks, such as taking breaks, checking in with others, taking mental health days, seeing a therapist regularly, engaging in healthy eating, regular exercise, and sleep routines.

All these suggestions can feel overwhelming, but picture your plate. It may feel like it’s overflowing. Maybe you’re experiencing symptoms of burnout or compassion fatigue because you’re recognizing you have a few of the symptoms, but you’re not yet experiencing full burnout or full compassion fatigue. Burnout and compassion fatigue are often deemed the cost of caring.

With your plate, think of the five pillars. You have health, relationships, work, lifestyle, and values. Then you think of the step-by-step process: what feels like the priority right now? Is there one being neglected? Is there anything you can delegate? Can you adjust your expectations? Can you place boundaries? Can you carve out time for yourself? There will always be things you can take off of your plate and add in return to make it more balanced. The key is ensuring that you’re carving out time for things that matter most in the moment.

You are the best judge of your time, your needs, and your wants. Therefore, you have the final say where you pour your time and energy. Basically, you’re the expert, and you will know yourself best. Sometimes, feeling overwhelmed, and adding on to an already full plate, some ideas in changing your mindset or lifestyle can feel like it’s more trouble than it’s worth. But the biggest piece to keep in mind is that we each experience hardships and stressors within our lives, often pushing us to the upper limits that we may have, but we also have resilience within ourselves to find empowerment, and knowing we’re able to withstand a lot of really difficult, sometimes unimaginable things.

This webinar’s purpose has been to shed light into helping you understand what burnout and compassion fatigue are, how to recognize the warning signs, and preventing and managing symptoms of both. The information within this webinar are merely suggestions, and I hope that the takeaway of this discussion is that you yourself know that while the cost of caring can sometimes lead to these negative symptoms, you are the one that has the power to make the smallest of changes. Each of these reframing moments can set you up for a lifetime of success.

I would like to end on this quote because I think it’s very powerful in considering the terms from today: psychological resilience refers to the ability to use personal qualities to withstand pressure. I think that this is really beautiful. We each have resiliency from our personal qualities that can help us withstand internal and external pressures around us.

And with that, my webinar comes to a close. I just want to thank you all for taking the time out of your day to be a part of this.

Nicole: Thank you so much, Nikita. That was so informative—an awesome webinar. We appreciate that you covered a lot of ground in a short time, but you made it really digestible. Thank you so much. We’ll have a few moments for comments and questions, but some of you may need to log off. So before we go there, I just want to thank you again for joining us, and we hope we’ll see you at another webinar soon.