Stay Rooted in Your Why: How Values Can Help You Avoid Burnout

I was never someone who entered the world of counseling to spend hours on end actually in session with clients. Perhaps some would consider me a half-hearted helper or a part-time practitioner. I call myself a therapist who’s thwarting burnout by designing a life and business that is built on self-awareness and strengths.

I’m admittedly antsy and internally restless, so I knew that my area of helping services would need to be one where I moved a lot—frequently switching gears and my areas of focus. Early on, I felt a lot of imposter syndrome, guilt, and self-doubt over not being a therapist who wanted to spend tons of hours one-on-one with clients. I even considered leaving my counselor training program. 

How was I going to be able to call myself a helping professional when, to be completely honest, I was too easily exhausted by the energy exchange this work requires? To try to find out, I took a deep dive into my values, using the Values in Action (VIA) Survey of Character Strengths. This exploration has provided me with a filter I can use to distill each business decision I make, and to give data to what my “therapist’s guilt” has known all along.

Discovering My Values

Here’s a little back story. I started a private therapy practice in August of 2020, saying goodbye to a prestigious career in independent school administration. I was leaving behind a job that was draining me, physically and emotionally. I had accepted every promotion and every committee appointment, allowing external validation to be a balm for an abundance of self-doubt and unworthiness. I’d left a 17 year relationship just three years before, and I filled the void that remained by saying, “yes” to everything that came my way—everything other than myself. 

I had just turned 40, and the arrival of both the pandemic and mid-life felt like a personal invitation for a halftime huddle with myself. This time and self-reflection clarified that I wanted so much more than just the next promotion. When I was able to finally say yes to myself, I realized that I needed to redesign a life that reflected my values, both at home and at work. 

I came across the VIA Strengths Assessment in the midst of earning continuing education credits to re-activate my counseling license. I realized I wanted to work and live everyday in alignment with my “why.” For me, according to my Values In Action results, that means a life full of love, social intelligence, laughter, perspective, and fairness. 

Finally figuring this out about myself felt like a message from the universe, whispering, “If you’re ready to say yes to you, here’s how to take this next step.” I decided, finally, to listen. 

Leaning into My Strengths

A tool frequently utilized in the world of Positive Psychology, the VIA Survey of Character Strengths ranks 24 different character strengths, acknowledging that we all have all of these characteristics—just in different doses. This assessment gave me a winnowed down version of my “why” and has offered me a framework through which I can scaffold my energy and time. Here are a few anecdotes, utilizing my five strongest attributes, that highlight the values-aligned personal and business decisions I’ve made over the past two years.

Love 
I love my clients best when I see them between 8AM and 5PM. I love my children best through gathering for family dinner together, something that wouldn’t be possible if I saw clients in the evening. Love, for me, informs the boundaries that I set so that I can both give and receive to the best of my ability. I left a session yesterday and shared with my partner, “I just love this client.” He replied, “I think you say that about all of your clients.” 

He was right. Because I limit the number of sessions that I have per week, I’m fully able to engage in each clinical hour, with all channels flowing and open, in love. In turn, by being deliberate in which hours of my day are for client love and which are for family love, I’m fully present for each side.

Social intelligence
Though I’m more introverted, I’m highly socially attuned. I also occasionally love shining in a crowd. I have social intelligence to develop programs like community outreach events to advocate for mental health, and to address specific issues within my community. 

For example, in early fall I held a psycho-educational event about teacher burnout for local educators and administrators. I facilitated a panel discussion of teachers at various points in their careers. Rather than offering additional one-on-one sessions at a reduced rate and serving one person only, I draw on my confidence in “reading a room” to create programs that take me outside of the safety of the therapy office—yet into the places where I might reach a wider and more diverse audience.  

Laughter
If I’m not genuinely laughing from time to time in my sessions, this is a behavioral red flag that I’m losing connection with my values of love and social intelligence. It also indicates to me that I’m either feeling burnt out or not attuned to my clients. Genuine and authentic laughter is a barometer for how at ease and connected I am. I rely on this cue to tune into my own experience and to let me know when I’m slipping away from myself.

Perspective
Maintaining perspective gives me peace of mind when running my practice. For instance, perspective allows me to understand that even if there’s a drop in new client inquiries in June, September will bring new interests or opportunities. Perspective also helps me remind myself that my goal in pursuing private practice wasn’t to recreate the career I left behind out of fear or uncertainty of what comes next. Hustling hard, I’ve learned, is antithetical to my long-term sustainability as a clinician. 

Fairness
My strong sense of fairness propels me to adhere to the policies that I’ve set for my business, especially as it relates to charging for no-shows or cancellations. Fairness also informs how I respond to questions about my fees. Because I’m guided by fairness, I trust that I have created policies that are fair, ethical (both to me and to my clients) and well-communicated. Additionally, when I’m wavering about whether or not to uphold a policy, I can ask myself the simple question, “How is this decision fair to all of your clients?”

By holding my values at the forefront of all practice-building decisions, I continue to design the kind of practice that I thought would be just right for me, but for which I had no model. I only had to look internally to find the roadmap that would outline the routes that I needed to stay rooted in caring for others and for myself. 

As you design, grow, or reconfigure your own practice, know that sometimes the best thing is to get out of your own way and let your values take the lead. Though it’s frightening not to have every answer for just how it all will work, maintaining a clear vision of your why will ultimately address those ambiguities. In a field that can be fraught with burnout, holding fast to your values will usher you toward a career in which you can flourish.