Just a quick note on taking care of yourself.
Some time ago, a healer told me that I needed to get out into nature more often - away from people and civilization - because that's where I recharge my batteries. She told me this unprompted, and to this day I still wonder how she knew, but she was right. When the inevitable stresses of life start to wear me down, I step away and go take a hike, watch the waves at the beach, or head for the mountains. It's amazing how refreshing it is to my mind, body, and spirit.
My wife is different. She needs to socialize and feed off of other people's social energy. She likes to go dance and have a few laughs with friends to recharge.
So how do you recharge your batteries?
You might not have had the benefit of someone telling you how you recharge, but it is important you try to find out. Try thinking of the times when you have felt most at peace and revitalized and then figure out what those times have in common. Is it music, friends, peace & quiet, a getaway, good food...?
Burnout in Massage Therapy
Massage Therapists are subject to the same kind of burnout as other healthcare service providers. It is a phenomenon called Compassion Fatigue, a result of giving so much of yourself to others all of the time. This is a subject we never really talked about in massage school, but it is something of a problem.
Every year, studies by the ABMP and AMTA mention that the average span of time a massage therapist stays in the profession is 7-8 years. Not a very long career. Granted some of them leave the profession to go into physical therapy or other related or complementary health professions, others lack the business skills to succeed, and others practice poor body mechanics and wear themselves down physically. But I contend that a large contribution to many leaving the profession is Compassion Fatigue and lack of Compassion Satisfaction - or Burnout.
As people, we all need to find a balance between giving and receiving. The giving portion of that equation could be called generosity. In my experience, many MTs start their career wanting to give and give and give, but as time passes many become less and less generous, even jaded. For example, an assignment in class is to go out and interview practicing massage therapists. Every time we do it I get students coming back with interesting stories about even trying to ask a person some questions. Some are very giving and generous, others have even asked students to pay for the time of the interview. Ouch. (Who would you want to go to as a client?)
Avoiding Compassion Fatigue
If you want to be successful in this profession, you have to first accept that burnout happens, then understand why, have tools and skills to deal with it, and then act to address it. I'm assuming if you've read this far that you have at least a little acceptance and understanding about why this happens.
A good place to start is to measure your level of burnout, there is a Compassion Fatigue and Satisfaction Survey (here's a more detailed one) available for you to do so. This is a good tool to help to determine if you are at risk. Once you have determined if there is a problem and what it may be, then you'll be in a much better position to do something about it.
Massage Specifics for Burnout
Here are a couple of things that I have noticed that often affect massage therapists:
- Poor professional boundaries. These all manifest as allowing another to take advantage of you in some way. It could be clients conviincing and MT to give them extra time, overlook their lateness, or pressure them for freebies. It could be a boss or supervisor getting you to wait around without appouintments on the off-chance there will be a walk-in, work more hours than you are comfortable with, or demand your time on-call without the business to back it up.
- Poor personal boundaries. Letting personal life infiltrate business. Allowing yourself to become personally invested in your clients' outcomes and lives. Allowing business to stray into and interfere with your personal life. Also known as the "I'm cancelling my plans because I have to work" syndrome.
- Focus. When money is a struggle, it can become easy to start thinking of each client on the table as "1/10 of my rent" or "gas in my car this week". Allowing your personal life to creep into your thoughts when it should be on the client (thinking about the errands you have to run after the appointment is over while you work). Forgetting why you are in the business in the first place.
- Time. You will never find the time for recharging your batteries if you don't make the time for it. You have to prioritize it and factor it in to your schedule. Bouncing around without a plan means you'll never find the time.
- Lack of planned generosity. We're in a giving business and you'll struggle if you never want to give anything away. It seems counterintuitive, but give it away to get it. If you factor compassionate giving into your plans then doing it is achieving your goals. Set a quota of what you want to give away, track the results, don't feel bad about giving that part away, but stick to your guns and only give away so much. People will take as much as you will let them.
- Others. Please post any other issues you've seen lead to burnout in the comments section.
Don't risk losing all that you've worked toward just because of Compassion Fatigue. It's depressing, but it's not the end of the road or the end of your career. Recharge your batteries and take care of yourself. That way you'll be much better able to take care of your clients!
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