Can “why” help prevent burnout?

Long story short, I decided to take some classes towards a Master’s in Business Administration. Will I complete it? Who knows…I honestly know. I am just taking a class at a time and focusing on enjoying learning new information. The first class I took was on Marketing for Nonprofits. I’ve always been kind of interested in marketing so I was excited about the course.

I believe it was in the second week we had to watch a TEDx Talk by Simon Sinek. In it, he talks about how most leaders and organizations know what they do, and then some go further and know how they do it. Few organizations know why they do what they do. Sinek refers to this as the Golden Circles; a seeming simple concept, but very impactful once fully realized.

Inspired leaders and inspired organizations communicate from the inside out; they start with why. Too often in social work we get caught up in the what and how. We want to know what we need to do our how to address a situation or what the issue is and how do we empower clients to address their issues that the why gets lost. I don’t know if you have every been in a situation where you do things just because someone has said this is what we do without explaining why it’s done that way. It drives me up a wall. Some people are so content without connecting to they why.

I think part of the reason social workers burnout is because they lose that connect with their why. Our jobs stress the what and how and it’s usually up to us to connect with our why. This March, social workers have been inundated with messages about being essential, but the funny thing is I think we already knew that. Knowing we are essential to the very social fabric of the country isn’t enough to save us from burnout. In fact, there is no single solution to the problem of burnout. However, there are things social workers can do to help prevent burnout such as self-care and appropriate supervision. Check out this article with some guidance on preventing burnout.

Social work is not a profession for the light hearted. If you are in micro practice you are working with people on some of their worst days. If you are in macro practice it is easy to forget that change takes awhile to happen. We can get so caught up in our daily "to-do" lists or whatever priority has come up. We take a strength's based approach to our work and sometimes we are the only ones looking for the good in others. When society is falling apart, social workers are there advocating for change. It's no wonder we spend so much time focusing on the what and how that put the why on the back burner of our minds. 

While not the single solution to burnout, I would encourage my fellow social workers to spend some time in reflection and reconnect with your why. Why drives our behaviors. Your why is probably what got you into the social work profession in the first place. Maybe your why has changed over the years (and that’s ok), but going beyond the what and how of what you do to connect with why you are in the profession can be part of the solution to preventing burnout.

This social work month- Connect With Your Why.