From Purpose to Burnout: The Silent Cost of Caring

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

The silent cost of caring; a kind of exhaustion hidden behind purpose. It wears a mask of meaning, feigned smiles, the belief that one is competent. A quiet, yet nagging, voice insist that one more meeting or taking on one more client or that one more act of service will be that which makes the difference. But how much of the self being chipped away by the cost of caring? How many instalments is the ‘optimal’ price to pay? Rosefield’s recent study exposes the shadow that is continuously ignored in the coaching profession, a shadow that extends to many occupations; purpose fuelling burnout. Coaches, in this case, whose practice depends on empathy, presence and care are not immune to the same type of depletion. It is common to enter a profession compelled with purpose, to fulfil a calling, but when does purpose with a lack of boundary instead become a form of self-erasure?

There’s a very familiar pattern; practitioners begin with idealism and end with exhaustion, purpose becomes the entirety of a person’s identity. When identity fuses with vocation, the tiredness and ache becomes intertwined with one’s own existence; resting feels like a betrayal, needing help feels like failure. There is a resonance of this phenomenon in all professions dealing in human connection: leadership, teaching, medicine, social work, entrepreneurship. The illusion in the narrative is that those who hold others must not falter. While this could be considered an absurd ideology, perhaps it holds more truth than once thought, while it governs people’s behaviour with a quiet authority. The more someone offers; the more valuable one becomes, and the more valuable, the less permission there is to pause.

When compassion fatigue arrives, it does not announce itself, it creeps in quietly. A person may become disinterested, irritable, detached. When purpose is causing such energy expense and begins to feel unbearable, if a whole identity is built on the foundations of that purpose, what is left of that identity when that purpose is resented? Burnout, the quiet collapse of meaning, is not the end of resilience but the collapse of a story that used to be of belonging.

Such distance from the self results in mirroring the same perfectionism that causes the collapse, self-care only another item on a to do list and rest is just a performance. The ability to really pause is halted by the nervous system – ‘we are not allowed to do that’.

And yet, what emerges from this unravelling is, perhaps, more important than resilience. Recovering from such a collapse in meaning becomes a catalyst for a realignment, not just of one’s professional goals, but of the self. True recovery is a redefinition of success, not a return to what one once was. In Rosefield’s research the coaches who healed began to view care as circular instead of linear; nourishment must flow both ways – in order to care for others, the person providing the care needs to be self-compassionate.

Interestingly, Rosefield’s study highlighted that half of the participants experiencing burnout identified as neurodiverse, with heightened sensitivity (which could be considered a gift in relational work). With this in mind, does resilience need reframing? Is sensitivity not weakness, but the very root of regeneration; the ground of self-respect that sustains compassion?

In a system that rewards exhaustion dressed as dedication, there only breeds further idolisation of purpose without rest, where leaders must embody vision, competence and optimism at the expense of their own well-being. What if fatigue is not failure, but rebellion; the body’s protest against an inhuman pace? What if the true resilience is not relentless endurance but the courage to pause and recalibrate?

When work is both a calling and a burden, empathy can be both effective but exposing; opening the self to take on the suffering it witnesses. In depth psychology the depletion of self is the counterpart of the caregiver; the unconscious desire to be indispensable, the need to be viewed as a good person, the hunger to matter. Without acknowledgement of this shadow, care becomes compulsion, projecting one’s own wounds, ignoring them in order to heal those of others. Rosefield’s participants call it ‘the perfect storm’ – the growing external demands, internalised ideals and an industry that rewards relentless positivity. This even trickles through to coach supervision, a conversation becomes centred around a client’s needs as opposed to the practitioner’s own well-being.

Strength and resilience lie in balanced exchange. The highest form of professionalism is authenticity; the quiet courage to be human, and to be seen that way. The narrative shifts; in order to hold others, one must first hold oneself. Caring does not need to have such a great cost.

This research paper was published in the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2023, find the full paper here: Resource summary | openEQUELLA

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