Self-Care for Financial Capability Professionals: Friends, This is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
In a time when your clients need you even more than ever -- while you might feel limited in what you can do -- it is crucial that you prioritize self-care so that you can keep going for the long haul.
Greetings, Talking About Money Community. How are you all doing?
Back in March when I noticed that epidemiologists were crying from the rooftops to “flatten the curve,” my fair state of Massachusetts enacted a stay-at-home directive and we all, well, went home. Eight weeks later and it seems to have worked, in that there has not been a dramatic peak in cases. Rather, there has been a long slow plateau that so far seems unwilling to relent. Non-essential work might start opening up by the end of the May, but who really knows? So here in the Northeast we watch. And we wait.
The Current State of Your Clients
For this post I am taking inspiration from a May 8th article that I read in the Washington Post by Heather Long entitled “The coronavirus economy is exposing how easy it is to fall from the middle class into poverty.” Is this news to you, dear reader? No, I didn’t think so. But if you haven’t read this article yet, click on the link (and don’t worry about that pesky pay wall, it’s free!).
What this article tells me is that for the coming weeks, months, and years, your work as financial capability professionals is going to profoundly change. Because this much destruction to so many people’s lives in such a short period of time is not going to disappear overnight.
Another article to take a look at is “Will the worst downturn since the Great Depression last as long?”, posted on April 22nd by Matthew Yglesias at Vox. This was a great refresher as it reminded me that it took the United States ten years to get out of the Great Depression and 6 years to get through the Great Recession. So, ten years or six, your work it going to be more intense for the foreseeable future.
The financial capability professionals who I am speaking with nowadays are working hard. Really hard. They have pushed much of their existing work aside to attend to the immediate needs of their clients. And for many of them that means food security. Because even though lots of people had jobs and hopes for the future, they didn’t have much in the way of emergency savings, and when those layoffs came, there were not many days until people needed help buying groceries.
So along with grocery store gift cards many of you also honed up on your skills in assisting your clients to apply for unemployment benefits (through arcane state systems), SNAP, and Medicaid. And while you have doubled down on providing the utmost best service to your clients, there hasn’t been much room (or additional funding) to serve new clients. And from that Washington Post article above, there are untold numbers of households that could benefit from the financial education, counseling, and coaching that you do so well.
But that’s not all. In addition to the direct service, you are most likely ramping up your tech skills and those of your clients. You may be working from home for the first time and need to trouble-shoot why your computer won’t do that thing you need it to do (yesterday I learned what a “Bluetooth adapter driver” was -- fun!). Instead of meeting with your clients face-to-face, where you might make appointments or offer walk-in hours, you are now teaching your clients how to access your services through their smartphone (most likely the only place where they have internet access).
How You Might Be Responding to This Strange, New World
With all this work and no relief appearing immediately on the horizon, how are front-line financial capability professionals like you doing? Most likely, this is not the reality that you would prefer.
You might be having trouble sleeping, or feel anxious prior to the start of your day. Or you might have trouble unwinding in the evening, thinking of “one more” work-related task that you can cross off your to-do list. Finally, your personal relationships might be taking a hit, be that family members, friends, or roommates.
You might be experiencing one or more of the following conditions: burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma.
Burnout: This happens when you begin to feel exhausted, overwhelmed, or powerless over the work that you perform, either by time or by function. You might also feel negativity or cynicism towards your job. Burnout tends to be a function of the organization that you work for, in that if you have an involved and supportive supervisor, you may be less likely to experience the symptoms of burnout.
Compassion Fatigue or Vicarious Trauma: This is characterized by the utter exhaustion that you feel by putting so much of yourself into emotionally demanding work. There can be a number of physical and psychological symptoms that appear, ranging from sleep disturbances and increased emotional intensity, to decreased cognition and loss of morale. You might feel a reduction in your feelings of accomplishment. It may also result in a loss of empathy for some of your clients, or even for your loved ones.
What You Can Do: “Put Your Oxygen Mask on First” Is a Mandate, Not a Suggestion
Regardless of the type of stress that you might be experiencing, there are commonalities in what you can do to respond to what you are feeling.
Talk to Your Manager: One of the benefits to working in an organization is that you are not going it alone. If you start to feel overwhelmed by your responsibilities, bring it up with your direct supervisor. You may be able to work together to readjust your job duties so that you can space out your appointments and feel more in control of your schedule.
Breathe: I just listened to the recent Jonathan Van Ness interview with acclaimed “happiness” researcher and Yale professor Laurie Santos and while the whole discussion is worth a listen, the number one takeaway I received was the importance of deep breathing. So if nothing else, when you start to feel like your stress is mounting, take one minute and breathe deeply, in and out.
Stick to a Routine: If the work-from-home lifestyle as done nothing else, it has messed with people’s routines. Without a change in environment, work melds into personal time and melds back into work again. Creating a routine that puts up boundaries can help. Maybe you want to start setting your alarm to tell you what time to get up. Take a shower each morning. A colleague of mine actually puts on work pants(!) to tell her subconscious that it is time for the work day, and then at 5:00 she tosses on her yoga pants and prepares for a relaxing evening.
Get Moving: And speaking of the evening, put down that laptop and go outside! Breathe some fresh air. Look at a tree. Smile at a dog or small child (or both). Don’t worry about starting a new exercise routine or “maximizing” your stay-at-home life. Just move your body, once a day, every day.
Eat Your Veggies: Again, I am not here to turn you into a vegan (although…), but your body will thank you if you ingest a fruit and a vegetable every day.
Limit Your Media Consumption: Back in early March I spent a span of three days reading everything I could get my eyeballs on related to the coming slow-motion tsunami of the coronavirus pandemic. Yes, I got myself worked up. Yes, I felt tightness in my chest and I found it hard to sleep. And yes, I now know that I should not have done that. Choose one or two reliable news sources and check in with them once or twice a day. That’s it.
Stay in Touch with the People You Love: With all the social distancing that is taking place it is easy to feel isolated. Reach out to family and friends and keep up those connections. But again, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t check in with everyone! I have a running list of all that people that I want to call. And when I muster the energy, I reach out to the next person on that mental list.
Seek Professional Help: Being a financial capability professional is being a helping professional. And serving your clients can be depleting. Reaching out for professional help can assist not only you, but in turn your clients. Psychology Today has an easy-to-use tool to find a therapist.
What do you think, Talking About Money Community? How are you adjusting to this new reality, and how are you feeling about it? Tell us what you think, and share your ideas here. And if you enjoyed this post, please take a moment to subscribe to our mailing list. Then forward this post to one or two people who you think might enjoy it too. Thanks and be well.