By Jennifer Bassman / Burnout Recovery & Boundaries Expert

The pet sitter industry is quietly reeling from its own epidemic: burnout.

It’s a job, that from the outside, seems like all fun, and little “real” work. You get to play with animals all day! Never mind, the bookkeeping, marketing, scheduling, human resources work, customer service…

You and I know that our jobs carry far more responsibility and emotional weight than most people realize.

If all we did was play with animals all day, I wouldn’t need to write this article.

There are a million things that cause burnout and just as many ways to recover. You are already in a place where you lack the energy and the patience to guess at what will help you get your chronic stress under control, let alone figure out how you burned out in the first place. And, picking burnout recovery options that don’t work only add to your chronic stress and extend your burnout.

I have coached hundreds of business owners through burnout recovery over the last 10 years. However, pet sitters and pet care business owners have special needs that don’t get addressed through traditional means of burnout recovery.

Many of you may or may not realize there are three things fueling your burnout that aren’t seen as often in other industries:

1.      Compassion Fatigue

2.      Boredom

3.      A business that never gets to shut down

Compassion Fatigue: Little Discussed Issue with Major Consequences

Compassion Fatigue is a secondary stress reaction that comes from being exposed to another’s trauma. It is stress that has developed into mental and emotional exhaustion from providing care to animal or another person. It is often associated with caregiving environments that consistently present heart-wrenching, emotional challenges.

The more you open yourself up to others’ pain, the more likely you will experience your own feelings of heartbreak and devastation. Almost as if you were there for the original traumatic event.

Compassion Fatigue can show up as apathy, a lack of patience, inattention to details, or loss of urgency. It affects your ability to make decisions, think rationally, and your treatment of the animals in your care may become unfriendly.

While Compassion Fatigue may play a large role in burnout in other industries, the Compassion Fatigue experienced by pet sitters is different. You spend your days with a living thing that cannot talk and with pet owners that may say too much. So, you expend more intellectual and emotional energy guessing at what ails and what heals the pets in your care, or calms their humans.

Also, you are managing the emotions and trauma of both an animal and human at the same time. A double-whammy to your psyche that requires and drains twice the energy and attention.

Solution:

The two strongest antidotes to Compassion Fatigue are boundaries and a support system.

Most people experiencing Compassion Fatigue lack boundaries, or clear ones. When you don’t have boundaries, you are allowing other people to control your time, energy, and emotions. Create boundaries based on clear priorities and clearly communicate them.

It’s easy to become what I call a Professional Lone Wolf. You have either allowed your ego to refuse help, or you don’t think having support is important. It’s imperative to your mental health to create a support system.

Your support system can help you say no when necessary, help you through stressful events, and a be a shoulder to lean on when times get tough.

Boredom

This one may come as a shocker to many pet sitters, but boredom is a sneaky and serious source of burnout. You may be incredibly bored with your current role and not realize it is triggering your stress response.

Boredom can be very stressful because you are feeling unstimulated, unfocused, and restless. Boredom can contribute to burnout by making it harder to cope with stressors because it’s more difficult to find the energy and motivation to overcome them. And, when you’re bored, you stop engaging in self-care activities, seeking out new experiences, or socializing with friends that could help you alleviate your stress.

Maybe you walk the same streets every day, rarely experience live, human interaction, or you’ve built a routine that you find it impossible to stray from. Boredom makes you feel stuck and burnout can make you feel trapped.

Pet sitters also don’t readily recognize when they have grown and developed beyond their current role. This is tough when you own the business you work in because it’s not always clear what a next step could be. And, maybe your ultimate goal was just to earn a living doing something you love, or grow a successful business. You’ve done that. What else could there be to do?

You are supposed to get better at your job and master skills, but you also need to create goals that motivate you so that you don’t become complacent and… bored.

Solution:

Re-evaluate your priorities and goals. Your priorities change over time and your goals need to motivate you. You aren’t the same person you were 10 years ago. Maybe 10 years ago you weren’t married or had not finished your education. Different life experiences call for different expectations.

As you grow in your role and learn or master skills, you need to have a plan for what comes next. Sometimes, it helps to get a mentor that can help you find more career or professional possibilities that are available to you. Regularly check on your progress so you can see when you might be getting off track or your goals need to be adjusted to your growth.

Business That Doesn’t Shut Down

The pet sitting industry does not shut down for the night, the weekend, or the holidays. You aren’t dealing with a product that sits on a shelf, rather you are taking care of a living, breathing thing that requires your presence to get fed, use the bathroom, or get medical care. If you miss a visit or don’t show up, there are serious health and safety consequences for the pet in your care.

It’s a job that happens outside of your client’s supervision, so they may not be aware of the energy and patience required to care for animals that may not recognize you, may be stressed out by their owner’s absence, or even the amount of time it takes to get through traffic from one visit to another.

It is the lack of concrete hours of operation that lead you to work all hours. You respond to texts and emails before sunrise or late at night to reassure a concerned client. You honor that last-minute request to pick up a delivered package from a porch. Or, you aren’t paying attention to how many clients you have committed to help and you end up working far longer than you expected.

Not only do these habits create boredom – they also create resentment.

Solution:

You know you are human, right? You can only work so many hours a day and so many days of the week before you exhaust yourself. It’s time to create hours of operation for yourself so you can separate from your business and free up time to spend with family and friends. It’s also time to stop sacrificing plans that fall outside of your typical hours of operation.

If you are a solo sitter, you need to:

·        Schedule and commit to time off each quarter.

·        Be aware of the number of clients you can handle safely and with less stress.

·        Find a reliable back-up that can help you in case of illness or emergency.

·        Create hours of operation where you don’t answer calls, texts, and emails. Communicate these hours to your clients so they know what to expect.

If you have employees or contractors:

·        Schedule and commit to working five days a week, as well as, regular time off.

·        Create hard, clear boundaries between work and play time.

·        Train your employees to be self-sufficient and empower them to make decisions.

It’s time to inject some parameters around your business and professional life so that you can begin to manage your stress.

Jennifer Bassman

Burnout Recovery & Boundaries Expert

www.JenniferBassman.com