WHEN GENEROSITY GOES WRONG

“Whether in personal life or even in the professional realm, altruism can lead to exhaustion—and often harms not only the course of your own life but exactly those whom you most want to help. Therefore, it is necessary to know how to distribute your time and expertise more efficiently, as well as to learn the importance of putting on your oxygen mask first—to be able to extend your hands to others more effectively without neglecting your own needs.” (Marcello de Souza)

From an early age, many were instructed to be givers. Offering willingly and cheerfully without expecting anything in return, and helping others by reaching out whenever possible, are clear examples of being a giver and still part of the education in many families. Even in adulthood, whether in personal or professional life, we continuously encounter the suggestion and examples that being a selfless person is beneficial—being ready to share time, energy, and expertise can help achieve a happy life and a successful and prominent career.

This indeed makes sense and makes all the difference, but for most givers, there is a great difficulty in understanding the boundaries that must be respected to reap the benefits of this admirable virtue. It’s not just the workload, information overload, demands, insecurity, traffic, everyday uncertainties, and other issues that harm us. Good intentions and dedicating oneself to others can also be a surefire path to physical and mental exhaustion.

It is true that people who develop the habit of being givers throughout their lives—helping, having an altruistic sense, giving a part of themselves to others—are admirable and have great value. Whether in the social environment or in the corporate world, being a giver makes a difference for ethical coexistence among people, especially in challenging times like the present. With all this economic and health crisis, this profile has become essential; not surprisingly, these individuals are increasingly in the spotlight for representing hope for many people who need a helping hand to survive.

There are not many who dedicate part of their time to giving of themselves, on the other hand, there is no shortage of recipients around them—some practicing the quid pro quo policy, others benefiting from receiving but not caring to reciprocate or express gratitude, as well as those who seize the opportunity to self-promote. It’s a fact; there is no shortage of selfish and ill-intentioned examples taking advantage of the unwary.

These, like many others, are examples that lead to wear and tear, cause harm, and undermine the life of a giver. Therefore, it is worth reflecting on this profile of valuable and increasingly rare individuals.

Despite being admired and often praised, altruistic individuals are the ones most at risk of burnout. Firstly, because they are not prepared to deal with reality. This type of person tends to be unable to see the opposite in others, often believing that people fundamentally have something good and supportive within them. In this sense, the downside is that givers always tend to be vulnerable. They often trust too quickly and only see the best side of people.

In this regard, the constant investment of selfless individuals in serving others can make them feel demotivated, overwhelmed, and exhausted. This reveals constant stress when they realize that this colorful world is not as vibrant as they thought, adversely affecting their professional life and causing family conflicts due to difficulty in coping with life’s hardships.

If we observe carefully, even in the midst of a pandemic, we can see many examples, such as teachers, nurses, doctors, leaders, and managers, who embody this servant mindset. We find people who have dedicated themselves to doing their best for students who have significantly lower performance in online classes; leaders and managers who are working twice as hard to maintain not only the quality of service but also to bring some harmony to their teams and avoid layoffs. In the healthcare sector, it is striking how many of these professionals have dedicated themselves to pushing their own limits to save lives.

The current reality of people trying to meet everyone’s needs acts as responsible figures in this vast realm of assistance they offer, sacrificing their nights and weekends to help strangers, colleagues, leaders, and entrepreneurs with immense responsibilities and obligations that seem never-ending. Similarly, life’s reality continues to show us the other side of ill-intentioned individuals taking advantage of the situation.

Therefore, a second important question needs to be considered, which is related to the notion of where the limit lies between helping and harming. People who dedicate themselves to doing their best for others almost never realize how far their help extends. In the desire to do good through their actions, it is crucial to recognize how much they are genuinely helping people or unintentionally causing harm.

This kind of dilemma is not exclusive to relationships outside one’s emotional context but is part of a behavioral set in personal, professional, or family life. It prompts selfless givers to turn recipients into their own victims because the giver can make others dependent on them. This not only hinders the recipient but also prevents others from learning to cope, deal with problems, find meaning in their actions, and not wait for someone else to solve their own issues. In critical environments like the one we are currently experiencing; it is essential to self-reflect and understand that there should be a limit to helping without causing harm.

We all become better individuals through experiences. Pain, anguish, disappointment, sacrifice, and suffering are some of the main foundations for any kind of evolution. Without them, we won’t truly know how to appreciate. Valuing each step, taking responsibility for our own actions, is crucial to stepping out of our comfort zone and seeking something genuinely better. It’s impossible to learn through someone else doing it for us. Knowledge comes through practice, just as learning to value our own life choices does. No one is truly helping another by doing what belongs to them. Learning to be self-sufficient is more than essential for those seeking a better life.

A third point worth reflecting on is that giving individuals lose track and become dependent on their own actions, feeling increasingly motivated by their ability to extend a helping hand. The way they are rewarded is through an increase in requests, and often, before they realize it, they find themselves drowning in a sea of commitments. The result is that they risk burnout and exhaustion, leading to chronic stress, while, on the flip side, those being supported become frustrated due to a lack of access to the help they need. Others who could contribute become idle and disinterested, sometimes offended by feeling displaced and limited by those givers who have decided to take on all responsibilities. In any case, many of these, when they perceive the problem, prefer to judge based on the giver’s lack of availability, and others even choose to offend rather than provide assistance, even if it’s just moral support.

Givers need to realize that there are clear limits, and the main aspect of this is knowing how to differentiate between generosity and self-sacrifice. Therefore, as a fourth point to consider, being kind doesn’t mean giving up one’s own life to be available for others in every situation; it means ensuring that the benefits of helping others outweigh the burdens. It’s about finding a balance between time and energy, giving and receiving. Knowing when to say “yes” but also when to say “no.” Adopting a more honest approach with oneself without compromising one’s life and performance.

In this sense, without losing efficiency but being more effective. Understand that each “no” said may represent saying “yes” to the most important things that truly deserve dedication. After all, it’s challenging to support others when you yourself are so overwhelmed that you can’t do anything else. Above all, it’s essential to be mindful of how you help, when you help, and whom you help.

A fifth fundamental point for givers is emotional intelligence. Some behavioral studies have shown that people who suffer the most psychological problems at work are those who act ad hoc. In other words, always reacting to work by attending to specific or repetitive requests is the biggest energy and time usurper. The more reactively you respond to requests for help, the more your energy is consumed—and the greater the number of issues you’ll have focusing your attention on and continuing to execute other necessary tasks. The result is burnout.

As a sixth point, it’s worth understanding that reactive help is exhausting, but proactive giving can be invigorating. Knowing your environment, the people in it, and being able to map out needs can help strengthen not only your self-esteem but also the recognition of your importance and competence. In this sense, it’s worth reflecting that you can’t be everything and can’t help with every issue, but it’s necessary to break paradigms and always encourage doing things that go beyond the usual. Identify in yourself two or three ways to offer unique value to others—things you do well, enjoy doing, and at the same time, pose challenges and new learnings.

Aligning your interests and skills and evolving with new things makes help less stressful for you and more valuable for others. Instead of feeling pressured to help, you are choosing to help what is good for your motivation, creativity, and well-being. Ceasing to be known as the jack-of-all-trades, you become recognized as a master to a few. In addition to adding value and becoming increasingly precious, it will also help you be free to focus on what truly makes an impact—this is invigorating. Acting in this way allows you to refuse requests that are outside your expertise and excel in those that are part of it.

Therefore, notice that there are many ways to do the best for others in a way that allows you to also benefit yourself. It’s possible to offer people something tailored where balance is established, protecting your own priorities while keeping the spirit of generosity alive. The fact is that many studies show that people contribute to the greater sustainability of social and corporate actions—those who offer the most direct support, take the lead initiatives, and present the best suggestions—preserve their time to also dedicate themselves to their own projects.

One of the great secrets to achieving success in life is to get organized. Of course, when we apply this to generosity, it becomes more challenging because organizing and describing every act of generosity is not simple, given that the spirit of helping is always on the radar. However, it’s possible to find mechanisms that facilitate measuring and managing one’s own energy in relation to time. One of them is being guided by organization, either by setting specific times when you’ll be available to help or by reserving time for yourself in windows where you can focus on your own needs. This may not be easy for many, but it’s necessary if you want to have control over life, and it works—everything is a matter of getting used to it to make it easier.

There are excellent tools on the market, many of them free and online, to manage your time, whether for meetings, mentoring, phone calls, or other daily tasks. This allows you to set limits for your own availability instead of declaring it openly. And this prevents wasting time with disconnected and incompatible schedules; for both sides, it’s a way to stay in control. Despite everything described so far, and as effective as you may be in self-management and focusing on ways to give, you may still have more demands than you can meet. How do you decide who really needs and deserves your time?

If there’s one thing generous people learn from suffering, it’s how to distinguish the grateful from the ungrateful. Over time, generous individuals learn the art of dealing with opportunists and exploiters. Despite easily trusting, over time they also become better at detecting lies. With time, donors understand a lot about human behavior. With the disappointments and disillusionments they experience, they start paying more attention, recognizing clues that reveal much about people, especially those who abuse goodwill, the dependents, the ungrateful who claim credit for success while blaming others for failure, the flatterers, and the selfish. Not to mention those who are kind to your face and attack you behind your back, or are only kind when they need a favor, and those who take too much and leave almost nothing.

The big question here is that acquiring these skills doesn’t happen overnight, and donors don’t have much time to waste. If it takes weeks or months to realize that people are taking advantage of their generosity, it has already cost a lot, as there is not only the time but also the wear and tear and exhaustion that these individuals bring to the generous ones, in addition to those who truly need their help and couldn’t receive it.

Therefore, from the beginning, it’s necessary to adopt some tactics to minimize this risk and create a filter against opportunists. So, use sincerity. Instead of going out and helping everyone, first make a more precise analysis of the situation. Start by gathering information, check the severity and urgency, understand if you are truly qualified for the situation, evaluate if there’s something simple that you can provide immediately. Only then decide how—or even if—you should help. There are also other issues to consider, such as how the request is made. Sensible people know that help is something that will take time from the other person, so they do it objectively, clearly, and in a way that can make life as easy as possible for the donor. Now, there are recipients who, on the contrary, approach you out of nowhere, try to impose their schedule and needs, follow you everywhere, and when not reciprocated, they insist and bother you to adjust to their terms, even though they are the inconvenient ones. For these recipients, if the donor offers a hand, they want both, plus the feet and whatever else is possible. They spare no effort to take everything from the donor. Caution is needed with these types of recipients. This is how collaborative overload sets in: what you thought was a one-time request to share information gradually becomes a permanent commitment to the other person’s project.

Donors need to know how to dodge people like that and focus on those who genuinely know how to give back and spread the spirit of generosity. If you deal with people with a history of selfishness and a hint of “sociopathy,” don’t reinforce or waste your time trying to change the person and their behavior. Be direct and clear, do what is sufficient and possible, and don’t hesitate to demand their contribution in helping others. If your relationship with this type of requesting person is close, it might be time for a difficult and necessary conversation. Don’t let a few individuals be responsible for much of your generosity exhaustion; never forget that managing yourself is within your control. You need to have control and change what is necessary within yourself to find balance. This means setting boundaries. Assign value and assess work based on contributions.

While giving makes work and life more meaningful, it doesn’t always leave you more refreshed. On average, helping others only moderately increases happiness, and in some studies, recipients report more life satisfaction than donors. It’s not hard to figure out why. When people are generous to the point of exhaustion, they undermine their own ability to give, and the satisfaction that it brings slowly drains away along with the stress and everything it causes. Generosity means caring for others but not neglecting yourself. If you protect yourself from exhaustion, you may feel less altruistic, but in reality, you will end up giving much more to others and, in doing so, will be able to help many more people, elevating not only their lives but also yours and all the goodness it can contain.

As we navigate through the complexities of generosity, it is imperative to recognize that the essence of giving is intrinsically linked to the ability to set boundaries. While the impulse to lend a helping hand is admirable, true mastery lies in the ability to do so without sacrificing one’s own vitality. Generosity, when exercised wisely, becomes a transformative force not only for the recipients but also for the giver. It is an act that not only uplifts the lives of others but also enriches one’s own existence.

At the core of this balance is the understanding that being selective in our commitments does not diminish the nobility of our generous spirit; in fact, it amplifies its effectiveness. By honoring our own limits, we empower ourselves to help in a more meaningful and sustainable way. Thus, generosity does not become a source of exhaustion but rather a catalyst for positive achievements, a legacy that transcends momentary fatigue.

Therefore, reflecting on the challenges that altruistic givers face, it is crucial to internalize the idea that, by taking care of ourselves, we strengthen our ability to care for others. Discerning generosity is not only a gift to the beneficiaries but also a valuable present for the giver. Finding the balance between giving and preserving is a journey of self-discovery that enriches both the giver and those touched by their benevolence.

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Hello, I’m Marcello de Souza! I started my career in 1997 as a leader and manager in a large company in the IT and Telecommunications market. Since then, I have participated in important projects of structuring, implementation, and optimization of telecommunications networks in Brazil. Restless and passionate about behavioral and social psychology. In 2008, I decided to delve into the universe of the human mind.

Since then, I have become a professional passionate about deciphering the secrets of human behavior and catalyzing positive changes in individuals and organizations. Doctor in Social Psychology, with over 25 years of experience in Cognitive Behavioral and Human Organizational Development. With a wide-ranging career, I highlight my role as:

– Master Senior Coach and Trainer: Guiding my clients in the pursuit of goals and personal and professional development, achieving extraordinary results.

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– Consultant and Mentor: Leveraging my experience in leadership and project management to identify growth opportunities and propose personalized strategies.

My solid academic background includes four postgraduates and a doctorate in Social Psychology, along with international certifications in Management, Leadership, and Cognitive Behavioral Development. My contributions in the field are widely recognized in hundreds of classes, training sessions, conferences, and published articles.

Co-author of the book “The Secret of Coaching” and author of “The Map Is Not the Territory, the Territory Is You” and “The Diet Society” (the first of a trilogy on human behavior in contemporaneity – 05/2024).

Allow me to be your companion on this journey of self-discovery and success. Together, we will unravel a universe of behavioral possibilities and achieve extraordinary results.

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