Through the hectic life style of school, relationships and bills, life can be very stressful. Stress levels may increase if one has a job requires a lot of emotional labor. With extra stress, it is common to experience compassion fatigue or burnout. Compassion fatigue is “the reduced capacity for empathy toward clients resulting from the repeated exposure to their trauma” (Kara Thielelan and Joanne Caccaiatore). This type of burnout is often associated with occupations like social work, teaching, nursing, and counseling. Burnout also can involve wearing out, or becoming exhausted from, excessive demands of energy or strength (Sara Bressi and Elizabeth Vaden). As an elementary school teacher describes her experience with burnout, “I had to quit after ten years because after I gave and gave and gave, there was nothing left” (Thomas Skovholt). This is an employment issue that is affecting those in the Social Justice realm. The individual needs to be aware of this risk and take preventative measures to help combat burnout, while having a societal shift to an environment that promotes stress reduction and support. Burnout is a big risk to those in Social Justice work, but can be mitigated with proper self-care, balance, compassion satisfaction and support. A main preventative method to avoid burnout is the idea of self-care. Self-care has recently become more popular specifically with people coping with stress of higher education. The idea of self-care is recognized as nurturing oneself or managing activities for the purpose of supporting one’s needs (Sara Bressi and Elizabeth Vaden). Each aspect of self needs to be tended to whether it is the emotional, nutritious, or physical self (Thomas Skovholt). The concept of nurturing the emotional self stems from the idea that problems do not go away and they must be worked through. There are various tactics that can help nurture those aspects of self, including counseling, having solitude or journaling. The nutritious and physical self focus on what one is eating, putting into the body and regular exercise. Some strategies that can help those include choosing healthy alternatives, meal prep, or exercise. These are only some of the ways individuals can care for them self. Another aspect that also contributes to burnout is the work environment. Within the work environment one needs to balance boundaries. With balancing boundaries, one should avoid unreasonable helping requests (Thomas Skovholt). Just as a supervisor can monitor extra helping requests given to each employee. Another aspect of balance is maintaining the professional and personal self. The professional self is the self that is engaged at work with clients while the personal self is the self that lives outside of work (Sara Bressi and Elizabeth Vaden). By ensuring that the professional self is not intruding on the personal self, balance is achieved and maintained. That balance is what prevents burnout and helps people stay fulfilled in their career. There are many different strategies that help to avoid burnout on the individual level. However, individuals can only do so much on their own. Compassion satisfaction is when one gains a sense of fulfillment from their work and fulfillment from contributing to others well being. As Thomas Skovholt says in The Resilient Practitioner, “The root cause of burnout lies in our existential need to believe that our lives are meaningful, that the things we do are useful, important and even ‘heroic’”. Compassion satisfaction has been shown to be high in professions of helping and has been shown to counter the burnout that can come from Social Justice work. Studies have also shown that encouraging individuals to recognize positive aspects of their work and the impact that they have on clients decreases the chance of burnout. Compassion satisfaction can also be heightened if there is a positive work environment. A positive and supportive work environment is essential to avoid the suffering of burnout, while creating a culture that supports stress management. This culture has to be created and transformed from the current high efficient atmosphere in America to a more supportive and stress reduction focused approach. This includes giving people time off and creating a strong support system, where employees are able to debrief with a supervisor or colleagues (Maryanne Kapoulitsas and Tim Corcoran). Compassion satisfaction seems to be a promising form of prevention and intervention when it comes to burnout for those who work in the Social Justice field (Sally Pelon). These are essential changes that need to happen to stop this pressing issue within Social Justice work. These are not just suggestions; these are a type of self-preservation to create a sustainable lifestyle for those who have the calling to do Social Justice work.