It’s Sunday night.
Your mind is already running through your caseload—one task after another.
If you work in the schools, 80+ students are waiting for you.
If you’re in the clinic, it’s back-to-back patients and paperwork stacked high.
If you’re in leadership, it’s a full week of meetings—some with tough conversations ahead.
You’ve got the Sunday Scaries.
It’s more than feeling uneasy about Monday: It’s that quiet question in the back of your mind:
How long can I keep going like this?
Burnout isn’t just a buzzword; it’s the quiet exhaustion that takes over when we give and give without taking a pause and resetting. And it’s widespread:
The good news is that while we can’t avoid stress altogether, resilience can help us respond. With intentional focus and resets, we can protect our energy and time—and reconnect with the parts of this work that drew us to it in the first place.
Burnout shows up differently for everyone, but the hallmarks are pretty consistent:
For audiologists and speech-language pathologists (SLPs), the risk is especially high. School-based professionals juggle massive caseloads and endless documentation while dealing with shrinking budgets (Marante et al., 2023). Clinical providers manage insurance hurdles, productivity quotas, and the emotional labor of counseling patients and families (Aung & Tewogbola, 2019). Burnout in these settings can be a response to unrelenting demands or a mismatch between demands and resources. The more we talk about burnout honestly, the more we normalize that it’s a workplace challenge—not a personal flaw.
Then, add in “helper’s guilt.”
Saying no can feel selfish—or even like a betrayal of the very role we’ve chosen: to heal, support, and serve others (Figley, 2002). But constantly giving in to helper’s guilt comes at great costs: overcommitment, compassion fatigue, and diminished quality of care.
Those words create space instead of guilt.
Setting boundaries also helps to anchor decisions in your values, also called non-negotiables. If connection, impact, or growth are high on your list, use them as filters.
Ask yourself:
Boundaries offer protection—not rejection. They protect your time, your energy, and your ability to keep showing up for the long haul.
ACTION STEP: Write down two boundary scripts. Use these scripts the next time you feel pressured to say yes to something when instead you want to say no. Having some scripts ready will help you create that boundary and allow you to stand firm on the “no.”
These moments may feel small, but your nervous system doesn’t need an hour to know it’s safe, it just needs a signal (West et al., 2018).
ACTION STEP: Choose one micro-reset to build into your day this week. Write it in your calendar like it’s an actual appointment and honor it.
ACTION STEP: Reach out to one person this week and check in honestly. Ask how they’re doing, and share your real answer, too.
The shift from burnout isn’t about avoiding stress altogether: It’s also about re-centering—strengthening your ability to reset, to recover, and to keep moving forward. Ask yourself: What do I want my days to feel like? Instead of reacting to every demand, what would it look like to respond with intention?
As humans, we find balance in aligning our time and energy with what matters most—not in eliminating stress completely. What makes the difference is learning to choose our response rather than letting circumstances choose it for us. Small shifts—a boundary, a reset, a connection—are the foundation for thriving in a helping profession.
If you find yourself with the “Sunday Scaries” or with burnout nipping at your heels, try one small reset this week. Share it with a trusted colleague or friend. Remember: Resilience isn’t built overnight—it’s strengthened through small, consistent shifts that help you thrive long-term.
For more support related to burnout and resilience, see the ASHA resources listed below.
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.-a). Contact ASHA. https://www.asha.org/form/contact-asha/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.-b). ASHA Career Portal. https://careers.asha.org/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.-c). Information for Audiologists. https://www.asha.org/aud/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.-d). Information for Speech-Language Pathologists. https://www.asha.org/slp/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.-e). ASHA Mentorship Programs. https://www.asha.org/mentoring/
Hari Prasad, A. (2025, April 1). Resources to Address Stress, Overwhelm, and Burnout. ASHA Leader Live. https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/resources-to-address-stress-overwhelm-and-burnout/full/
O’Brien, J., Emanuel, D. C., Brewer, K., & Imtiaz, F. (2025). Audiologists’ awareness and use of resilience-building strategies. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. Advance online publication. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2024_PERSP-24-00178
References
ADP Research Institute. (2023). People at work 2023: A global workforce view. https://www.adpri.org/research/people-at-work-2023-a-global-workforce-view/
Aung, N., & Tewogbola, P. (2019). The impact of emotional labor on the health in the workplace: A narrative review of literature from 2013–2018. AIMS Public Health, 6(3), 268–275. https://doi.org/10.3934/publichealth.2019.3.268
Figley, C. R. (2002). Compassion fatigue: Psychotherapists’ chronic lack of self-care. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58(11), 1433–1441. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.10090
Marante, L., Hall-Mills, S., & Farquharson, K. (2023). School-based speech-language pathologists’ stress and burnout: A cross-sectional survey at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(2), 456–471. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-22-00047
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World Psychiatry, 15(2), 103–111. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20311
National Alliance on Mental Illness. (2023). Workplace mental health report. NAMI. Retrieved September 29, 2025, from https://www.nami.org/Support-Education/Publications-Reports/Workplace-Mental-Health-Report
West, C. P., Dyrbye, L. N., & Shanafelt, T. D. (2018). Physician burnout: Contributors, consequences, and solutions. Journal of Internal Medicine, 283(6), 516–529. https://doi.org/10.1111/joim.12752
World Health Organization. (2019). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International classification of diseases. WHO. https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases
AUTHOR BIO
Amy Badstubner, AuD, CPC, is a certified career and leadership coach, audiologist, and co-founder of dB Coaching Group. With more than 20 years of experience in health care, business, and coaching, she supports professionals and teams in navigating change, improving communication, and creating momentum without burnout. She has presented nationally, has written numerous articles, and has been featured on multiple podcasts.