How to help without burning out: your inner compass for good deeds 💫

Charity is not a sprint but a marathon, where regularity is more important than records. This is especially true when it comes to helping children and supporting families who require long-term rehabilitation. To ensure that such donations and involvement do not deplete but rather fulfill you, you need your own system. Imagine you are planting a garden: you cannot water it once a year with a bucket of water, but you can come with a small watering can every week. It's the same with help—small but consistent actions create sustainable results. Start with an honest conversation with yourself. How much time, energy, or resources are you willing to allocate monthly without feeling discomfort? This will be your personal norm, your shore, from which you should not sail too far. Help is not only about money. Some become volunteers, dedicating a few hours a month to sorting items or assisting at events. Others help a family with their professional skills, such as tutoring a child or providing legal advice to parents. Some simply make regular small donations by setting up automatic payments, creating a background of kindness that doesn't require daily decisions. It's important not to dissolve your boundaries. If you help personally, agree on the timing of visits or calls in advance. Respond to specific requests, not to everything—this way you will know for sure that your actions are useful. Sometimes the best help is simply staying informed and sharing verified information, i.e., informational support. Fundraising is an important part of the work, but here too you can choose a comfortable pace: for example, not participating in every urgent campaign but supporting one long-term program. Observe your emotions. If after an interaction or donation you feel drained and anxious rather than quiet joy—that's a signal. Perhaps you've taken on too much. Take a break, return to your rules. Remember that a charitable organization is a system, and you are an important but not the only part of it. Your sustainability allows you to help for years, witnessing how lives change. And that is the most valuable thing.