When Caring Too Much Almost Killed Me

#018: How to protect your health without losing your passion.

I’ve always been told I “care too much” about my work.

For a long time, I wore that like a badge of honor. Caring deeply felt like the only way to be a great designer and leader. It drove me to take on big challenges, push for ever-higher quality, and put in the hours to make things happen.

But there’s a thin line between caring deeply and caring destructively, and I crossed it.

One night, my wife found me unconscious, splayed across the threshold between our guest bathroom and the hallway. I had developed a stress-induced peptic ulcer and was bleeding internally. Over the ensuing months, I lost 70 pounds and my body nearly shut down.

That brush with mortality was a wake-up call. I had to completely change my lifestyle and habits to recover, and it fundamentally reshaped how I think about my relationship with work.

It also made me realize how many designers are quietly heading down the same path. The qualities that make our best work possible — deep empathy, passionate curiosity, unbending persistence — are the same ones that can burn us out and endanger our wellbeing.

Why Designers Burn Out Faster

Designers don’t usually burn out because they don’t care; they burn out because they care so much that they end up holding more than anyone can realistically carry. The qualities that make us good at what we do — empathy, curiosity, persistence, and the ability to connect dots others miss — also make us especially vulnerable when those strengths are pushed too far.

In most organizations, designers often become the “glue.” We’re the ones who see patterns across silos, notice where customers are falling through the cracks, and sense when business priorities are working against user needs. That pattern recognition is powerful, but it also creates an almost unbearable tension. Once you see the gaps, you can’t unsee them. And when no one else is stepping in to close them, it’s tempting — almost instinctual — to try to do it yourself.

This is where the slide toward burnout begins. Emotional over-investment comes first: tying your sense of worth to whether a launch lands, a stakeholder finally gets it, or a long-fought-for improvement makes it to production. When those outcomes stall or get deprioritized — and they inevitably do — the disappointment doesn’t feel like a professional setback, it feels like a personal one.

Then comes chronic overwork. Because we notice the “unclaimed” work, we’re often the ones who pick it up. Maybe you see no one aligning across teams, so you take it on. Maybe the onboarding flow hasn’t been touched in years, so you redesign it on your own time. Maybe a critical presentation isn’t clear, so you polish the deck and get pulled into presenting it yourself. None of these things are unreasonable in isolation, but they layer on top of an already demanding workload. The result is a creeping exhaustion that feels less like an occasional sprint and more like a permanent state.

Finally, there’s the weight of values misalignment. Most designers are drawn to the field because they want to make things better for people. But many companies are optimized for other goals: ad revenue, transactions at all costs, or operational efficiency that undermines the experience. When your daily work pulls you further away from the reasons you became a designer in the first place, it erodes not just your energy but your sense of integrity.

These forces rarely operate alone; more often they overlap and reinforce one another. You care deeply, so you invest personally. You see the gaps, so you overextend. You hold onto your values, so you feel the sting of compromise. It becomes a perfect recipe for burnout. And because designers see systems so clearly, we often believe we can fix them through sheer willpower. We care harder, we push longer, we take on more — but when the system refuses to bend, the effort turns inward. Instead of changing the status quo, we sacrifice ourselves to it.

How to Care Without Breaking

What ultimately helped me wasn’t just sheer willpower or clever productivity hacks — it was learning to build a support system and lean on it. That included professional help: doctors who addressed the physical consequences of stress, and therapists who helped me untangle the mental ones. I wish I hadn’t waited until my health collapsed to take those steps. If you’re struggling, don’t. Professional care is not a last resort — it’s a foundation.

With that foundation in place, I’ve slowly pieced together practices that allow me to care deeply about my work without destroying myself in the process. They’re the result of years of trial and error, and I’m still learning, but they’ve helped me shift from burning out routinely to working more sustainably:

• Detach identity from outcomes
  Work is something I do, not who I am. A failed launch or a tense stakeholder meeting doesn’t define me.

• Redefine success
  Progress, however small, is a more reliable compass than perfection.

• Practice “empathy with edges”
  I’ve learned to care deeply while drawing clear lines around what’s mine to fix and what isn’t.

• Schedule recovery like a meeting
  Rest isn’t indulgence; it’s fuel. If it isn’t on the calendar, it won’t happen.

• Learn the strategic “no”
  Declining work that doesn’t align with my priorities or capacity is a form of self-preservation, not weakness.

These aren’t quick fixes, and they don’t eliminate hard days. But they’ve given me a way to sustain my passion for design without sacrificing my health or my sense of self.

Your Check-In for This Week

I’ve had to build my own version of these practices over years — often the hard way — and I’m still refining them with the help of my support network. You don’t need to figure it all out at once. Start by checking in with yourself and taking one small step toward restoring balance.

On a scale from Thriving → Treading Water → Empty Tank, where are you right now?

• What’s one clear sign you notice when you’re approaching burnout?

• What’s one small habit you can commit to this week to give yourself back some energy?

• And if the signs are severe or persistent, who can you reach out to today — a doctor, therapist, or trusted professional — to support you before things spiral further?

Small steps matter. They build the foundation that lets you care deeply and sustainably.

Closing Reflection

Caring too much nearly cost me my health, but caring the right way has allowed me to keep doing work I love while staying whole. If you recognize yourself in any part of my story, take it seriously — not as a reason to pull back from your passion, but as an invitation to protect it with boundaries, rest, and support. You don’t have to stop caring; you just have to stop carrying it all alone.

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