The Hardest Part of Grant Writing Has Nothing to Do With Deadlines

I’ve always been the kind of person who runs 100 miles a minute. In college, that looked like taking a full class load, pursuing a double major, working full time, volunteering, and still saying yes to basically everything. 

Sleep was optional. 

Coffee was mandatory. 

Burnout? I didn’t even know her.

So when I was working on my bachelor’s in social work, and later when I went back for my master’s, and professors kept hammering this idea of self-care, I honestly rolled my eyes. Sure, it sounded nice, but I didn’t actually understand what it meant. I thought it was bubble baths and yoga mats, not a literal survival skill I’d someday have to cling to.

Looking back, I can honestly say they were right because this work is mentally taxing.

Grant writing has forced me to sit with some of the darkest realities of our world. 

For example, I’ve written about 

• animal abuse so severe that the photos of emaciated dogs made me close my laptop just to catch my breath

• newborns abandoned in alleyway dumpsters and airport trash cans out of pure desperation

• children with disabilities being told by their insurance company that the device that would let them communicate with their families wasn’t “necessary” 

• mothers facing postpartum depression, where the mix of exhaustion and brain chemistry can turn dangerous in heartbreaking ways

• doctors who chose prejudice over care, refusing to prescribe HIV prevention medication despite their oath to do no harm

Every single one of those stories (and many more) has stayed with me. They’re not just words on a page. They’re real people, real lives, real pain.

Grant writing is not just about stringing together paragraphs. You’re wading into humanity’s messiest, most painful realities and often holding other people’s trauma in your body long after you hit “submit.” 

Without a release valve, this work will honestly eat you alive, and that’s what I didn’t understand back in college. Real self-care is figuring out what keeps you grounded enough to carry the weight of this work without losing yourself in it.

For me, self-care looks different depending on the season. I like to joke that I’m a “hobby cycler” because what I do to recharge shifts with the rhythms of work.

In the busy season, I like to crochet, but definitely not anything practical like a blanket or scarf. I go for the fun, weird, slightly creepy little dolls and characters that come to life out of yarn. And when they’re done, they don’t get framed or displayed. They get tossed in a box in my office closet until I eventually give them away.

In the slower season, my self-care looks like reading real books. My husband even built me a custom 10-foot bookshelf this year because fuck Kindles. I want the heft of a book in my hands and the smell of the paper. Sorry, Jeff Bezos.

And while none of this looks like the bubble baths and yoga mats I thought self-care entailed, it’s what keeps me sane and lets me keep showing up for my clients, my family, and myself without burning out.

And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can’t do life-changing work if you’re too damn mentally exhausted to keep going.