Work Ethic and Worth Ethic: Reclaiming Balance
By Xerlan Deery, LMT, BCTMB
We live in a world that often confuses productivity with value. But what if your worth was never meant to be earned?
Welcome to the soft rebellion of reclaiming balance. Not the kind of balance we write about in our bios or strive for doing the tree pose in yoga class, but the kind that begins deep within—where our work that we are dedicated to and our life, heart and soul aren’t in opposition.
Let’s start with a truth about massage therapists:
We work.
We work a lot.
We work with our hands and hearts. We work weekends and evenings. We work on call, on our feet, on the floor, on the move. And according to the 2025 AMTA Massage Profession Research Report, there are likely more than 300,000 of us in the U.S., doing this essential work in:
Franchises and chains
Health clubs, spas, salons, and integrated clinics
Hospitals, hospice, and VA facilities
Hotels, resorts, and cruise lines
Private practices, group offices, and even in our homes
And in yours—when we show up for house calls, event massage, or corporate wellness days
More of us are sole practitioners than anything else. The math may be fuzzy because many of us wear multiple hats:
14% full-time employees
16% part-time employees
14% contractors
73% sole practitioners
(Yes, that adds up to 117%. Because massage therapists often live at the intersection of multiple roles, multiple gigs, and multiple identities.)
Some of us work massage full-time. Others do it part-time while holding down unrelated full-time jobs. Many of us teach at massage schools, teach continuing ed classes, or build communities while building our practices. And nearly all of us navigate marketing, scheduling, paperwork, and maintaining the deep personal presence this work requires.
So when people say “no one wants to work anymore,” they’re not talking about massage therapists. Honestly there are not a lot of well paying jobs in our profession with benefits.
Massage therapy is not an easy job. It is physical and emotional, intuitive and strategic. It requires constant learning, ethical vigilance, professional boundaries, and self-care that is often hard to come by. It's a profession.
Yes—profession.
Not “industry.”
That distinction matters.
What Makes a Profession?
According to Oxford, a profession is “a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification.”
Merriam-Webster adds that it is a “calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation.”
Wikipedia defines it as a disciplined group with specialized training and ethical standards, committed to serving others with integrity.
Massage therapists meet those marks:
We complete formal training.
We are licensed in most states.
We are bound by codes of ethics.
We commit to helping others heal, function, and feel more whole.
And more often than not—we do it because we feel called.
Some of us arrive here through science. Some through spirituality. Some through survival. But what unites us is our belief in the power of touch, and our willingness to hold space for others in moments of vulnerability, pain, and transformation
This is a profession.
The industry came later.
And while industries may support professions, they can also exploit them—pressuring therapists into unsustainable productivity, selling therapists, businesses and schools too many things they may not actually need, undervaluing care, or reducing therapy to a service slot. That’s why we must pause and ask:
What Are We Really Working For?
Work Ethic
Traditionally, work ethic means diligence, dependability, and effort. It values showing up, doing your job, taking pride in doing it well.
But over time, this noble idea has been twisted. It has been co-opted by hustle culture. It’s been inflated to mean “the harder you work, the more you work, the more worthy you are.”
Here’s the truth, hard work may or not be necessary or appreciated.
Hard work is not the same as good work, and neither determines your worth.
When work ethic becomes distorted, it leads to overwork, constant hustling, busyness, burnout, and guilt for simply resting. Especially in professions like ours, where empathy is part of the labor.
So what if we countered this with something deeper?
Worth Ethic
Worth ethic is a term I may be coining here, but the concept is timeless. It’s the inner belief that your value is inherent, not earned. That you are already enough—before the bookings, before the five-star reviews, before the stacked schedule.
Worth ethic isn’t about how much you do.
It’s about how much you believe you matter, even when you’re still, even when you say no, even when your inbox is empty.
Massage therapists, like many helping professionals, struggle with this. We feel responsible. We want to help. We internalize the idea that our time is only valuable when it’s being given to someone else.
But you are not a machine.
You are not your productivity.
You are not the work you do. You are the person you are.
—Toni Morrison
And yet, the world doesn’t make this easy. Most Americans have never had a massage. Many can’t afford it. Insurance rarely covers it. That economic reality complicates our pricing, our value, and our perception of what is “enough.” It’s easy to slide into scarcity or martyrdom.
That’s why we need a new ethic—one that doesn’t ask us to burn out for our beliefs.
The Middle Way: Reclaiming Balance
What if work ethic and worth ethic weren’t opposites—but partners?
A healthy work ethic rooted in a strong worth ethic could look like:
Setting clear, kind boundaries
Working with integrity, not urgency
Allowing time for rest, reflection, and repair
Measuring success not only by income, but by alignment with your values
Saying “enough” when you’ve done enough
What you do matters.
But who you are—your capacity to show up with presence, compassion, and honesty—matters more.
This new culture of practice isn’t something we hustle into being. It’s something we live into, slowly. Intentionally. With others.
Because hustle culture is loud.
But real worth whispers.
It reminds you:
“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”
—Brené Brown
What If It’s Time to Rest?
I’ve heard more than one massage therapist say:
“If I won the lottery, I’d still do massage—just fewer hours a week. I’d do it for free if I could.”
That’s the voice of worth ethic, not hustle. That’s the voice of a calling.
So maybe we’re done with hustle culture:
Usually sold separately
Challenging to maintain
Comes in many flavors
Often invisible to the eye
May burn you out
Doesn’t come with friends
Let’s try something else.
A new culture of :
Where who you are is enough
Where rushing is no longer revered
Where value doesn’t depend on how many clients you saw this week
Where evidence-based practices meet embodied compassion
Where your own wellbeing is not an afterthought, but a foundation
Closing Thoughts
Perhaps, people should not try too much or too hard. They are not human tryings, they are human beings. So perhaps they can be themselves and create their work and personal lives and reclaim their balance.
You don’t have to prove your worth.
You were never meant to.
Take a moment to reflect:
What is your work ethic?
What is your worth ethic?
Where might one be outpacing the other?
What would balance feel like, not just look like?
Because yes, what you do matters.
But who you are—the way you listen, care, laugh, rest, and love—matters more.