Beating Burnout: Restorative Rest and Healthy Habits for Long-Term Success and Satisfaction in Veterinary Practice

The happiest people are those following their hearts. Take time to discover your inner motivations and mission and apply them to your work. Use your principles to guide you and your team to be the best you can be for your patients and clients. You’ll unlock incredible energy and excitement and maybe lead a revolution.

In an online study of 1,915 employees, 87 percent said they felt overworked, but more than 1/3 of them didn’t feel overloaded. What do these numbers really mean?

According to the study, 42 percent felt they kept a good work life balance, 11.5 felt overworked rather often and the remainder felt overworked from time to time. 50.8 percent of team members felt absolutely satisfied with their work life balance, and the research showed that satisfaction decreased the more invested the person was in the business. (i.e. practice owners vs team members).

(source: http://www.adviseamerica.com/19-great-work-life-balance-statistics/)

How satisfied are you with your life currently?

The answer to this essential question may hold the key to longevity in your career, quality of interpersonal relationships, and overall life satisfaction. Not to mention how long – and how well – you’ll live. You only have one life. Live the best life you can.

Make a Life Chart

One of the easiest, and most meaningful, exercises you can do to begin your journey to your best life is to write it down. Begin by making a 1) current and 2) ideal Life Pie Chart. How much time do you want to give to the things that are important to you, and how much time do they currently get? Creating visuals for you to put your time priorities into perspective can be helpful in identifying areas that are taking up too much of your time or energy, or areas that you need to give more time and energy.

Regularly self-check the areas of your life. Are you getting closer to your ideal distribution of time, or further away from living your best life? A wise person once said, “The secret to happiness and meaning in life is doing more of what you love and less of what you don’t.” How much time are you engaged in doing what you love? Loving your work doesn’t mean it’s easy or without strife; it means challenging tasks are fulfilling and overcoming obstacles are meaningful.

What areas in your work or personal life need improvement and what areas are you excelling? Think about the steps you took to create each movement toward balance and recreate it in the areas of your life where you still want to see more time or balance created. Are you using your time to the fullest in each of the areas? Seconds add up to minutes which lead to years and decades. Use each precious moment wisely.

Making a Balance-Action Plan

When the time comes to finally create work life balance in your life, making a BalanceAction Plan can be a great first step. This is a plan to decide where you need to focus your time and energy to improve your self-satisfaction in your balance. Start by creating a vision.

• Visualize life how you would like it to be. Write down what life would be like if it was “perfect.” Don’t focus on the “how” so much as the what. Now write down how you see life now, and then focus on the contrasts. Look for areas you can make small daily improvements or steps toward the “perfect” image you created. Life is a journey, so creating an action plan with daily improvements on life can never be a bad thing!
• Examine what is important to you. We only have one life, so what are the most important things to be in your life for you to be happy? Achievement, recognition, adventure, fun. Write down the words associated with the things that truly make you happy. Use these words to guide your areas to focus one.
• Think about the reasons you want to have a more balanced life. The benefits that will come with following through with your commitments. Focusing on the “why” can help prevent you from creating an internal dialogue of the reasons you think of reel that you can’t or won’t achieve balance. Focusing on the benefits to come and the positive can help to keep you motivated.
• Practice presence in your activities. Be 100-percent involved in all that you do. This will create quality, even when quantity is not what you want it to be. Checking emails during dinner may seem like multitasking, but the lack of presence in the time and interaction with your family may not be worth it in the long run.
• Find your “space”. Where can you have physical or mental space that allows you daily quiet, peace, and reflection. Focus daily on your balance, your goals and reasons for balance as well as what this commitment means to you.

Be prepared for obstacles

Be ready for the things that might get in your way, temporarily, or permanently. Work, family obligations, volunteer projects, holidays. Plan for how you will work into these times balance, have a plan for a “comeback” when life gets unbalanced. When you come prepared, overcoming these times will be easier and less overwhelming.

Know your limits

Recognize each of us has limits to what we can accomplish, our time, and desires. Don’t be afraid to set boundaries for self-care and development, and stick to them. Don’t be afraid to be “selfish” with your time and make your needs a priority.

Set up support

Identify those around you who can help you and encourage you to meet your balance goals. Life coaches, partners and friends can help if you let them!

Some of My Best Life Hacks

Along the way, I have picked up tips and tricks for creating balance in life. So, just a few from me to you:

• Change clothes immediately upon arriving home from work. This creates the mental image of leaving the day behind and changing your mindset.
• Schedule your down time. Literally. On your calendar. Use technology such as online calendars, Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, and others to take notes, create reminder lists, schedule to-do dates, and reserve down time to charge for your self-care time.
• Do three enjoyable things for yourself every day. They don’t have to be big things. They will help you to recognize the joy in your everyday life, practice presence in the moment by bringing awareness, and bring positivity to your everyday thinking. Try it, it works!!
• Work smarter not harder. There are apps, widgets, gadgets, and heck even full-blown robots that get us through our daily lives (I love my two robotic vacuums!). Utilize the technology available to reduce work times and hours.
• Enjoy your days off. Plan small, fun outings or events for the weekend. Try to break up house chores and errands during the week so that you don’t have to spend your whole weekend catching up on housework, homework, or laundry. We know these things will always exist in life, we need to figure out how to be more efficient and redistribute tasks to create the balance we are seeking.
• Ask for help. Seriously. Right now.

Important Things to Remember

• While it is easy for me to offer this advice, it really is how we create balance. It is also important to keep in mind that balance is managing and anticipating imbalance. Life is going to happen, and we have to be ready to work with it, not against it. Things will not always be perfect. This is life.
• Remember to check in with yourself every now and again. Make sure that you are still working on the right priorities, acknowledge the advancements and achievements you make, and acknowledge areas to improve without self judgment.

“Balance is not something you find, it's something you create.” ~ Jana Kingsford