Why Work-Life Balance Is NOT The Answer To Avoiding Burnout | 🔥 A millennials hot take on career change advice for doctors

Is work-life balance actually making burnout worse? You’ve been told to chase balance, but what if that’s not the real solution?

If you’ve been struggling to find that perfect work-life balance and still feel drained, frustrated, or stuck in a cycle of burnout, you’re not alone. Many high achievers, especially perfectionists, find themselves chasing an unrealistic ideal that only adds more stress. In this episode, we’re breaking down why the traditional work-life balance model doesn’t work—and what to do instead to create a fulfilling, energized life.

Youll learn

• Why work-life balance is a flawed concept and what actually helps prevent burnout.
• How to manage your energy effectively using the Energy Matrix framework.
• The best way to prevent work from being all consuming.

Press play now to uncover a smarter, more sustainable way to avoid burnout and design a life that actually works for you

Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

In this episode, we'll talk about why the concept of work life balance isn't actually useful and what to pursue instead.

Speaker 2: 0:08

Welcome to Life After Medicine, the podcast helping millennial health professionals find their purpose and turn it into their paycheck. Because you were meant for more than 15 minute patient visits under fluorescent lights. I'm your host Chelsea Tarjan, a residency dropout turned six figure entrepreneur and world traveler. Together we'll explore how you can make a difference without sacrificing your health and happiness.

Speaker: 0:33

In today's episode, you'll learn the problems with the work life balance concept, especially for perfectionists, the way it can be very detrimental. And I'll share the more useful way to conceptualize these topics, because it's actually two topics, that will help you avoid burnout and nurture the different dimensions of your life. When I do calls with people and when they join the Facebook group, I have questions that I have them fill out that asks, what is the number one thing you want most in your career? And a very common one I see is work life balance. And I'll say that within the concept of work life balance, There are some merits, especially when you're coming from a hospital system where you feel like there's literally no balance. Like there's only work, all work and no play, and you're just dying on the inside. So there are some merits to this concept. One being, there's more to life than the grind, than the hustle. Than being this one dimensional human who wakes up, goes to work, and then comes home and does it again, like rinse and repeat. You deserve to rest. You deserve to play. Your worth is not based on how much you accomplish. Those are all really fantastic concepts, within the work life balance topic. There's also this anti hustle culture mentality, which you know, I'm about. Like I love these concepts, but work life balance is not the answer to that, in my opinion. So let's dive into the problems with work life balance as a concept. One being, balance is static. This is something maybe you haven't thought about, but when you think of what does balance actually mean. It's maybe like two people on a seesaw or like a teeter totter or if you can think of like those scales Where you're weighing something but you're trying to get the scales to match up and align Perfectly and in order to get them in a state of balance, you're meticulously adding like a little bit on this side Oh wait that took the balance away. Okay, like add a little bit on this other side and it's this very Meticulous very small detail you like add a little bit check. Ooh, did that balance? There's this undertone of perfection here because balance is static. There's this undertone of striving. If I can just achieve this static state of perfect balance, then my life will be good enough. Who has felt that around the concept of work life balance? Just like they're trying so hard to achieve this elusive balance, like a checkbook on a minimum wage salary. I also think it creates this external focus, almost like you're caring more if your life looks balanced, like does it seem balanced enough to other people or like, am I getting it right? Is my life balanced in the way that it's supposed to be? There's also this idea within it that like work is one bucket and life is another bucket in the sense that they're separate. The fact that it's just called Work life balance. To me, what that implies is when you're working, you're not living. When you're working, that's not your real life. Or like, work is gonna drain you so much you need to live your life to replenish you. And so while in some ways it's pretending to be anti hustle culture, it's still like this concept that work is not life. And yes, work is not the totality of everything you are, but there can be life within your work. To me, those are all problematic. parts of the concept of work life balance. So here's how I think about the concept instead. Instead of having these fragmented buckets of work is over here, life is over here, when I'm working I'm not living, when I'm living I'm not working, like, I don't know, it's just weird to me, it doesn't even make sense. So, okay, there's actually two concepts around this. There's the energy part of the equation, and then there's the aspects of your life part of the equation. Within energy there are things that give you energy, and there's things that drain your energy, right? I think of it like, Energy drains and gains and that's kind of how I conceptualize work with my clients. And so there's some things that will drain your energy and those could be things within your life that drain your energy, right? It could be people, it could be certain like activities that you have to do. It could be the environment that you live in that's draining you. It could also be elements of work that drain your energy. It could be certain tasks that you have to do, could be certain co workers within your work environment. Um, it could be Yeah, just certain like patients that you're interacting with. So there can be elements of your work and elements of your life that drain you. And there can be components of your work and your life that give you energy. All right, so there could be some things you do within work that actually light you up, that actually make you feel like energized. Like maybe you have this one interaction with a patient and you're like, oh, like this is why I do what I do. This is such a great connection. There's actually energy coming from that. I feel that all the time with my work. I feel a lot of energy, like in the work with my clients, when I'm creating content like this. There's a lot of things that give me energy within my work. but there can be things within your work that give you energy. And there can also be things. within your personal life that are giving you energy. when you go to a yoga class, that could give you energy. When you go on a walk, when you go out to dinner with certain friends, like, those could all give you energy, right? there's the energy part of the equation, but it transcends work versus life. I'm giving those different categories as, like, examples, because I think that's how a lot of us are conceptualizing it right now. But I don't think of it in that way. I don't think of it as, like, What drains my energy in my work and what drains it in life. I just think generally across the board What are the things that drain my energy and then what are the things that give me energy, right? Then there's another element of this which is like compression and decompression And so essentially what this is Compression is any activity That is like more active where you're, you're giving output, you're giving energy. So it could be like interacting, it could be like writing something, it could be You know, doing your notes, I think of any sort of physical activity as like compression, like you're going to yoga, going on a walk, those are all compression because you're, expending, it's active, there's output involved, you can still gain energy from doing those things. So sometimes there's things that are compression that do light you up, like client calls or something I'm giving something, um, it's active, it's compression, but it's lighting me up, but I can't do that forever. Just because it lights me up and it gives me energy, there's going to be a point where like it stops. If I do five calls in a row, then I'm like, that's it, that's the limit. That's where we've like kind of crossed the line. Um, So things that are compression can give you energy, but only to a point. It can't be this endless source of energy. And that can be different based on your activity, but at the end of the day, you can't do compression activities forever, even if there's a time where it does give you energy, right? Like, let's say running gives you energy and it makes you feel energized. You can't run for 24 hours. There's still gonna be a limit to how much you can do that. And so then we need decompression. And so decompression can be any time where you're not giving energy. So any time where it's just like a passive activity. So this could be things like scrolling on social media, just laying on your couch watching Netflix, it could be reading, it could be actually sleeping, it could be spending time with friends if you're extroverted, and if it, if that doesn't feel like it's taking energy from you. If you feel like you're not having to, like, give energy to the people, you're not, like, entertaining them, but it's just, like, a, maybe you're just, like, laying on the couch with people or you're, like, playing games in a way that's, like you're not outputting energy to be there. It's just like a more passive activity. So decompression can be something that recharges you and like gives you energy or it can be something that drains you. Let's say all of your decompression time, it's passive but what you're doing is you're scrolling or you're watching Netflix or you're like just doing things that don't actually feel good in the long run that might not actually be giving you energy. And so there's just like these different categories. It's kind of like an energy matrix. That's the way I think of the energy parts of the equation. It's like you you need both compression and decompression. And within those, as much as you can, you want to find the activities that are energy gains and reduce the activities that are energy drains. So within the things that are compression and like active, You want to do as much of those active things that are giving you energy. And then same within the decompression, the things that are passive, you want to try to do as much passive like decompression that is actually like giving you energy. That's across all areas of life, right? Like you want to think of, it's not just that you have compression and energy drains at work, and you have decompression and energy gains outside of work. That's what the energy matrix is about. It's about getting rid of the buckets of work and life, and using the energy concept instead across all areas of your life. Okay, the work and life part of the equation. it doesn't feel good to be one dimensional human beings who are only focused on career Even when we care about it, even when we love the work we're doing which is what I like have right now We still don't want that to be The only thing we're doing forever and always and so what I think of instead of like work versus life I just think of it as we're Multidimensional human beings and we want to nurture the different dimensions of our life of our personality my life's work that I'm doing is one dimension and that's epic and that's amazing. And when that's the only thing I'm doing at all, when it's literally eat, sleep, and work, that doesn't always feel as fulfilling because I'm neglecting some of the other dimensions. the hobbies I have could be dimensions, like my spirituality, like doing moon circles with people, and reading, and like doing the spiritual, like my meditation, and those sorts of things. Travel could be another dimension, and like hiking, um, the relationships in my life could be their own dimension. The different self care things that I'm doing could be dimensions. so I do have all these different dimensions. We're all multi dimensional, and we get to nurture these different aspects. However, We don't have to nurture them in a perfectly equal way all the time. So the amount I nurture each dimension can look different based on the week. Based on the season, based on just where I'm at in my life, right now it's not feeling as good to nurture the travel dimension, so I'm not doing that as much. it does feel good to have a lot of energy pointed towards my work dimension. However, I still do find myself craving, like, okay, I still want to, like, be outside, I still want to spend time with friends. It's a lot less, like, this rigid, everything needs to be in perfect balance. Because I am. Giving a lot more to the work dimension right now than I have in other seasons, and I'm okay with that I'm not neglecting other things, but I'm not giving them all like equal 50 50 attention Because that's where I am right now I think I have spent a lot of time in the past like really going hard in the travel dimension and like that felt good at the time and this could also have to do with like like neurodivergence and the way That, um, different brains work because I know for me and a lot of the friends I talk to who have ADHD, it doesn't always feel good for us to be like, everything has like a 30 30 30 spread. It actually feels better for us to have more like a hyper focus in one area for a season, and then a hyper focus in another area, and that's actually How how I flow and like what feels good for me and if I'm constantly telling myself Oh, but I need to have a balance Then that is not correct for how I like to operate and that actually makes me feel bad about What I actually want to be doing and how I actually want to be spending time And so that's actually not a helpful way to think about it So if work life balance is working for you keep doing it that's fine if you're struggling with this concept or if you're Feeling like you're chasing something that's out of reach or you feel like I don't know There's just something about it. That's not working for you then screw it screw work life balance and instead Check in with the energy matrix the different tasks that give you energy that deplete your energy the compression the decompression and The different dimensions of your life and like what you want to nurture when because it doesn't have to be in perfect balance to work for you And work and life don't need to be so separate. It doesn't need to feel like when you're working, you're not living.

13:27

If this episode has inspired you to reclaim your bold audacious dreams and you want coaching that chips away at the disempowering conditioning from your medical training. And that helps you discover your unique path to changing the world. Then I'd love to connect with you on a career breakthrough call to see how I can best support you. Head to the link in the show notes to book your call.