Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side? Why Most Doctors Fail at Career Change & How to Do It Right.

Will leaving medicine or changing careers actually make things better? Or will you just end up in a new job with a different kind of burnout?

Many healthcare professionals hesitate to make a career change because they worry that the grass isn’t actually greener on the other side. They worry they will put all this effort into making a change and feel just as drained and unfulfilled.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• The mistake most healthcare professionals make when switching into a new job - and how to avoid this.
• How to stop making superficial changes that don’t actually improve your situation
• The two transformative shifts that WILL make the grass greener on the other side.

Press play now to learn how to finally create a work life that feels deeply fulfilling.

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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: 0:15

In this episode, you will learn why the grass actually is significantly greener on the other side when you know how to move to your other side the right way.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Welcome to Life After Medicine, the podcast helping millennial health professionals leave the system and build a fulfilling career. I'm your host, Chelsea Turgeon, residency dropout turned six figure entrepreneur and world traveler. I'll help you discover your unique path to making an impact without the burnout because you were meant for more than 15 minute patient visits under fluorescent lights.

Speaker: 0:47

Welcome back to another episode of life after medicine, where I am giving my millennial take on common career change advice for healthcare professionals. I'm giving my millennials take on the phrase, the grass isn't greener on the other side. And when you listen to this episode, you will learn the mistake that most of us are making when switching into a new job and how to avoid this, how to stop making these superficial shifts that don't actually improve your situation. And the two shifts I made that drastically improved the quality of my life. When you learn how to make shifts in this way, you are also going to experience that green, green grass. Okay, so let's talk about this phrase, the grass isn't always greener on the other side. This is something I hear from healthcare professionals who are contemplating a career change, but then they are starting to talk themselves out of it. They're feeling unhappy and unfulfilled in their current situation, but then they say something like, yeah, but you know, if I leave, who's to say it's going to be better. Like maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side. And so this is a phrase that people use to essentially mean. Switching to a new job, a new situation, a new lifestyle, a new relationship, moving to a new country, like, making these changes, changing your situation, it might not actually be better than your current one. And it might have its own set of problems. And essentially, it's a way of saying that the idea of something being better is just an illusion. And things are not going to be better. And the way it is right now, it's probably as good as it's going to get. And so, Because you might end up just as dissatisfied as you were before, you should just avoid that altogether. It's essentially this idea that you really can't improve your situation like this is as good as it's going to get. Or that you're diluting yourself in thinking that if you make a change, that something will be better, Usually when people say. The other side. They think the other side is, you know, changing into a new job. Maybe moving from clinical to some kind of non clinical career path. Maybe the other side is moving from emergency room to urgent care. Maybe the other side is moving from like academic medicine into a private practice and people think that the other side is any sort of change that you make in your job. So we think that the other side is just changing our career. Or making some of these superficial changes and that's the biggest problem that's the mistake that most healthcare professionals are making when they're changing into a new job is they're thinking, if I make these changes to my situation, it will be this instant fix and everything will be better. But the reason this is a mistake is because what you're doing is you're making these small Even if they seem big you're making more superficial external tweaks and you're not actually getting to the root of the problem Let's say you're feeling unhappy in clinic and you're having to see patients very quickly in this rapid fire 15 minute fashion When you make a change to your external situation and you don't automatically feel better, it's because the change wasn't deep enough. The change wasn't getting to the heart of the issue. When I made my decision to leave medicine, I wasn't just hoping that I would change into a new career, find a new career, and this career is going to make me happy. I knew right away that it wasn't just about this one change, this one shift. The decision I was making when I left medicine wasn't the decision to leave medicine. I was making the decision to start following my intuition. The reason that the grass isn't greener on the other side is because you're not making the right changes. You're making superficial changes, external changes, hoping that it's going to change things internally. But the problem is not necessarily an external problem. That's just a symptom. The real problem is so much deeper. When I made my decision to leave medicine, I wasn't just hoping that I would find a new career that would make me happy and be this instant fix. I wrote this in a blog poster in my journal somewhere really early on, where I said, this is not just the decision to leave medicine, this is a decision to follow my intuition, and my intuition is happening to tell me to leave medicine, but that part's not relevant, it's not relevant what my intuition's telling me to do, the relevant piece is the real change I made, right? And so when I wasn't leaving medicine, the real change I made was following my intuition. So that's one of the shifts. And so when you make shifts from this deeper way, that's when you experience the green grass. So I changed. My entire approach to decision making, my entire approach to life, essentially. And there's two big shifts that I made that really stand out to me. One is I made the shift from a rival fallacy to enjoying the journey. So I stopped doing this delayed gratification mindset where I kept thinking things will be better when I arrive somewhere, because that's what I did all through training. This is also the grass is greener on the other side mentality. It's trying to kind of warn against this arrival fallacy. I didn't love my clinical years of med school. I didn't love being in the hospital. The only time I felt excitement and joy was the moment my attending or my resident told me that I could go home for the day. And I would just feel, ah, so much relief, so much gratitude. I couldn't wait to get out of the hospital and to go home. I didn't want to be there. I didn't enjoy being there. but I kept telling myself, that's okay. You don't like it because you're a med student, you're not really useful right now. When you're actually working full time and this is your job, you will like it. Or it'll be worth it at that point. Once you know what you're doing more, then you'll enjoy it. And so I had this delayed gratification the entire way, and I kept thinking things will be better when I arrive somewhere. So this was the arrival fallacy at play. Moved from this arrival fallacy, thinking things will get better when I arrive, to enjoying the journey. I realized from listening to a spiritual teacher, Abraham Hicks, that there is no happy ending to an unhappy journey. And so I made the shift to stop trying to make my joy be something that I, get to have at the end of my journey. And I started making my joy part of the whole process, prioritizing joy along the journey, enjoying the journey, making decisions that actually expanded my joy in every moment. Not decisions that I thought will make me happy one day down the road. So this was a huge shift I made when I left medicine because when I left medicine right away, I wasn't living in the career I wanted., I was in my bridge job at that point. I was teaching English. That wasn't the thing I wanted to be doing forever. I was building my business, even though I had no clue what I was doing. So I was going to cafes at night and trying to figure out this whole online business thing, and there's things that were frustrating about it. But throughout that whole process, I never said, well, just wait, it'll get better. I was like, what parts of this do I enjoy now? How can I enjoy this now? Do I enjoy this now? And if I didn't enjoy the journey, I wasn't going to keep doing it. That doesn't mean I enjoy every single moment of it, but let's say I never arrive anywhere and this is just where I am forever, do I still want to do this? And the answer was always, yeah. Yes, I still want to do this. Like, it's not that I don't need to arrive, but I was so in love with each part of the process. So I stopped delaying gratification and I started enjoying the journey. I stopped thinking things will be better when, and I started making things better now. That was the shift that I made. The other shift I made, my other, other side, was following my intuition. So previously, I would make decisions from my intuition. my mind. I would make decisions from what felt practical. I would make decisions from prestige, from what other people told me. Um, when I was actually deciding what residency I wanted to do, I had some experiences during interviews where I loved Ohio State. When I was there, I actually got goosebumps. I met really cool people. I felt really at home. I felt really alive at the Ohio State residency program. I didn't rank them first on my list because I ranked my, the program I ended up going to first because it was more prestigious. It was ranked higher on Doximity. I literally cared more about what was ranked higher on Doximity than where I actually felt alive and joyful and expansive. Another place I actually really enjoyed was Utah. When I went to Salt Lake City, I really liked The people, the energy, the program, but I wasn't making decisions based on how I felt. I wasn't following my intuition. I was making decisions from prestige, from rankings, from what felt practical. Now my other side is I make decisions from following my intuition. I'm not listening to what my brain is telling me is, well, here's the practical thing to do. Or this is what's going to look really impressive to other people. I'm making decisions from my intuition. And sometimes I'm not happy with my intuition. Sometimes I don't want to do what my intuition wants me to do, but I still am committed and devoted to following my intuition. When you make these shifts, the other side, It is so lush and green, it is a freaking rainforest, okay? When you are following your intuition, when you are enjoying the journey, everything is so different. Because now, my other side I'm not feeling dread on my drive into work. Instead, I'm feeling excitement when I look at my calendar. I have a client call coming up in 14 minutes, and I'm like, ooh, I can't wait to talk to her. Like, I don't feel a pit in my stomach. I don't feel dread. I feel excitement. I no longer feel resentment about about all the things I'm missing out on, all the things I'm not doing. Because of work, I no, I no longer feel like, Oh, I wish I could be going to trivia night, or going to a dance class and having fun, but no, I'm on call that weekend. Oh, I have to work. I never feel like that. Even if I make the choice to work, I feel really aligned with all of my choices. So I don't feel this resentment, this sense of like, it's not fair and I'm giving more of myself than I want to. I don't feel that about my work. I also don't feel this like kind of a zombie autopilot thing where it's like, I'm going through the motions. I'm checking off the boxes. I'm like clicking the things in the EMR. I'm just trying to like get through the day. I'm present. I'm here. I'm alive for every moment. I feel like I'm just here. Like I feel like my soul has come back into my body and I am, I'm just present. And what that means is there's more moment to moment aliveness. There's more magic in every moment. I can appreciate the little things like being on my way to a cafe and seeing these ants carrying these huge leaves and like stopping and be like, whoa. Those are some big leaves. These answer care like I just feel present and alive in all of my small moments throughout the day. That's what my life looks like on the other side. And so when we tell ourselves the grass isn't greener on the other side, What we're doing is we're discouraging ourselves from making changes. we're giving up hope before we even get started. We're saying, like, don't get your hopes up. You're gonna be disappointed. We're saying that, this is as good as it's gonna get. And so there's no point in making a change, but it's not true. Your other side can look so much greener when you make deeper shifts. When instead of trying to just change your external situation, you are changing your entire approach to life. You're changing the way you move through the day. You're changing your metrics of success. There is absolutely ways that your grass can be greener on the other side and trying to talk yourself out of that, trying to convince yourself otherwise is just suppressing all the potential that you could be. It's suppressing The beautiful, magical life that you actually could have. No, you can't make a superficial or external shift in your career and expect it to instantly fix everything. That's not it. But there are ways to make these deep changes that create an other side for you that is so great and so beautiful that you won't even believe you waited for so long to make those changes. You'll be so mad at yourself that you didn't make these shifts and these changes sooner. So my love, if you are inspired by this episode, if you are ready to move into your other side, if you want to go and make your grass so freaking green, that is exactly the work we do in my world. And I would love to connect with you. If you're interested in working together or seeing the best way that I can support you, you can schedule a career breakthrough call so that I can get to know you and see how I can best be a resource for you.