Episode 154. Walk Backwards Out of Burnout (Sounds Crazy But It Works)

Ever wake up at 2:30am with your brain already running tomorrow’s schedule?

Did we confirm that patient?
Did I send that insurance thing?
Why did the doctor seem annoyed yesterday?
Did I drop the ball somewhere?

If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I’m breaking down something called The Backwards Law — and why the harder you try to fix burnout, stress, and overwhelm, the worse it actually gets.

You’ll learn why pushing harder isn’t the way out…and how to start showing up like the version of you who isn’t burned out anymore, even if your schedule and your practice haven’t changed yet.

We’ll talk about:

• Why your brain spirals at night
• The trap high-achievers fall into when they try to “fix” burnout
• How to step into your future self and create a clear path forward
• Small shifts that start breaking the burnout cycle

If you feel like you’re always trying to keep everything from falling apart at work… this episode might explain exactly why.

And more importantly — how to start walking out of it.

HEY THERE! LET'S CONNECT...I'D LOVE TO GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER!

• Website: https://www.bethheilmancoaching.com
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• Private Facebook Group: Beyond Dental Burnout https://www.facebook.com/groups/169470271806112
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• Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-heilman-445043b0/

Transcript

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Tell me if you can relate to this. It's 2 30 a.m. and you are wide awake. Now your eyes might be closed, but your brain, it is fully clocked in. You start thinking, did I confirm Miss Patterson's crown appointment tomorrow? Did I actually post that EOB I was supposed to? Why'd the doctor seem so irritated yesterday? Did I forget something? What if I drop the ball? You roll over and you say to yourself, okay, just calm down, go back to sleep. But your chest is so tight, your jaw is clenched, your nervous system is in that treatment room or behind that front desk long before you are. And somewhere in there, you start to think, I just need to get better at managing stress. If that's you, if your brain is already at work while you're staring at the ceiling, then stay with me. Because today we're going to talk about how to get out of that burnout, that overwhelm, and that stress cycle. And the way out is completely backwards from what you've been trying. So let's get started. Welcome to the Dental Life Podcast, where we explore how you can have both a successful career and a meaningful personal life in and outside of your practices without sacrificing one for the other. I'm your host, Beth Highland, former dental office manager, Turn Certified Life and Health Coach, and I'm here to help you navigate the challenges and opportunities that come from being a dental professional. Let's get started. My eyes would be wide open even though I was exhausted. And immediately my brain would start running through the schedule. Did that 8 o'clock hygiene appointment get filled? Are the parts here so that we can place Mr. Thomas's implant on Thursday? Why were the dental assistants running behind so much yesterday? And then you would mix it with, when is the kid's next turn in date for that science fair project? I'd be like, good Lord, don't let it be this week. I hope their uniforms are clean. I didn't remember seeing them in the laundry room. My brain would not shut off. It just kept spinning on everything that happened today and everything that might go wrong tomorrow. And I would lay there, tell myself, just calm down, go back to sleep. And the crazy part, the harder I tried to calm down, the more wound up I got. Then I'd start negotiating with myself. Do I just get up and maybe read a book, take some melatonin, take a benadry? Or just lay here staring at the ceiling until the alarm finally goes off. Because tomorrow it was coming whether I slept or not. And if I didn't sleep, I knew exactly how that day was going to go. It would be caffeine, adrenaline, white knuckling my way through all of it, just trying to keep it together. It was like I was having a constant fight with my own brain. And then I learned something that completely changed how I looked at all of that. It's called the backwards law. And once you start to understand it, you start to see why the harder you try to fix something, the worse it actually gets. So let's talk about it. The backwards law says that the harder you try to force a feeling or an outcome, the more you actually push it away. So instead of constantly trying to force things to get better, you start acting like the calmer, more confident version of yourself and how they would act. From that place, change actually starts to happen. And then over time, your real life will catch up to that. When I learned about the backwards law, it finally made sense. I always had these big goals for my life and my career. I was always trying to push to grind and make things happen. I thought more effort was the answer. But the harder I pushed, the more I was burnt out and overwhelmed. It was like I was trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. So I started to approach things differently. The backwards law put my goals, my dreams, and even my everyday life into a framework that finally made sense. It took something that used to sound so woo-woo and turned it into something practical, something that I could actually practice every day. So I want you to imagine. Imagine you could walk into the future, that future version of your life. And then you could look around and you could see exactly what you did to create that life, to create the results you have there. And then you could walk back to today with the exact blueprint, the plan in your hand that made all that happen. That's the backwards law. It works because you can clearly see the results without all that resistance. You know, we're taught to pursue our goals with everything we have. Hustle, push, grind, prove, outwork. But what that actually does, it creates resistance inside of you. The more you try to beat burnout, the more burnout you become. The more you try to force calm, the more anxious you feel. The more you try to prove your worth in your practice, the more insecure you actually become. You look like a crazy person. Trying too hard produces the opposite effect. That is the backwards law. Here's how the formula goes you take desire, anything you want, your goals, your dreams, any of that, plus non-resistance, and that's when you're going to get the desired result you want. But here's the thing: the second you declare you want something, that's when resistance shows up. It is a trap. I like to imagine it if you're trying to push against the door for somebody who's trying to come in. What if you said instead you opened up the door and you said, Come on in, just have a seat on the sofa, I'll be with you in a minute. That's the backwards law. But in real life, the moment you say, I want to grow this practice, your brain goes to work. It starts to tell you you don't have enough time. You don't have the right team. You're already overwhelmed. You've tried all that before. Or the moment you say, I want to lose some weight, that's when your brain's going to kick in. It's going to convince you that you're big boned. You don't have the willpower. You've tried that stuff and it's failed before. You're just too busy for all that. Maybe it's the moment you say, I don't want to be burnt out anymore. Here goes your brain again. It's going to say, look at that schedule. Look at that team. Look at that doctor. Look at these patients. That'll never happen. That's not the truth. That's your survival brain reacting to the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Your mind looks at that gap and it immediately offers all these limiting beliefs to try to explain it. I don't have enough time. That's for other people. It's not for me. I'm not good enough. If only this or that changed first. All that's happening, your brain is expressing a limiting belief as a reaction to that gap. But here's the best part. That's the playing field. That's where we're going to build the mental strength to make all that happen. That's where you stop feeling like everything is happening to you and start realizing you actually have more control than you thought. You stop waiting for things to get easier and start deciding how you're going to show up anyway. So let's go back to 2:30 a.m. When you wake up stressed and you think, I need to get better at handling all this stress. So you're going to work harder, you double check more, you stay late, try to handle everything. When you're in the office, you find yourself saying, Oh, I'll just take care of it. Because you don't want tension, you don't want mistakes, you don't want to disappoint anybody. You're trying to eliminate discomfort. But the more you grip onto that, the more your nervous system stays activated. You're chasing relief, and chasing relief creates pressure. That is the trap. Here's what's important to understand: you don't get out of burnout and then start acting differently. You start acting differently, and that's how you get out. If you ever want to actually get there. Because when you start thinking and feeling like the person who already has it, you're going to think different thoughts. You're going to hold different beliefs. You are going to feel different emotions, take different actions, and build different habits. And that is what's going to produce the result. It's not the other way around. You don't become calm because your schedule all of a sudden gets clear. You become calm because you stop reacting to that crazy schedule. You don't stop being burnt out and then set boundaries. You set the boundaries and then the burnout loosens. You don't feel confident and then delegate. You delegate and then confidence builds. It's backwards. And look, this is not about positive affirmations. This is not about pretending. This is about becoming the person who already has the thing you want, your desire. And then let your life catch up to that identity. Here's how you can do it. I want you to get out your journal, a notebook, a piece of paper, a tray cover if you have to. Write this down. If I had already accomplished my goal, if I had already met my soulmate, made the money, grown the practice, eliminated burnout, how would I be feeling today? Would that be calm, grounded, confident, clear? Then the second question, what would I be thinking? What beliefs would I have? Would I be thinking I don't have enough time? Or would I be thinking, I decide what matters, I decide how I spend my time? Would I be thinking, this stuff always falls on me? Or would I be thinking, I trust my team members to grow? Remember, thoughts create feelings. And then the third question, what would I be doing today? How would I show up differently? Would I go home and actually stop pulling up tomorrow's schedule on my laptop? If the lab needs to be called, can I just let the person responsible for that, let them make the call? I don't swoop in and fix everyone's mistakes. I let them figure it out. I stop eating lunch at my desk just to answer emails. Stop rewriting emails and text five times just so nobody gets their feelings hurt. Then, and this is powerful, I want you to write down how you are thinking, how you are feeling and acting. Because that difference, that's your blueprint, that's your math, that's your plan. Practice that. And that's actually a good thing. I want all that to come out so that I can deal with it. All that doubt, that fear, those limiting beliefs, I want to see them. Because when you're not in resistance, you can unlock creativity, energy, your focus, clarity, all that expands. The minute you stop being frustrated about what's not working and how far you have to go, you can actually start making process. Look, you got into burnout by trying to hold everything together, trying to control everything, trying to fix everything, trying to make sure nothing goes wrong. Getting out of burnout starts when you loosen your grip. You start showing up calmer, more grounded before your circumstances prove you should be feeling something else. And then something interesting happens. Your life starts to catch up to the person you've decided you wanted to be. So tonight, if you wake up at 2:30 in the morning and your brain starts running tomorrow like it's already in the huddle, instead of laying there thinking, I got to get this figured out. What if something falls through the cracks? Try telling yourself, okay, my brain's doing that thing again, but tomorrow will get handled tomorrow. You don't have to solve all those problems of the entire practice while you're lying in the bed. And this week, I want you to try one small shift that this calmer, less burned out version of you would actually make. Maybe it's not checking the group text thread before you leave the office. Maybe it's letting a patient call back tomorrow instead of trying to fix everything before you go home. Maybe it's leaving a task for tomorrow instead of staying late to tie up every single loose end. Maybe it's not jumping in the middle of a team issue and just letting them work it out. Maybe it's walking out the door without replaying every conversation you had that day. So make just one shift. Because here's the trick. The harder you push, trying to force things to get better, the worse it usually feels. Getting out of burnout doesn't happen by pushing harder. It happens when you loosen your grip a little bit. You don't push your way out, you walk out backwards. Now look, if you're listening to this and thinking, yep, that's exactly what my brain does. If you recognize that middle of the night spiral or that constant pressure of trying to keep everything in the office from falling apart, and you feel that gap between where you are right now and where you want to be, I want to invite you to come hang out with us in my free Facebook group. It's called Beyond Dental Burnout. It is a space for dental office managers, assistants, hygienists, the people who are actually the ones holding everything together so that you can talk about all this stuff honestly, the stress, the mental load, the pressure of trying to stay on top of everything and how to actually start getting out of that cycle. No pretending everything's fine. No just be positive advice, real conversations with people who get what your day actually looks like. If that sounds like something you need right now, go over to Facebook, search for Beyond Dental Burnout, and come join us. I'd love to see you there. And remember, pushing harder is not what's going to get you out. Most of the time, that's what got you there in the first place. The shift happens when you start becoming the version of you who doesn't have to carry all of that. And once that happens, everything else starts to change. Have a fabulous week. I'll see you in the group and on next week's episode. Hey, have you had a chance to download your free copy of my mental hygiene checklist yet? Visit Beth Heilmancoaching.com to get your copy. It teaches you the practical skills you need to achieve the same level of excellent mental hygiene as your dental hygiene. Don't miss out on this valuable resource for both your personal and professional growth.