Episode 163. The Missing Link Better Mental Health...And It's Not What You Think It Is

You’re not just exhausted from dentistry.
 You’re exhausted because your brain has been stuck in survival mode with no clear direction.

In this episode, we’re talking about the missing piece to better mental health and why the greatest gift you can give your brain is a job. A compelling goal. A reason to focus on something bigger than stress, pressure, and just making it through the week.

Because if you don’t intentionally give your brain something meaningful to work toward…trust me, it’ll find something else to obsess over. And you probably won’t like the results.

This episode might completely change the way you think about burnout, motivation, and your future.

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

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Transcript

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You know what's exhausting? It's not just dentistry, not just patience, not the schedule. It's walking through life with a brain that has no clear direction. So it fills the silence with stress, with overthinking, procrastination, doom scrolling, self-doubt, and just plain old survival mode. But in today's episode, we're talking about the missing link to better mental health. And it's probably not what you think. It's not more sleep, not a beach vacation, not deleting Instagram for 12 hours and then calling that a reset. It is giving your brain a job, not some vague goal, not just be healthier or get your life together, a real compelling direction your brain can lock into. Because if you don't decide what matters, your primitive brain will. And trust me, it has some terrible ideas. Today we're going to talk about desire, about belief, commitment, resilience, and why this one shift might be the thing that finally pulls you out of burnout for good. 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. Well, hey friends, and welcome back to the podcast. So last week we talked about supporting your brain. We talked about things like sleep, nutrition, decluttering all the noise, movement in your body, all the stuff that sounds annoyingly basic until you realize your entire nervous system is running on two iced coffees, stress hormones, and leftover MMs from the break room. And listen, all of that matters. But this week I want to talk about what I genuinely believe is the single most important gift you can give your brain and to support your mental health. And I said it earlier. Are you ready? It's a job. That's it. The kindest, most supportive thing you can do for your mental health is to give your brain a job. Because if you don't, it will absolutely pick one for you. And you're probably not going to like what it chooses. Seriously, your brain cannot tolerate a vacuum. It wants direction, it wants focus, it wants something to organize around. And if you don't intentionally decide what that thing is, your brain defaults to its primitive programming, to survival, comfort, avoiding discomfort, seeking pleasure, repeating familiar patterns, even when those patterns are making you miserable. And honestly, once you understand this, you just can't unsee it. You can watch it happen everywhere. You see someone say, I really want to get healthy. But then they end up stress eating queso, maybe at 10 30 at night while watching TikToks. And why? Because get healthy, that's not a job. That is way too vague. Your brain's like, what? What does that even mean? Walk, lift weights, stop drinking soda, meal prep, eat protein, sleep more, stop rage eating Chick-fil-A in the car after a stressful day. It doesn't know what that means. And when the brain doesn't know exactly what to do, guess what it does instead? It goes back to what's familiar, comfort, immediate relief. It's the same thing in dentistry. People say, I want less stress. Okay, but what does that mean? Because your brain cannot organize around vagueness. Maybe it's that you want to set stronger boundaries. Like you are not going to answer work tags while you're standing in line at Target, but your doctor is blowing up your phone because the schedule next Tuesday looks weird. Maybe you want better systems, like not having the entire practice run on sticky notes, those verbal drive-bys, and Cheryl forgetting to tell everyone that the lab case didn't come in and the patient is literally sitting in the chair. You want more confidence, like being able to walk into a difficult conversation without rehearsing it in your head 27 times first. Or you don't want to immediately assume you did something wrong anytime someone says, Hey, can I talk to you for a second? Do you want to stop bringing homework mentally? Like not replaying that weird interaction with that 11 o'clock patient and you're brushing your teeth at night, not mentally rebuilding tomorrow's schedule while your family is trying to talk to you at dinner and not waking up at 2 a.m. suddenly remembering you forgot to submit that pre-authorization. Do you want to leave on time? Like actually leave on time? Not the fake dental version, not the I'm leaving at five, but you're still there, 6.15, wiping down a room, returning calls, finishing notes, and wondering how everybody else is in the parking lot already has their pajamas on. Do you want to stop feeling like every notification is a medical emergency? Because right now, your nervous system reacts to the sound of a text like a trauma response. Your Apple Watch buzzes and suddenly your whole body's like, wait, what now? Who canceled? What broke? Who's mad? Did someone quit? Is the internet down again? That's what I mean. Your brain needs a clear direction bigger than just surviving the day. It wants to know what specifically are we creating here. Your brain loves that specificity. It likes efficiency. Doesn't care what it becomes efficient at. That's the crazy part. Your brain will become incredibly efficient at anxiety if you rehearse anxiety every day. It will become efficient at resentment, at procrastination, overthinking, doom scrolling. It will become efficient at convincing yourself your life will start when things calm down. And meanwhile, you're sitting there wondering why you feel exhausted all the time. Because your brain has a job. You just didn't consciously give it one. So it picked something out of its survival toolkit. And survival mode is exhausting, especially in a dental practice, because there's already a million things competing for your attention all day long. Someone's late, someone's crying in treatment room number three, the schedule just imploded. A patient's questioning treatment fees while holding a Stanley cup that clearly costs more than the fluoride you're trying to recommend. The doctor is stressed, the front desk is overwhelmed, you forgot to thaw something out for dinner, someone texted, can we talk? And now your nervous system thinks you're about to be fired, divorced, or maybe arrested. And through all of that, your brain is filtering information nonstop. It's trying to determine what matters, what's important, what should I focus on. And if you haven't intentionally decided that, your primitive brain will focus on comfort and safety every single time. Even if safe is keeping you stuck. That's the wild part. Your brain defines safe as familiar, not necessarily healthy, not necessarily fulfilling, just familiar, which is why people stay in patterns that are making them miserable for years. Because your brain says, at least we know this pain. And if we're being honest, some of you listening right now are exhausted, not because you're incapable, but because your brain has been running that same stress loop for so long, it now thinks that's just who you are. And it's not. You just haven't given it a new job yet. And here's the important part the job you give your brain doesn't have to be huge. This isn't some like sell your stuff, buy a van, start a crystal business on Instagram, and suddenly you become the kind of person that thinks I'm really leaning into my feminine inside right now. Relax. It's not all that. It can be so simple. It just has to be compelling. Compelling enough to compete with comfort because you will have competing desires. Part of you wants growth, the other part wants snacks, naps, stretchy pants, and I'll start Monday. That's normal. Your brain is constantly balancing long-term desires against immediate relief. And if your reason isn't compelling enough, your brain is going to choose comfort every single time. Not because you're lazy, but because your primitive brain is efficient. It wants to conserve energy, which is why your brain can somehow spend six hours worrying about some insignificant something and then acts personally attacked by the idea of going on a 20-minute walk. Now, the job that we give our brain requires four things. It requires desire, belief, commitment, and resilience. So let's talk about those. First, desire. This one matters more than people realize because your desires are clues. They're information. They are the map you need to follow. And I think so many people have disconnected from what they actually want because they've spent years surviving, years being responsible, years taking care of everybody else, years just trying to make it through the week. So when someone asks, What do you actually want? you freeze. Not because you're broken, but because nobody's asked you that in a really long time. Now, I do want to make an important distinction here. There is a difference between a true desire and a false desire. False desires are the things we use to change our emotional state temporarily. Scrolling, overeating, drinking, shopping, procrastinating, just numbing out. And listen, we all do this. This is not judgment. This is awareness. False desires are usually compulsive. And satisfying them often makes your life worse afterward. You know that feeling where you say, I'm just going to scroll for five minutes. And then suddenly you're 24 videos deep into watching a woman restock her pantry with all these cute matching beige containers while your own laundry's been sitting in the dryer so long, you just keep fluffing it like that counts as folding. That is false desire. But what's fascinating is when you start reducing those false desires, your true desires start waking back up. It's almost like they've been quietly sitting in the corner going, um, hi, remember us? Your true desires are different. They expand you, they evolve you, they make you feel more alive. And when you tap into one that's genuinely true for you, not what Instagram says, not what your parents wanted, not what everyone else in dentistry is doing. What's true for you? It's like this insane energy opens up. You stop dragging yourself through life, you start feeling pulled. And that energy, that's the thing burnout cannot compete with. I'm telling you, you can work hard and still feel energized when what you're building matters deeply to you. But now listen, desire alone isn't enough because desire requires belief. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you know this part. Your feelings come for your thoughts, and thoughts repeated over and over become your beliefs. The problem is, most people don't even realize that their beliefs are optional. They think I'm just not disciplined, I always quit. I'm not confident, I'm bad with money, I could never do that. Like those are facts carved into stone tablets somewhere. They're not those or thoughts. They're just sentences in your mind. You've practiced them so many times now, they feel true. And those beliefs shape everything because your beliefs determine what you attempt, what you tolerate, what you avoid, what you create. Which means if you want a different life, you're gonna have to start questioning what you believe. Not every thought deserves permanent residency in your brain. Some of them need to be evicted immediately. Now, those beliefs influence your commitment. And this is where everything changes because most people look at their past for evidence that they can succeed, but your past does not determine your future, your commitment does. When someone has a compelling reason, you don't question their commitment, you can feel it. There's a fire there, and commitment matters because eventually that desire will fade a little bit. Reality is gonna hit, things will get harder than you thought. You'll hit resistance, you'll doubt yourself, you'll just get tired. And that's when commitment takes over. Commitment says, I'm doing this anyway. Not because it's easy, not because you feel motivated, not because it's convenient, because you decided. And that's where resilience is born. Resilience is not pretending things don't hurt, it's not white-knuckling your way through life. It's the ability you have to recover, to adapt, to keep moving, to learn, to adjust, to fall down without building a summer home in failure. And listen, this is why giving your brain one compelling job matters so much. Because otherwise, every hard moment becomes a reason to quit. Every emotion becomes a detour. Every inconvenience becomes proof it's not working. But when you've decided, like really decided, your brain stops entertaining every other option. Not because temptations disappear, but because they're no longer relevant. And honestly, I think this is one of the biggest missing pieces in burnout conversations. People think burnout is only about workload. Sometimes it is, but a lot of times it's so much deeper than that. It's what happens when someone is living with no compelling direction. I call it being bored out. No vision, no purpose pulling them forward, no intentional focus, just surviving, reacting, repeating. And your brain was not designed to thrive there. It was designed to evolve, to grow, to create, to build. But evolution requires asking more from yourself than your primitive brain wants. Because your primitive brain would love to stay hidden, stay comfortable, stay small, stay safe. It wants to expend the least amount of energy possible. But if we only listen to that part of our brain, we stop evolving. I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend the next 30 years of my life stuck in survival mode. I want to see what's possible. I want to see how good life can get. I want to see what happens when someone learns how to work with their brain instead of against it. And that's what I want for you too. So here's the questions I want to leave you with today. What do you actually want? Not what do you think you should want? What do you want? What do you want to create? What kind of life are you trying to build? And if you don't already have it, why? Ask that question, not from judgment, but from compassion and curiosity. What competing desires keep winning right now? Is it safety, comfort, avoiding discomfort, fear of failure, fear of being seen, fear that it's all going to be too hard? Because awareness like that is going to change everything. And once you decide what job you want your brain to focus on, protect that, feed it, reinforce it, stay committed to it. Because your brain is incredibly powerful, but it needs direction. And if you give it one compelling job with desire, with belief, commitment, and resilience, I genuinely believe it can change your entire life. And honestly, that's what this work is all about. It's not just about reducing burnout, it's not about just surviving dentistry. It's about building a life so compelling, your brain finally has something bigger to focus on than stress and survival. And that, my friend, that's where things really get good. And look, if this episode hit you right in the nervous system, if you're sitting there thinking, okay, wow, this is exactly what's been happening to me, I want you to know you don't have to figure this out alone. Come join us inside our Beyond Dental Burnout Facebook group. It is full of dental people just like you. Good people, capable people, exhausted people, people trying to build a life that feels better than just surviving till Friday. We talk about real stuff in there: the mental load, the pressure, the overwhelm, the habits, the thought patterns that are keeping you stuck, but also the possibilities, the goals, the version of you that still exist underneath all the stress and all the burnout. And most importantly, we start giving your brain something better to focus on than just making it through the day. So go search Beyond Dental Burnout on Facebook. We would love to have you there. Have a fabulous week. I'll see you in the group and on next week's episode. Bye. 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.