Breaking the Burnout Cycle: How Sabbaticals Can Save Healthcare Workers

Links: 

Find Leigha's free Sabbatical Starter guide or sign up for her online course at here website: OffDutyOnPurpose.com

In this episode, host Leigha returns after a hiatus to discuss an important and pervasive issue in the healthcare industry: burnout. Having recently taken a sabbatical to travel the world and reset, Leigha shares personal experiences and insights on overcoming burnout. Whether you call it a sabbatical, a mini-retirement or a career break, this episode aims to encourage healthcare professionals to consider taking time off as a strategic and necessary step to rejuvenate and regain passion for their work. Tune in to hear about the host's journey, the signs of burnout, and how a sabbatical can be a practical solution for emotional exhaustion and compassion fatigue.

Find Leigha on Socials:

IG & Tiktok: @helloimthepa

Youtube: @seeyaleigha

LinkedIn: Leigha Barbieri

Timestamps:

[00:01:46] Strategic intentional reset

[00:03:54] Overcoming burnout through sabbatical

[00:09:43] Negotiating a sabbatical

[00:12:23] Micro retirement ideas

[00:14:01] Returning with intention.

[00:18:12] Signs of severe burnout

[00:21:24] Wrap-Up

Are you struggling with burnout, and not sure what to do about it? Get my FREE SABBATICAL STARTER GUIDE here.

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• Website: OffDutyOnPurpose.com
• Watch full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soyouwanttoworkinhealthcare/featured
• Instagram & TikTok: @soyouwanttoworkinhealthcare
• Leigha’s Socials: @helloimthepa

*Not Medical Advice. Our views do not reflect the views of our employers.*

Transcript

Leigha (Host):
Hello, current and aspiring healthcare professionals. Welcome back. It's been a hot minute. I've been up to a lot, as many of you probably know. I left my job last fall to travel the world, and that's exactly what I've been doing. But it's not just because I've been traveling that I put this podcast on hold for a little while. It's because since early this year, I decided that I wanted to help other burnt-out healthcare workers gain the confidence to also take time off, like I did, and take a sabbatical, if you will, and overcome burnout. So that's what I've been working on, and I'm excited to tell you about it. In this episode, I just want to catch up and tell you what I've been up to since my last episode, which I think was like last November or December. And since this entire show is aimed at helping people discover what working in health care is really like, it's time we talk more openly about something that is running rampant among health care workers, and that is burnout. So in this episode, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my story with burnout, how I chose to take sabbatical to overcome it, and how, yes, you can too. I've seen it across specialties, compassion, fatigue, emotional exhaustion, just feeling like stuck. And as health care workers, we tend to be really great at sweeping our emotions under the rug. I think it's inherently in us to want to take care of others first and put ourselves last, like at the very bottom. We're notoriously horrible patients, aren't we? What I've learned over the last 10 months is that a sabbatical or time away from your career is a potential remedy for burnout. It's not a luxury, but a strategic intentional reset. As health care workers, we rarely, if ever, hear, yes, you can take a sabbatical because it's not common in our fields. But I want to change that for you, mainly because of how insightful and amazing my quote unquote sabbatical has been. So today I'm going to go over what a sabbatical looks like and who qualifies for one, how to plan it, and how to use it meaningfully. So what even is a sabbatical and who can take one? In the traditional sense of the word, a sabbatical is a prolonged period of time away from a role in academia usually. But in the modern sense of the word, sabbaticals are not only for academia or corporate. Anyone can take time off and call it a sabbatical. And more and more companies are starting to offer sabbatical leave options. Even hospitals and medical practices, I've heard, are now offering sabbatical time off. It's still pretty rare, but statistics show it's increasing, albeit slowly. I feel that the more we talk about burnout and the more we are open about how demanding our jobs are in healthcare, mentally and physically for that matter, The more employers will feel the necessary pressure to start taking better care of their employees, especially health care workers. Something I love to teach my students in my online course is that when employees take sabbaticals, both the employee and the employer's benefit, according to Harvard Business Review. In their article series on burnout, Harvard explained that large corporations are not negatively affected by offering sabbaticals. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Companies like Adobe, Salesforce, Bank of America, Deloitte and Apple are just a few hugely successful companies currently offering sabbaticals to their employees. I don't see Apple going under anytime soon. I might not have taken an official sabbatical in the traditional sense of the word, even though it is how I refer to my time off. I decided to fully resign from my job for reasons I'll get into a little later. But call it whatever you want, a sabbatical, career break, micro retirement. I love that one. In the end, it's a time in which you step away from your stressful job or career in order to take care of yourself in whatever way you need to overcome your burnout. And that is the goal here. We want to overcome burnout because too many of us are just pushing through burnout on a daily basis. Now, maybe some of you feel you can set new boundaries and make the necessary changes at your current job in order to beat burnout. And that is great. If you can do that, go for it. But for me, it was much better to step away if only to be able to think more clearly. And I can tell you right now, there were changes that I made and I was lucky enough to make while I was at my job. But there's something about leaving and having a different perspective once you're gone that really changes the way you think and feel. So when you leave a situation and look back on it, you often gain better clarity on that time. And sometimes you don't even realize just how much you needed the change until you're actually out of it. I'll tell you, I didn't know how burnt out I actually was until probably a few months into my sabbatical. So the question is, who is eligible for a sabbatical? In my opinion, anyone and everyone who is burned out or getting close to being burnt out. You don't have to be burnt out to start planning for something like this. In fact, I think it's smart to plan ahead so that if you do suddenly feel like you can't go any further in this job, you have the financial means to just take time off. Obviously, it's different if we're talking about logistical eligibility for an actual sabbatical leave. So if your employer is one of the cool ones who offers sabbatical time off, it's usually going to be after a certain amount of time at the job, like five or seven years. It may also depend on how much time you may have taken off in the past. It will likely have a time limit, like three to six months or sometimes even a year. That seems to be more common, though, in the academia side of things. But it's most likely going to be unpaid. But that's OK, because I have a whole budgeting guide that I go over in my course, and you can get an abbreviated version of that in my free guide that I'll link in the show notes. So when it comes to planning your sabbatical, first, there's financial readiness. There are a few different layers to funding a sabbatical, in my opinion. First, there's saving money and budgeting properly to do so. Then there is the aspect of traveling smart and stretching your money to get the most out of it. And then there is the benefit you'll gain from this time away versus how much you will spend. When it comes to saving money, it's more about mindset than anything, in my opinion. Most of us can probably save more money than we do, but we often get stuck living way above our means. And trust me, I was that person 10 years ago. I was really that person five years ago. But I'm talking $20,000 in credit card debt and $260,000 in student loan debt type of living above my means. But I'm also living proof that not only can you get out of debt, you can also save over six figures and have the financial freedom to take a year off from your career if you commit to it. And let me tell you, I didn't have to sacrifice much at all. And the money changes I did make were totally worth it. When it comes to traveling smart, there's so much I could teach you that I've learned over the years and over these last 10 months even. I could probably do like 10 whole episodes on all my travel hacks. But what I'll tell you right now is that you need a travel rewards credit card if you want your money to go far. So that's step one. Go apply for one right now if you have decent or good credit. And while it's not necessary to have a travel rewards card, it's single-handedly the best thing I ever did for traveling. Next, there's your work plan. Does your employer offer leave? What kind of leave? You're going to want to check out your employee HR handbook and read through the options before you do anything else, before you make any decisions. And while I'm here, I do want to say a little disclaimer. I am not a certified financial coach or financial advisor. I am also not a lawyer or anything like that. So everything that I'm teaching you is just based on my own experience. If you do decide to make any big career moves like resign from your job or apply for leave, I suggest you reach out to a professional like a lawyer first before you make any big decisions. This episode is not financial advice or medical advice or anything like that. It is just me sharing my story in hopes that I can help at least some of you see how possible this actually is and that we do not deserve to live in burnout for the rest of our lives. Okay, so if you're like most of us, there won't be too many great options when you do look at that handbook. Most will offer one month of unpaid leave or FMLA, which isn't really an option if you don't have a medical reason to be away. Even though burnout is 100% a valid reason, just not so much in the U.S. yet. We're just a little behind with that in the U.S. For instance, Belgians get a whole year off at 70% pay when they are burned out. but I digress. Alright, so the next thing you're going to want to decide is are you okay with taking a few months off and returning to your current job or would it be better to resign? I want to ask you though, do you really want to go back to the situation that caused you your burnout in the first place? Just really take some time to like sit with that and think about that. So let's talk about negotiating. I go over this in detail in my course as well. It's an online course with six modules and one module is all about whether you're going to take time off and take like a true sabbatical or actually resign. So let's talk about negotiating a sabbatical. First, all you need to know is that anything is possible. Make sure you consult a lawyer if you have any contractual obligations and a financial specialist if needed. But here's what most people do. They say, maybe my job offers time off. Let me go check. They look in their handbook and they find out that there is actually no good option and they think taking time is not possible. And they say, oh, well, I can't take a sabbatical. I'm just going to continue working in this unhappy situation forever. Because in health care, there's a stigma that The more tired we are and the more we push ourselves, the harder we're working. We need to start thinking differently about that. This is why most people I know think it's impossible to take a sabbatical, but it's not. It's a little bit about being creative, a little bit about having the confidence to ask for time off, and a lot about your mindset around whether or not you deserve this. Because if you don't truly believe you deserve this time off, you won't be successful in negotiating a sabbatical. I promise. When it comes to resigning, this is obviously a different path. It's the path I took. It's definitely a scarier one, but also the one that allows you so much more freedom. I resigned and I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty terrified at first. But then I realized, what is the point of all this money I'm making if I can't do what I love with it, which is travel and see the world. And I also didn't want to have like a set date to be back by and having that like looming over me. I wanted to feel free and experience all the things without having this thing in the back of my mind constantly. But really, you need to think big picture here. Otherwise, you will just constantly be focused on that next paycheck and the next rent payment or your kid's next soccer camp or whatever your next payment is. And you won't be able to see the experience that you can give yourself or even your family. Don't make kids an excuse either. The amount of families that I have met on this 10 month sabbatical so far, there are so many people taking extended time off traveling with their children, children of all ages. I am close with a family who have three children, nine years old, five years old, and eight months old, and they took a three-month sabbatical. I recently just met a wonderful family from France. they have two girls with them. One turned 12 while we were together in Indonesia and I believe the other was nine. They are taking seven months sabbatical right now. They're about six months in, I believe. There are ways to do this, I promise you, so don't limit yourself. Whether you're taking time off and returning or leaving your job altogether, you want to make sure the transition is as seamless as possible. So next, you need to prepare for coverage, get as much work done ahead of time as you can, if that's something that will help, and offer to help with anything that might make this move easier on your boss, and more importantly, your boss and your team. For coverage, think like locum rolls or co-worker coverage, but it might also be good to calculate how much this might cost ahead of time so that if you do get some pushback here while negotiating a sabbatical, you already have these numbers in your mind and you can give them like actual data. A lot of the time, it's not gonna cost that much more to hire a temporary clinician than it would to fire you and go through the hiring process and credentialing process and all of that. It's gonna most likely be easier to just hire a temporal and have you back at your positions if taking time off and returning to your job is what you want. All right, so what do we do with this life pause or micro retirement, if you will? Here are some ideas for you, but it depends on what your goals are for this sabbatical. We know we want to overcome burnout by doing this, but what does that look like for you? It's going to be different for everybody. For me, it is traveling the world, doing all the things that I never had time to do, like reading fiction. By the way, I'm on my 11th book since October. Thank you very much. Never read this fast in my entire life. It was also for me taking a course on AI and healthcare that I've been interested in, but never felt like I had the time to do. It was also spending time with my partner and surfing and getting better at surfing. And lately I started taking Pilates, like never did that in my life. So for me, it was all of these things, right? It was a lot of traveling, a little bit of personal development, a lot of rest, some creativity. You want to decide what overcoming burnout feels like and looks like to you. Is it traveling the world or taking some time to volunteer? Is it personal development like writing, teaching, side projects, hobbies, courses? Or is it rest and creativity like time for self-care, mindfulness, reflection, maybe a nice retreat or two? For me, it was traveling the world, experiencing new cultures, and having the freedom of time to do all the things I've always wanted to do. It's the best decision I ever made because even though I've spent a good amount of money, during the past 10 months, more money than I thought I would have spent, to be honest. This is an experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I've learned so much. I've spent time in 11 countries, met some amazing people. And most importantly, I've learned a lot about myself. And that is worth every single penny. All right, so let's talk about potentially the most important part of all this, and it's returning with intention. Eventually, you're probably going to return to your job or your career, or at least to your career. Maybe not. Maybe you're going to do a whole career pivot, and that's cool, too. A lot of people I talk to who take sabbaticals have actually done some career pivoting, which is really exciting and interesting. But whether you're returning to your old job or starting a new one, how you return is key. This time off doesn't mean much at all if we fall right back into burnout. So how will we avoid that? First, you will need to set boundaries. From the beginning, you need to know what you want in your job moving forward. Do you want to be home by 530 every day? Do you want a four-day workweek or maybe a more flexible schedule altogether? You will likely need to negotiate these things, which is totally normal. And it happens all the time, especially in the corporate world. It might not be very common in, let's say, a physician assistant contract, but it is not impossible. A lawyer friend once told me that every contract is up for negotiation. It may not be standard or even at all common, but if it's done right, it can be extremely lucrative for all parties. So again, we go through some ways to negotiate your schedule in my course in much more detail. I also think it's a great idea to keep some sabbatical habits or self-care routines active that you've developed during your time away, like spending more time with your family no matter what, or making sure to make it to the gym every day if that's what you need. If that's what you need for your happiness, you need to make sure it's first priority. So whatever it is that you need should now be non-negotiables. Otherwise, you are going to fall back into burnout. Real quick, I just want to go over some signs that you might be burnt out. So a quick checklist of red flags. First, compassion fatigue. This is a really important one because we work in a field where we're constantly taking care of other people and often we have their lives in our hands, right? So when we're burnt out and compassion fatigue kicks in, That's scary because you might not mean it, but it might mean that things start falling through the cracks or even if you're still 100% on top of all the logistical stuff at work, like not showing compassion is going to have an effect on your patients. We know that. Another red flag is when you start dreading your work days. Not fun. I don't mean like dreading a Monday when you've had like a great weekend, but like the rest of the week is cool. I'm talking like pretty much every day you're dreading going to work or you're, you're daydreaming of quitting while you're there. Cynicism is a big one. Just kind of like feeling negative about everything at work, especially things that you once either enjoyed even, or you thought were just, you know, the normal run of the mill things. Now you feel like everything's a problem. A big one for me was detachment. And this kind of goes along with compassion fatigue in my opinion, but a detachment from your job, detachment from your patients, your coworkers, and even people at home like your partner or your family. And then another big one is chronic exhaustion. Obviously, if you're always tired, there might be something bigger going on here, but it could definitely be a sign of burnout. If you are severely burnt out and you need help today, please go talk to your doctor because burnout is real. It's an actual ICD-10 diagnosis, and it can have much more severe effects than the ones we just spoke about, like depression, anxiety, even pain. So talk to your doctor if you're experiencing any of those things. And if you know you want to take time off, but understand that it's going to take you a few months to save money, you can start putting the boundaries we talked about into practice now to set the stage for when you return. All right, so wrapping up here, let's recap a little. In order to take a sabbatical, you want to know your eligibility, whether that's your logistical eligibility or your eligibility in the sense of your mindset. Are you convinced that you are eligible to take time off? Because you are. You want to create a strategic plan that involves financial planning, logistical planning at work, and everything that goes along with that. Travel planning or whatever it is you're going to do, even if it's a stay-at-home sabbatical, there's going to be some planning involved, right? You don't want to just quit your job and be like, OK, what do I do now? That would be bad. Next, you want to design your sabbatical purposefully. So like we talked about, what do you want to get out of this? I know there are probably some people out there who can take six months off and do absolutely nothing and they will love it. But I have a feeling that if you are a health care worker and you are burnt out, you're probably a hard worker and you have some like innate feeling in you to accomplish things. So you might get a little bored after a couple weeks of just doing nothing. So design your sabbatical purposefully and make sure it's in line with overcoming your burnout, however that means for you, whether that means exercising or eating right or rewarding yourself with a bucket list trip or a luxury retreat. Whatever works for you is what you should do. And it might change along the way, and that's fine. And finally, return reimagined or with boundaries to prevent burnout. So just want to give you a little encouragement here because so many people tell me, you can never do what you're doing. You're so lucky, so lucky. No, I'm not lucky. Okay, fine. I do feel lucky, right? I feel grateful, but it's not luck. I made a plan and I executed that plan. So here's what I need you to know. You do not have to stay stuck or wait until retirement. You can choose to pause now. I recently learned of a book that's coming out soon by a woman named Jillian Johnsrud called Retire Often, and I'm really excited to read it because I totally agree. I think all of us should be taking micro-retirements whenever we feel the need to. Now, I do understand that many of us have many obligations, financial obligations, family obligations, things like that. I choose to believe that even with all of these obligations, we can still create a plan to put ourselves first. It might just take more time and be a little more complicated. But with the six steps that I go over in my course, I truly, truly feel it's possible for everybody. So DM me or comment on how you'd like to use your sabbatical. I'm always open to chat. I love helping people through this and helping people believe that they deserve this time off. You can find me on Instagram or TikTok at helloimthepa. So to all my burnt out healthcare professionals, please take care of yourselves because when we take care of ourselves, we are better providers for our patients, better co-workers to our teams, and better people overall. And sometimes it takes stepping away to fully understand that. Remember, you can take a sabbatical and you don't need six figures to do it. You just need a plan. If any of this resonated with you today, please check out my website. It's OffDutyOnPurpose.com. There you will find my free sabbatical starter guide that will help you kickstart your plan to taking time off. And if you like that, consider signing up for my online course where you also get a one-on-one session with me and continued coaching during your time planning for your sabbatical. Let's break the stigmas and beat burnout together. Thank you so much for listening. Please don't forget to leave a review on whatever listening platform you're listening on. I'm really excited for a few episodes that I have coming up. More interview style episodes and solo episodes. So I hope you guys like this one. Let me know what you think in the comments and I'll see you guys in the next episode.