Can stress in your job or career be a good thing?

Stress is not always a bad thing. There are instances when using energy can actually give you more energy. Stress may not always be something to run from.

Phil:  All right, Jenna, I want to talk about good stress versus bad stress, good exhaustion versus bad exhaustion. You taught a continuing education course this weekend, which is one of your dream career goals. And it was a lot of stress leading up to it. A lot of stress in the weekend and left you completely exhausted. Tell me how that can be a good thing.

Jenna: So it's definitely a different kind of stress when you think about it, because yes, I felt stressed, but it was easier for me to reframe it as like excitement and nerves versus like feeling like I'm actually exhausted or like I'm getting burnt out because you know, all week I practiced and I practiced and it was like every minute that I had to think about anything, I was thinking about the course that was leading up, right? And that can feel stressful, but it's so much different than like when you know, if you're in a job. I talked to a lot of people that are in a job that they don't really like, and they talk about how much they think about that job when they're not at it. And this is kind of the same thing.

You know, I was thinking about the course the entire time. Well, I'm not at it yet, but it was an excitement and a nervousness because the more that you care about something, the more that you're going after something you want, the better you feel versus when you're just in a situation that you don't necessarily love. The exhaustion is more of a product of not being happy than it is just feeling stressed.

Phil:  So how does someone take how does someone identify that? And I mean, I think a lot of the times we give advice that says, you know, sometimes, you know, you're you're burnt out, you're exhausted because of your job, meaning you're not crazy about the number of patients types of patients or the documentation or productivity demands or whatever. And that's exhausting.  But sometimes we say adding something in like this can can help with that, that burnout and exhaustion. Does this apply in this case or.

Jenna:  Absolutely. Like, I mean, when you add something that you're passionate about, even even though it's challenging and even though it makes you nervous and even though it requires more work when you're doing something that aligns with what you're passionate about, it's almost like a resistance for that exhaustion or that burnout. It's a different type. It's like I'm exhausted because I gave everything I had versus I'm exhausted because what I'm doing took everything that I had.  Does that make sense?

Phil:  Absolutely. So, I mean, bottom line, though, too, is like I think there's in your career, you know, there's a couple levers you can pull to make it better, make you enjoy your job better. One is actually by getting a caseload that you enjoy, by seeing the number of patients that you enjoy and having the flexibility that you want. That's certainly the one level, and I think we only tend to think about pulling that one. But the other one that becomes important is making sure that you have those passion projects, those dream things, those ideal things that you want included. And maybe you can't switch your your schedule or something immediately and it's going to take some time, but you can add in those side passion projects in the meantime while you get that better job.