Jenna:  "How do you stay positive with a heavy caseload and be as passionate as possible to give your best to your patient?"

Phil:  We've got to recognize that healthcare in general is burnout prone and that feeling is real.  There's nothing you can do to just magically get that to go away.  I think the key things are, first, make sure you have your purpose, your overall big purpose in mind -- what that exactly looks like for you, and remind yourself of that, going back to that on a daily basis.  

But, that only goes so far, though, I will say.  You need to also make sure that your physical activity is where it needs to be.  I find that for me personally, the busier you get, the harder days are, it's harder to get physical activity in. It's harder to eat well.  So you need to make sure that's dialed in because that will fuel what you need to do. 

The other thing I would say is to make sure you're getting around and meeting with...

Jenna:  "What are tips I can utilize to increase motivation and improve professional values in the workplace?" 

Phil:  You might as well ask this question about how do you maintain your diet?  How do you keep exercising?  How do we do the hard things in life?  Right. Because it's hard.  I wish to say it's just easy to wake up every day and be doing all the things you need to do, the way you need to do them.  From a professional perspective, I think the key things are have something that you're going after that is bigger. 

Know what that is, and then surround yourself with the people who will help you get there.  It's good to have people who will hold you accountable.  But I think also if you can get people who are trying to do the same thing, that really goes a long way.  One of the rebellion groups that I love formed around people who have started their own private practice and where they just meet up once a month...

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...

I haven’t wanted to write lately. It is frustrating, and I’ve found myself constantly saying, “I should just write.” I’ve said it hundreds of times in the last few months with very little to show for it.

Not wanting to write is a weird feeling because I’ve never had to force myself to write. Most of the time, writing was what I used to procrastinate doing other things.

I don’t think I’m alone in having difficulty motivating myself to do things lately (even things I genuinely enjoy). I don’t know if we blame the pandemic, if we blame the constant change, or if we blame the stress of it all. But I think I received some excellent advice the other day.

Someone told me to stop thinking about why I was having difficulty motivating myself, stop trying to figure out what is to blame, and stop beating myself up over it.

The solution is simple...

For all the things you say, “I should X” or “I should Y,” make them...