Lee Eldridge explains why the sooner dentistry accepts that a work-life balance is a ‘broken model’, the quicker it will reduce the pressure.
Do you have a work-life balance?
And is it possible when you are trying to be a successful dentist or run a successful dentist practice?
The idea of balance is discussed to reduce the risk of burnout, but burnout is a real problem that continues to increase.
The dental industry has a burnout problem; a 2022 Dental Protection survey showed that 50% of dentists have considered leaving dentistry for personal wellbeing due to the stress and pressures of the job.
Dentists are under massive amounts of stress; many have to manage staff and the business in addition to their personnel responsibilities. Although these roles are highly rewarding, they can take a toll on dentists and their teams.
Here are some of the symptoms of burnout:
- Feeling tired and fatigued all the time
- Unable to sleep at night
- Inability to focus and engage
- Lack of energy inside and outside the practice
- Feeling lonely
- Procrastinating and taking longer to get things done
- Feeling overwhelmed.
Different for everyone
Interestingly, recovery from burnout differs for everyone, but the average time is three months to a year. How long these symptoms last will depend on your emotional, mental and physical exhaustion level and if you experience any relapses in the recovery.
So, why is burnout still happening if work-life balance is being discussed and at the forefront of people’s minds?
The truth is the model of work-life balance is broken. We have seen increases in stress across all industries; the Gallop’s latest study highlights increases in stress yearly. Around 44% of employees said they experienced high stress the previous day and that lack of engagement was a key determinant of this.
Having spent two decades working with high-performers, I have concluded that the discussion surrounding work-life balance is pointless for two main reasons:
- You may have balance in your life, but for how long? We know that life can change in a second. Therefore balance is not built on strong foundations
- How can you have balance when things on each side weigh differently and can change weight at any time?
Trying to find balance adds more stress to the stress bucket. Burnout happens when that bucket is overflowing and has been for some time.
In professional sports, burnout is overtraining, leading to an injury, meaning the athlete cannot compete, train and, in some cases, earn an income.
What’s the solution?
This is a question I get asked all the time. So here are five points to think about:
- Understand that work is part of life. In professional sports, being an athlete is full-time. Meaning that their performance is influenced outside of the pitch, training ground or gym. Look at our life as a holistic (relating to the whole of something or to the total system instead of just to its parts) process. Therefore things outside of dentistry have a massive factor in performance inside the practice. So when we talk about self-care, it is not only about ourselves. We need to invest in the human that we are
- Redefine success as a whole process. How we define success is hugely relevant to achieving it. Having a clear vision, strong values, and a purpose helps us to make better decisions. This is usually the first thing that needs to be done. Everyone places massive importance on goal setting, but it’s vital to build a process to achieve those goals (author James Clear has a best-selling book on this subject)
- Use stress as an advantage. Stress is part of life; it affects all individuals from all professions. It’s a natural response from our body to various challenges, demands, or environmental changes that cause our bodies to initiate a complex cascade of physiological and psychological reactions. We cannot achieve anything without stress. Much research has been conducted around how we respond to stress – the Inverted U Theory or Flow State, just to mention two. So ultimately, some stress is a good thing as long as the response does not happen for too long or at too high of an intensity
- Understand the term GAS. GAS, or general adaptation syndrome, is often used in sports science and performance to highlight the need for stress, as it causes an alarm response and then recovery (ideally to a level just about base level). If we continue to do this, our baseline increases, meaning we can deal with more and perform better. A big part of GAS is the recovery phase. So ask yourself, how well are you sleeping? How much alcohol are you ingesting (seriously detrimental to sleep, see below)? What are you doing after a stressful day or appointment? How good are you as a human being, moving, eating, and breathing?
- Develop focus and engagement. Too much stress reduces our ability to focus on one thing at a time; we get caught up in the idea of multitasking. Multitasking is proven not to work. High performance is about engaging in one thing at a time. When with a patient, a 100% focus should be on that individual. If your mind wanders, then mistakes and underperformance happen. This is the same outside of the practice. When you are at home, you need to focus on being a partner, parent, friend, loved one etc.
Reduce the pressure
If we start to understand that work-life balance is a broken model, we stop trying to achieve something that is constantly changing. By doing this, we reduce the pressure to have everything perfect.
Remember, stress is not a bad thing; it improves performance. Stress is only bad when it’s for too long, too much or at the wrong time.
My biggest learning from two decades of high-performing coaching is that progress is way more important than that perfection. The drive for progress enables us to enjoy the process; mastery is innately human.
Reaching the top of Mount Everest must be a fantastic experience and feeling. But you need to enjoy and embrace each step on the climb. Otherwise, that feeling of accomplishment will last for the short time you are at the top.
I hope that you have enjoyed this short piece about the myth of work-life balance.
I leave you with one question: what would happen if you burn out?
Follow Dentistry.co.uk on Instagram to keep up with all the latest dental news and trends.
