Here’s something you may already know. I didn’t until recently, but I sure do now, and it’s a lesson I won’t forget—something I wish I’d known three weeks ago.
Rabbits love cone flowers.
We recently downsized to a cute house with window boxes. I’ve never had window boxes before and am honestly not much of a gardener. I went to the local place where we buy plants and picked out some tall red ones, some shorter purple ones, and even shorter yellow ones. (Don’t ask me the names—I threw out the labels, and as I said, I’m not much of a gardener.)
As I filled the boxes, I realized the red ones were too tall, so I decided to plant them in the ground in front of the house. It wasn’t easy, what with the rocky soil and roots from nearby bushes, and did I mention it was 84 degrees out? But I got two red ones into the ground.
Having just two looked skimpy, so the next morning, I made another trip to the plant store and bought two more of what I learned were cone flowers, or echinacea. Another hot day, more rocks, more roots, but wow, did the four red cone flowers look nice once I finished. Our new home had color and a real step up in curb appeal. I was so proud!
Devastation hit the next morning. As I went out for an early morning jog, I was dismayed to see broken-off stalks and red petals scattered on the ground. My beautiful cone flowers! My curb appeal! Those cute little bunnies we’d seen scampering through our backyard suddenly didn’t seem so adorable.
It’s a lesson I could have learned elsewhere (perhaps a gardening book or website), but instead, I learned the hard way. Sometimes life is like that.
Here’s another lesson I learned the hard way: the key to a sustainable career is intentional self-care. Self-sacrifice and overwork may help you achieve in the short term, but they will eventually catch up with you. For me, it was job burnout with no clue about how to prevent a recurrence. It was a derailing of the career in clinical medicine that I had hoped, planned, and worked for.
In the many years since, I’ve learned a lot about what leads to burnout and what staves it off. I’ve learned that job burnout is driven by excess stress in the workplace but also that individuals play a big role in their well-being. Both are true.
Intentional self-care is more than a monthly massage or facial—it’s learning how to set healthy boundaries at work, say no to extra tasks and energy drainers, and advocate for yourself. It is making and keeping a commitment to yourself to create space for truly recharging.
This article is discussed on The Podcast by KevinMD in the episode Lessons in career sustainability: Why self-care is the key to success.
Diane W. Shannon is a physician, professional coach, author, and health care writer who helps women physicians build influential, sustainable careers without sacrificing their well-being. She can be found at dianeshannon.com.
She brings more than 20 years of expertise in physician burnout, women physician leadership, and building sustainable physician workplaces. After experiencing burnout early in her own primary care career, she dedicated her work to understanding why talented physicians struggle and what it takes for both individuals and organizations to thrive. Drawing on her experience as both a physician and award-winning health care writer, she helps women physicians expand their leadership, navigate career transitions, and avoid burnout, while partnering with health care organizations to retain physicians, develop women leaders, and strengthen workplace culture.
Dr. Shannon is coauthor of Preventing Physician Burnout: Curing the Chaos and Returning Joy to the Practice of Medicine, a TEDx speaker, and cofounder of Lead Your Way Academy. Her writing on burnout, cognitive load, and physician well-being has appeared in Massachusetts Medical Society publications, the American Medical Association’s STEPS Forward toolkit series, and on WBUR. She shares updates on LinkedIn and Instagram.
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