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Solocast: Create a Life You Don't Have to Escape From · Lean Out Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the lean out podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:04
  Don baker.
• 0:05
  Are you looking for a new approach to authentic and sustainable work-life balance?
• 0:10
  You've come to the right place.
• 0:12
  Listen as i interview amazing women professionals who've taken steps to lean out and find balance on their own terms Hello?
• 0:20
  Hello.
• 0:20
  Thanks for being here.
• 0:22
  After a little break, I'm happy to be back recording episodes for you in 2024 as part of season two of the lean out podcast.
• 0:31
  I hope you had a beautiful holiday and that this year is off to a nice start for you.
• 0:37
  The last episode of lean out was released during Christmas break.
• 0:41
  And after that, my family and I had a quiet Christmas, we had a new year on our property, which also coincided with my husband's 50th birthday on new year's day.
• 0:50
  And increasingly our property has become more cold and more snowy.
• 0:56
  Luckily we had a few trips planned to warmer climates.
• 1:00
  So what we did was in mid January, we winterized everything in the mountains and then ahead for our condo in Las Vegas.
• 1:08
  From there, we took three different trips.
• 1:11
  We visited family in the Phoenix area.
• 1:14
  We pretty much take a winter trip there every year in order to visit family around the holiday time.
• 1:21
  Then we went on a six day trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
• 1:25
  And after that, we were off to Florida.
• 1:28
  I spoke at the white coat investor conference in Orlando, and after the conference, we stayed in Western Florida to explore the crystal river area for a few days on the Western Gulf.
• 1:40
  And decompress from the conference and also celebrate my 50th birthday, which just occurred recently.
• 1:47
  Sprinkled in with all these trips.
• 1:50
  I completed some clinical work at my per diem anesthesia job that I hold in Las Vegas.
• 1:56
  And I continue to do some coaching.
• 1:58
  And all this to say basically that my life nowadays is not the kind where I really need a vacation.
• 2:05
  'cause breaks and changes of scenery are kind of built right into how I live my life.
• 2:11
  So today I wanted to talk about the idea of creating a life that you don't feel like you have to escape from, or take a vacation from.
• 2:21
  So what's the difference between a vacation and a trip.
• 2:25
  The way I see it, a vacation implies an escape, like living it up or living a different kind of life.
• 2:32
  Whereas a trip is travel where the main purpose is embracing the experience.
• 2:39
  Over the years I've had of travel.
• 2:41
  I've realized that the type of travel my family engages in is definitely the ladder or the trip kind.
• 2:48
  The difference.
• 2:49
  Isn't just like vacations are luxurious and trips are not.
• 2:54
  You can do a trip in a luxury location, just like we did in Cabo.
• 2:59
  But the difference is more in mindset.
• 3:01
  Uh, vacation feels more urgent.
• 3:03
  Like you have to fit everything in because of the time away and whatever feelings it's bringing with it.
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  Relaxation, excitement, novelty, et cetera are finite.
• 3:15
  And then it's back to reality or some sort of drudgery.
• 3:19
  Uh, trip takes the good with the bad.
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  It is more focused on the experiences.
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  And so there's not as much of a sense of urgency.
• 3:28
  Um, people sometimes refer to this as slow travel or immersing yourself in a culture of a place and doing simple things and not necessarily trying to cram it all in.
• 3:42
  This difference is driven by burnout and the cult of busy-ness that we see in lean in culture.
• 3:47
  It's difficult enough to carve out time for a vacation when you're in this kind of atmosphere.
• 3:53
  And there was a recent JAMA study.
• 3:55
  That polled physicians about their vacation habits.
• 3:59
  60% of the physicians pulled and there were a few thousand, took less than three weeks per year off and more than 70% of the people who took vacation said that they work always when they're on vacation.
• 4:14
  That is a sad statistic to me.
• 4:17
  Recently also regarding burnout.
• 4:19
  I came across a post in a physician Facebook group.
• 4:23
  And the poster asked, you know, you're burned out when, and then just had these bullet points of different items that are kind of funny and ironic, and also not funny at the same time.
• 4:36
  I remember a day when I really identified with some of the responses.
• 4:40
  So here's a few of the standouts.
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  I'm just going to list to you.
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  You know, you're burned out when.
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  You celebrate patient no-shows.
• 4:49
  When Amazon packages start arriving every day.
• 4:53
  When going to the dentist is a relaxing experience.
• 4:58
  When you look forward to your colonoscopy, just so you can have the day off.
• 5:03
  When the main thought in your head is please stop talking.
• 5:07
  When you look at someone doing a brainless job, like the cashier in the cafeteria, et cetera.
• 5:13
  With a little bit of envy.
• 5:16
  Now this last one really hits home with me because I remember during residency having envy for the ultrasound techs and other ancillary medical staff.
• 5:25
  Thinking that their job was probably just much more humane in the sense of hours and more simple and really crave to be in that position.
• 5:34
  And then that morphed into me really being jealous of the barista at Starbucks or the clerk at the local gear shop.
• 5:41
  And I wrote about this a little bit in the book, lean out.
• 5:45
  But I'm not there anymore.
• 5:46
  I still enjoy my work.
• 5:48
  And even when there are hard or long days, because I don't work nearly as much as I used to.
• 5:54
  And I have a different mindset around my work.
• 5:58
  Then when I go to work, I don't experience those kind of feelings.
• 6:04
  When we were in Cabo, part of our stay in a luxury hotel was sitting through a timeshare presentation.
• 6:12
  And we've done this a couple of times in the past, and we really aren't interested in timeshares, but sometimes you're just like, well, I will sacrifice those two hours of my life in order to have this nice discounted experience.
• 6:26
  But the thing that I was struck was in this most recent one, the sales person asked how often we take vacations, what our dream vacations are and things like that.
• 6:36
  And I was just like, uh, first of all, we take a lot of quote vacation.
• 6:42
  Our life has kind of flipped around as far as free time versus work time.
• 6:47
  And the other thing is that I feel like I live my life.
• 6:50
  Like some people.
• 6:52
  Liv vacation, that kind of mentality.
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  And I don't necessarily have any dream vacations.
• 6:59
  And this is why I wrote my book, lean out why I do presentations at conferences and write and do this podcast.
• 7:07
  I want everyone to be able to design a work-life balance that they don't feel like they need to escape from.
• 7:14
  I'm not saying you have to live a lifestyle like mine in order to have this feeling.
• 7:19
  So starting where you are right now.
• 7:22
  What are some steps you can take to shift that mindset from scarcity and needing breaks from your life to a feeling of abundance and living the life of your dreams.
• 7:32
  First of all, it starts with awareness.
• 7:35
  Does what I said about the vacations versus trips resonate with you.
• 7:39
  When I described the differences, what did you think about the way that you look at travel?
• 7:45
  Are you burned out?
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  Are you in survival mode or in need of an escape from your life?
• 7:51
  If you are truly on the end of the continuum of burnout, you really need to get some help.
• 7:56
  Now I suggest discussing this with a friend, a trusted colleague, a therapist, or a coach.
• 8:02
  You can contact me through my website and we can discuss your burnout and the possibility of doing some coaching.
• 8:09
  The next thing is to identify your energy gains and your energy drains.
• 8:14
  Make a list with two columns, one says energy gains, and the other says energy dreams.
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  Put detailed things from your work and your life in each category.
• 8:27
  Making this list, again, increases awareness of what activities or day-to-day things that you have to do in your life.
• 8:35
  Can be go tos.
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  To regain your energy when you're stressed or you have to do the things that train your energy.
• 8:44
  It will help you to recognize when you need to be very diligent about self care.
• 8:49
  Yeah.
• 8:51
  The next thing is to visualize your ideal days.
• 8:55
  I love to do a visualization exercise like this with clients or in workshops that I've given.
• 9:01
  And what you do is you visualize your ideal Workday and then separate you visualize your day off.
• 9:06
  So treat this kind of like a meditation where you sit quietly and calmly.
• 9:11
  Focus on your breath for a couple of minutes, and then you start the visualization and you go through each day in detail in vivid detail from the moment that you're waking up to the moment when you're getting ready for bed.
• 9:25
  And you think about what time is it?
• 9:27
  Who is around you?
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  What kind of activities you're doing?
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  How long does it take you to get to work?
• 9:32
  What time are you getting to work?
• 9:34
  What kind of things are you doing at work?
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  Who are you around?
• 9:37
  What are the activities that you're doing in your ideal day at work.
• 9:42
  And then when you have a day off, conversely, you also think about what activities are in your day.
• 9:48
  Are you going to a gym?
• 9:50
  Are you working out in a home gym?
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  Are you spending time reading what.
• 9:55
  Joyful activities.
• 9:56
  Are you working into your life?
• 9:59
  Similar to energy gains and drains.
• 10:01
  This helps you to identify the things you really don't want to be doing in your life.
• 10:06
  And it can also direct you toward moving toward adding elements into your lifestyle design.
• 10:12
  Now that aren't there.
• 10:14
  It can be changing your schedule, changing your roles, increasing your time that you're spending with family and in a variety of methods.
• 10:22
  And even making an effort to go on more trips.
• 10:26
  The next thing is to consider your rules.
• 10:29
  Do you feel like you have to do this particular job you're in commute for an hour live in this particular city where you're living, send your child to a particular private school, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, et cetera.
• 10:45
  In general, we all live by unwritten rules and they can fall into categories something like to be a good doctor.
• 10:52
  I must do blank.
• 10:54
  I must be the last person out of the office every day, for instance, or to be a good mom, I must blank.
• 11:02
  So I challenge you to write some of these rules down and think about them like this.
• 11:06
  Think about if the rule is true.
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  A lot of times you can come up with.
• 11:12
  Counter rules or things that make it, so that, that rule is not absolutely true.
• 11:19
  Then think about where did this rule come from?
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  Thirdly, what would happen if I break this rule and what can my life look like in that circumstance?
• 11:32
  Okay.
• 11:32
  The last tip I have for you too.
• 11:35
  Start the process of creating a life you don't feel like you have to escape from is to up your mindfulness game.
• 11:42
  With a regular practice of mindfulness, you will increase your ability to observe your thoughts and your feelings in the moment.
• 11:49
  And especially you will be able to do this without judging them.
• 11:53
  This is a superpower and it takes continuous practice.
• 11:57
  But once you do that over time, it allows you to weather.
• 12:00
  The storms of emotion that can occur when your work-life balance is tipped.
• 12:05
  In, an off direction or during stressful periods of your life.
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  And also just during the day-to-day, when you happen to be experiencing one of those energy draining activities.
• 12:18
  So, how do you develop a mindfulness practice?
• 12:20
  Well, there are lots of things that you're already doing that you can turn into a more mindful experience.
• 12:28
  You don't have to be sitting on a meditation cushion every day in silence, although that's definitely one type of mindfulness practice.
• 12:37
  Things like turning your morning coffee into a ritual.
• 12:40
  Spending five minutes journaling each evening before bed reflecting on the day, walking your dog.
• 12:47
  Taking a run.
• 12:48
  These can all be turned into mindfulness activities.
• 12:52
  And I will link an article in the show notes that I wrote a while back about everyday mindfulness techniques for busy people.
• 13:01
  So let me know by sending me a DM on Instagram at practice balances, my handle.
• 13:08
  Replying to a newsletter that I send out or sending me a message through my website, practice balance.com.
• 13:15
  Does your travel look like vacations trips or some combination of both?
• 13:21
  And why is that?
• 13:22
  Do you agree with my distinction between vacations and trips?
• 13:26
  I'd love to know your thoughts.
• 13:29
  Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast.
• 13:32
  If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier.
• 13:44
  If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services.
• 14:00
  You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker.
• 14:12
  Have a great day and we'll see you next time