Primary Prevention for Career Burnout: Building Resilience

Dynamic Chiropractic,  Jun 17, 2008  by Simon, Shelley

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You've no doubt heard the news: Chiropractors are working harder for less reward and scores within the profession are teetering on the edge of career burnout as a result. They're not alone. Burnout is rampant in a great many occupations and studies show individuals in the helping professions are at an especially high risk for burnout.

Everywhere you turn today, chiropractors are lamenting they're burned out. Are all of these doctors really burned out? Or are they just tired, stressed or frustrated with the challenges practice presents? Either way, the situation demands attention. True burnout is not simply feeling bored or down for a day or two now and then. Burnout is a real syndrome -a collection of signs and symptoms that might include feeling overwhelmed, chronically exhausted, moody, resentful, angry, negative, cynical, hopeless, helpless and critical of self and others. Individuals experiencing burnout also might be unmotivated, have relationship troubles, sleep problems, abuse drugs or alcohol, and feel anxious or depressed.

Most chiropractors, when they are experiencing symptoms associated with burnout, turn to familiar solutions to address the problem such as taking a vacation, changing their office hours, or signing up for a motivational or practice-building seminar. These remedies might be helpful, but the relief usually is only temporary. These "solutions" do little to revitalize the doctor in a lasting way because the challenges and demands of practice are ongoing. It's impossible to have a successful, healthy practice if you are chronically stressed and using valuable resources to battle the symptoms of burnout rather than to grow your business.

The enduring remedies for chronic stress and career burnout address both the external and internal factors at play. External concerns are relatively straightforward and usually can be solved by implementing solid business practices and effective systems. The internal issues are more complex and often require some degree of "healing the healer." In this article, let's focus on the internal factors, which include developing positive self-management habits and building resilience.

Building resilience is the best primary prevention strategy available for managing the day-to-day challenges of running a practice, reducing stress, averting career burnout and building a successful business. Since working as a chiropractor is not getting any easier as health care becomes more complex, it is imperative practitioners become stronger and more personally resilient in order to thrive in the coming years.

What Is Resilience and Why is It Important?

As a self-employed chiropractor, you know all about the constant ups and downs and ever-changing demands associated with practicing. Resilience helps you manage change, overcome challenges and endure setbacks - often described as the capacity to cope with chronic stress. This ability to bounce back after being physically or emotionally stressed increases self-esteem, which in turn helps build resilience so you can bounce back the next time something stressful happens. So, you might say resilience builds and thrives on ... resilience.

Resilience helps you view apparent problems from more than one angle, recognizing both the risks and the opportunities in challenging situations. Resilience boosts confidence, hardiness, emotional strength and hopefulness. It also combats exhaustion, depression and career burnout so you can manage your practice with greater ease and produce better outcomes.

Developing resilience is not a quick-fix proposition or a relief-oriented strategy. It's not as though you'll read this article, make the decision to be resilient from this day forward and be done. There is a little more to it, and in a moment you'll read about the characteristics of resilient individuals and learn six things you can do to anchor yourself in this way of being. As you read, keep in mind that when you build personal resilience, you are using primary prevention to ward off career burnout and the symptoms associated with it.

Innate or Learned?

Whether resilience is an innate capacity or a habit to be developed presents an interesting question: What enables some individuals to rebound and keep going despite adversity, stress and kryptonite, while others fall apart at the first sign of difficulty?

Resilience is not a genetic trait; it is our "inborn capacity for self-righting and for transformation and change."' Knowledge that everyone has innate resilience can ground change efforts in optimism and possibility. The development of resilience is none other than the process of healthy human development, a dynamic process in which personality and environmental influences interact in a reciprocal fashion.

So, is it nature or nurture? Probably a little of both. Developmental studies following children born into seriously high-risk conditions have shown that at least half overcome the odds and go on to lead successful lives. While some people are naturally more resilient than others, even they must work at times to maintain their optimistic mindset. For individuals struggling to muster up resilience, the good news is it can indeed be developed and strengthened.