✨ Today: A short reminder for anyone feeling stuck

Welcome back!

As it gets deeper into summer, I find that I have less energy to invest in writing longer essays or recording solo episodes of the podcast. I have managed to find energy for two wonderful podcast conversations recently, so look for those in the coming weeks.

But, for now, I’m here with a short reminder for you.

If you feel like you’re drowning in responsibilities and telling yourself “there’s no way I can change right now,” this short message is for you:

Not because you’re lazy or broken, but because your brain is doing what it was built to do, keep you safe, even when “safe” means suffering.

If you are looking to change and would like some support, I would love to chat about how my burnout recovery coaching might be a fit for you. You can get in touch through my website.

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I’d love for you to share what resonated with you in the comments. And, if you did enjoy it, please feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.
  

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✨ Last time: Strategies for setting a real out of office message Read it here.

✨ Today: The truth about work-life balance

One of the most common questions I get asked is, “How do you manage work-life balance with so much on your plate?”

Honestly? I don’t.

Because work-life balance is a lie.

Earlier this week, on my first day back from vacation, I woke up at 6:30 AM, spent an hour with my son before he headed off to daycare, worked a bit on my coaching business, presented at an organization-wide meeting, and then took a nap before heading off to my 16-hour overnight shift in the pediatric intensive care unit.

While working overnight (in addition to taking care of patients), I briefly FaceTime-d with my son and husband, completed my yearly mandatory organizational training, answered some panicked texts from friends regarding the Cyclospora outbreak in Michigan, filled out a mandatory digital services certification for a piece of technology that I’ve had for several years and use regularly but only recently had to start accounting for, edited mentees’ personal statements, and certified a mentee’s academic work through the board of pediatrics.

After work, I got breakfast and coffee, spent 15 minutes enjoying the sun and watching the birds at the lake by my house, and then headed home to log into another team meeting before taking another nap.

That afternoon, I went to another meeting before my family arrived home for the day.

After my son went to bed, I spent time getting things ready for a long day of meetings and presentations on the following day.

There is no separation between work and life. There is only life with work and the other facets mixed in.

One helpful way to account for these facets is through the Wheel of Life, a tool that I use with my coaching clients to help them identify how they are spending their time in each of 8 areas:

• Personal growth

• Health

• Career

• Finance

• Friends

• Relationships

• Spirituality

• Recreation (aka Fun)

The goal of this tool is not to have it look perfect or “balanced.” It’s to allow you to see how satisfied you feel with your answer in each of the 8 areas and to make adjustments if you don’t feel satisfied with your answers.

Each thing we choose to do requires that we make trade-offs in other areas of our life: work, relationships, personal health, personal growth, finances, family, etc. For everything we say yes to, we say no to something else.

Trying to chase the perfect work-life balance automatically sets us up for failure because it keeps us believing that we will one day figure it all out.

For myself, I’ve given up on the idea that I’ll reach a point where I “have it all together.” Instead, I know that I’ll one day reach a point when certain trade-offs aren’t worth it anymore.

And then I’ll stop making them.

What would change for you if you stopped trying to optimize your work-life balance and instead brought your life more into alignment with what you really want?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. And if you’re looking for some support to begin to make adjustments in your own life, I will have some 1:1 and group coaching offerings opening up soon. You can get all of the details by subscribing to Humans Leading. See you next time!

xJillian

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Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

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✨ Last time: A f*ck-it list for summer Read it here.

✨ Today: Strategies for setting a real out of office message

Hello there to all of the new readers! I’m so glad you’re joining me here on Humans Leading.

This week, I’m keeping the post short due to the holiday in the US this weekend (which I’ll be working) and the continuation of summer energy that I wrote about last week.

Even though I’m working through the 4th, next week I’ll be taking some much-needed time away at the lake with my family.

I hope you also get a break soon.

But, even if you’re not heading out of town in the near future, my yearly summer reminder to you still applies, both for when you do and for any time that you’ve planned to not be working.

If you’re taking time away from work in the near future, you may be turning on your out of office message.

And, if you’re anything like most people I know, the message might say something like, “I am out of the office with limited access to e-mail…” or something similar.

But… many of you won’t really have limited access.

Instead, you’ll be checking your e-mail on your phone or your computer while also trying to be present for what is happening on your time away. Or you’ll open your laptop during the early morning or late-night hours and try to keep up with everything because you feel like you have to.

If this is you, I understand.

I used to be you.

But I now know that this kind of behavior does not result in the rest and recovery that I need. And it isn’t doing you any favors either.

More often than not, this language is code for “I’m not really able to disconnect on my vacation because of [fill in the blank toxic work culture or boundary issue]”.

It also means that, because there is no clear boundary, other people continue to ask these boundary-less people to do things while they are away. Then these people spend time working on vacation, and they come back to work just as tired (or more) than before.

So, instead of writing a message like the one above or (worse) not putting on an out-of-office at all, use these 3 tips to set a clear boundary when you are out of office:

1. Say how long you’ll be gone

2. Say when you’ll respond (after you’re back)

3. Say who they can contact while you’re out

Here’s what I’m doing:

Hello,

Thank you for your e-mail. I am currently out of office until [date] and will not be replying to emails until I return.

If you have an urgent wellness need, please contact [person and contact information]

You get the point. It doesn’t have to be complicated. But it does need to be clear.

You deserve real time off.

But no one will create the boundary for you. It’s up to you to take control of your own life. No one will care more about your wellbeing than you do.

Yes, boundary backlash may come when you start, but I promise you that it’s worth it.

If you’re look for more tips about how to really enjoy your vacation, this post from

is for you.

Another Way with Selina Barker

The art of FULLY switching off on holiday - why it's hard and how to make sure you really do it this year

Hi there, I’m Selina, a Career and Life Design Coach, author and podcaster. I’ve been helping people design lives and careers they love for almost two decades…and now I can’t wait to help you…

Listen now

a year ago · 8 likes · Selina Barker

How are you prioritizing time away this summer?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

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Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

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✨ Last time: Happiness is not a destination Read it here.

✨ Today: A f*ck-it list for summer

Did you know that last Sunday was the Summer Solstice? (in the Northern Hemisphere)

Or… maybe it just flew by like any other Sunday as you tried to check things off your to-do list?

Either way, summer has officially started. Where I live, the kids are out of school, the neighbors’ pools are open, the farmer’s market is filling up with produce, and (most importantly?) the seasonal ice cream shops are open for the season.

When we experience long periods of daylight like we do around summer solstice, we may experience an energy boost and feel that anything is possible. This boost can propel us forward, and it may help us to be able to check more things off our to-do list for a brief period.

But, as with all things, this eventually comes to an end. Soon, we are left feeling depleted (hello, August!).

As a coach, I hear story after story from high-achieving women who are exhausted from shuttling their children from activity to activity (or trying to schedule camps) while also juggling work. My clients find their days completely consumed by other people’s needs, and they crave rest but are unable to let themselves have it until they’ve “earned” it through productivity.

And don’t forget the mom guilt.

If you’re a mother with children still at home, you’re often reminded that you should also be enjoying every moment of summer while your children are still there because you “only have 18 summers.” Although I do my best to resist this message and recognize it for what it is (a big fat lie), the pressure of this cultural myth has increased in my own life recently as my son gets closer to starting kindergarten in the fall. Time is always passing.

Even if you don’t have children, it’s easy for your days to get taken over by commitments and a feeling that you need to “make the most” of summer by doing as much as possible.

No wonder we are exhausted. No one can sustain this kind of physical and mental exertion.

Fortunately for all of us, there is another way. But choosing it isn’t for the faint of heart.

It requires loosening the grip of what we’ve been taught to believe makes us “good” women:

• We should be available to everyone else 24-7.

• We should put everyone else’s needs above our own or else we are selfish.

• We are worthy of rest only once we’ve produced enough. (How much is enough, anyway?)

• We should not be enjoying ourselves too much because other people are suffering, and we should be suffering with them.

• We should be likeable and agreeable.

• We should look, sound, and act a certain way.

• We should do all of this while making sure that the outside world believes that we are thriving.

But… are we thriving?

If many women I know and coach were to answer honestly, the answer would be no. They are exhausted, barely holding it together. Or, as one client told me recently, they are sinking.

If you can relate to any of this, you’re not alone.

But I’ll tell you what I tell my coaching clients (and often myself):

If you want a different experience, you have to do something different.

We cannot start feeling better until we are willing to start living differently. And this will likely involve ruffling some feathers. It is difficult, but that is not the same as being impossible.

Over the past few years, I’ve been making more of an effort to notice the seasons changing around me and to honor my energy levels in each season.

As much as I’d like to pretend that I’m not affected by the natural world changing around me, I’ve needed to admit that I am in order to find wellbeing in each season (literally and metaphorically). Some seasons, I just don’t have the capacity to do what I would otherwise like to do.

And that’s not failure; it’s part of being human.

In order to get a sense of my capacity and my goals for the season ahead, I’ve started creating vision boards at the start of each season to help me set intentions for the coming months.

Last year, my vision board helped me create my “could-do” list for summer. By committing to a list with less pressure, I was able to create a summer that was slower, less stressed, more joyful, more spontaneous, and more present. If you’re craving any of those things, I highly recommend checking out the prompts that I shared to help you get started:

This year, something else has been calling to me: the desire to let go of the need to live up to the image of the “good” woman/doctor/mother/wife.

I don’t want to perform the activities that society tells me I need to perform in order to be valuable. I want to remember that I’m valuable because I’m a human being. I want to be present and in-tune with myself in order to be regulated and able to be of service to those around me without being frazzled.

I want less do-ing, more be-ing.

And that has led to a different kind of list for this summer: the don’t-do (aka the f*ck-it) list.

Here’s what I’m not doing this summer:

✨ Overscheduling or packing my to-do list

✨ Feeling pressured to “make the most of it”

✨ Working while out of office

✨ Worrying about having a “beach body”

✨ Wearing uncomfortable clothes

✨ Overcomplicating meals

✨ Putting pressure on myself to get my son “kindergarten-ready”

✨ Putting pressure on myself to grow my business when what I really want to be doing is enjoying my summer

✨Starting a new project before Labor Day

✨ Checking my Substack numbers

✨ Mindlessly scrolling without limits

✨ Feeling bad for resting

✨ Feeling bad for saying no

✨ Trying to do it all myself

✨ Forgetting that adventure can always be found nearby

✨ Forgetting to have fun

If we don’t overcomplicate it, each season asks one simple, powerful question of us:

“How do I want to feel?”

Not “what do I want to achieve?” or “what can I check off my list?”

How do you want to feel in your body, your home, your relationships, your life?

And do you feel that way now?

If not, let this be a cue for you to try something different.

You can start today, but you don’t have to completely overhaul your life today.

I hope that the post I shared above or the 10 posts I’ve shared below help you get started.

Other places to find summer inspiration and permission:

1. Summer Break Is a Scam for Mothers - by

2. Every summer is a midlife crisis (no matter how old you are) by

3. Recipe for Summer by Beth Kempton

4. '18 Summers' Myth Adds to Mom Guilt - Motherly

5. What we're getting wrong about the whole "fun mom" thing by

6. What to Pack for a Day at the Pool: 10 Snacks, Easy Lunches, and My Best Tips by

7. A Summer of Small Things - by

8. The Fluff Stuff: 5 Ways to Constraint Maxx this Summer to Get Your Life Back by

9. Is time really as scarce as we think? by

10. Summer cooking bucket list - by

11. How to make summer feel special - by Caroline Chambers

What’s on your list for this summer?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Share

Leave a comment

✨ Last time: Healing is a process with Dr. Rana Awdish Watch it here.

✨ Today: Don’t get fooled by the arrival fallacy

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

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It’s nearly the end of June, which means it’s the end of the medical academic year (which turns over around July 1^st).

Over the past week or so, physicians who have completed their training have been attending their graduations. Soon, they will be going on to the next phase of their training or heading out to start their “real” job. And physicians who have newly graduated from medical school are joining us to start their training.

This is a bittersweet time of year for those of us who teach the next generation but who are ultimately left behind (whether you’re in medicine or teaching elsewhere). You get the satisfaction of watching amazing people move on to the next step in their careers and the knowledge that you’ve been lucky enough to play a small part in it.

But, if you’re like me, you also wonder if you’ve prepared them well enough for what’s waiting out there.

This was certainly true for me. Nothing could’ve really prepared me for the career and life I have now except going through it myself

With that said, I do think that there is helpful advice to be had from those of us who are farther along on our paths.

Over the years, I have been asked to speak at various graduation ceremonies and orientations for new physicians, and those opportunities have allowed me to reflect on what might actually be helpful to know when you are first starting out.

Time and again, the message I land on is this:

You will not arrive at happiness simply because you have graduated or reached the next milestone.

Happiness is not a destination that you reach when you have achieved a goal.

It’s understandable that we feel this way since we’ve invested so much time, energy, and money into the process. All of us have sacrificed in some way to get to where we are, possibly deferring significant life events like finding a partner or starting a family. We’ve missed out on important milestones for family and friends as well. We’ve sacrificed our own health in pursuit of helping other people with theirs.

Now that training is behind us, we believe that we will find happiness waiting for us on the other side. But this is not reality.

If you’re anything like me, you won’t automatically feel a sense of deep contentment and accomplishment by reaching your goal. More likely than not, you’ll be excited for a short period of time and then will turn your attention to your goals for the next 6 months-5 years.

And the lack of feeling accomplishment or satisfaction might leave you feeling disappointed or without a sense of purpose.

You might start asking yourself, “Is this all there is?”

And that’s because, if you’re like I was, you’ve lived a lot of your life with the belief that you’ll “be happy when” you reach a certain goal.

For us physicians, first it was college, then medical school, and then training. And we’ve been set up to believe that, once we are finally at the goal of being an attending (a fully trained doctor), life will finally start.

This incredibly common but incorrect line of thought is a cognitive bias called the arrival fallacy.

It’s the belief that reaching a goal will lead to lasting happiness. But, once we are there and the warm glow of achievement wears off, we may feel purposeless or like it has all been a huge mistake.

This is not just something that happens for physicians.

It happens for a lot of high achievers.

We spend so much time “future tripping” about what’s ahead that we miss what’s right in front of us: our actual lives.

And it’s how you choose to experience this moment that contributes your overall happiness in life. It’s not the achievement of the goal in the future that will make you happy, or at least not in any meaningful or long-term kind of way.

The thing I’ve learned (and re-learned) over the years is that life is made up of the small moments of each day, and, even in the hard times, the microjoys of the small moments contribute to my overall happiness.

So, my advice to you wherever you are in your career or on your life path is to begin to direct your attention toward the present moment in your life rather than deferring your happiness for the future.

If you’ve been living like this, don’t worry. There’s hope for you and for all of us.

Here are 6 ways to start creating happiness in the present moment:

1.    Connect with others

2.    Explore new (or old) interests

3.    Explore/identify your core values

4.    Up your mindfulness and self-compassion

5.    Help someone else

6.    Work with a coach or mentor if you need help with 1-5

As a coach, I work with so many people who are now asking “what else?” after dedicating themselves to their education and their careers for so long.

If you find yourself asking yourself this in your own life, feel free to reach out via my website. I have spots open for 1:1 coaching, and I’d love to see if working together would be a fit.

How can you tune in to what’s really happening in order to enjoy it more fully this week?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

✨ Today: An inspiring conversation about healing and humanity with Dr. Rana Awdish in anticipation of the launch of her book, After Shock

I am SO excited to bring you this conversation with Dr. Rana Awdish ahead of the publication of her new book, “After Shock,” which comes out tomorrow, June 16th!

Having been fortunate enough to get to read the book already, I promise that, if you enjoy Humans Leading, you’ll enjoy the book even if you aren’t in healthcare.

The book is so many beautiful things, including an exploration of what it really means to heal.

But it’s also a permission slip to listen to any part of you who may be telling you that you can’t go on living the way you have been. And it offers a path to help you find your way to being more connected to your whole self and what you need in order to live differently.

In our conversation, we talk about:

• Who we are when we strip away all of our accomplishments and titles

• Her first book, In Shock

• The cost of self-suppression and self-sacrifice

• How medical training is “kind of” like a cult

• Learning to listen to your body and your inner knowing

Dr. Rana Awdish is a physician, a mom, someone who enjoys painting as a hobby, and is the bestselling author of In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope and the forthcoming After Shock. She is a much sought-after public speaker and, although she may downplay her impact, she has been a powerful force in transforming the culture of healthcare.

For me personally, she has been an inspiration, reminding me to rediscover the parts of me beyond my titles and roles including the curious, creative, human part of me. And her work has deeply impacted my own. It is such a privilege to call her a friend, and I can’t wait for you to hear our conversation.

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I’d love for you to share what resonated with you in the comments. And, if you did enjoy it, please feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

✨ Last time: A free workshop to help you create a less stressed life Watch it here.

✨ Today: Writing 1000 words a day for 14 days.

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

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For the past 14 days, I’ve written 1000 words a day thanks to committing to #1000DaysofSummer with .

Well… that’s not entirely true.

Some days I wrote more. Some days I wrote less.

But each day, I showed up and wrote by hand in my notebook.

I wrote at home in the early morning. At coffee shops. At a picnic table next to a dam. In a camping chair next to a lake. And out at happy hour alone.

As I laid my pen down today, I had completed 100 pages of ramblings. Mostly, I have no idea what the pages say. That’s a task for another time.

This project was about writing, not about reading. Or judging.

When I started out on this project, I set an intention to show up every day and see what arrived. I didn’t do it to write something particular. I did it to pay attention.

Truthfully, I had no idea whether I would finish or not, having said I would do the project last year without even making it over the starting line.

But here I am.

Some of the things that helped were:

1. The project fell during a time when I had very little clinical work in the hospital, so I knew that this would make it easier to show up

2. For inspiration, I created a little zine of prompts and kept books nearby to spark ideas. This was helpful when my brain felt like a blank pile of mush.

3. agreed to be my accountability partner and was a joy to check in with each day

4. I found a writing group who set up a google spreadsheet where we could post our progress each day, and it was another great reminder that I wasn’t showing up alone

5. I’ve been reading “The Practice of Attention” by Cody Cook Parrott which has inspired me to get back in touch with life away from screens

6. I’ve been bricking my phone in order to help with #5

But the most important thing I did to help (e.g. save myself from my own perfectionism and inner critic) was to make one rule:

“You are not allowed to go back and read what you’ve written until after the 14 days are over.”

I knew that reading what I’d written would be the surest way to activate my critic, thus effectively extinguishing any creativity or inspiration that had been cultivated.

In the coming days, I’m looking forward to combing through what I wrote to see what was able to arrive when I just showed up and listened. And I’m planning to continue on with bricking my phone as a way of decreasing the distractions in my life.

How are you cultivating attention to life outside of screens in your own life?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Share

Leave a comment

✨ Today: Start feeling less stressed today

Do you wait to finish your to-do list in order to rest only to find that you never finish your to-do list, so you never get to rest?

Do you find yourself frazzled and reactive and then beat yourself up about it later?

Do you dream about leaving your job and moving to the woods where no one can find you?

Do you wish you had time for a break but just can’t seem to get one?

If you can relate to any of these, today’s post is for you (and if you’d prefer an audio-only podcast version, you can find it here or your favorite podcast platform).

I recently took a group of women through my signature workshop, Transform Your Day- 3 simple strategies for stress management, and it was so energizing to see how in just the 60 minutes we spent together these women were able to have breakthroughs that they could carry into their week to transform their own lives.

One of the biggest takeaways for the group was that we don’t have to make changes all at once. Not only is that unsustainable, but it’s also entirely unrealistic for the way that we live our lives.

Since this was such a big breakthrough for the women who participated live, I figured… why not bring that to you here on Humans Leading?

I know that this workshop is a little bit longer than some of the other things that I offer, and I understand that you’re a busy person who doesn’t always have 60 minutes all at once.

But… don’t let that stop you! Don’t turn away.

Instead, give yourself permission to do part of it now and then come back to it.

There are three tools in this workshop, so one way to do it might be to listen to one of them and then take that into real life and see how it works for you.

Then come back to the next tool, and so on.

There’s no right or wrong way to do this.

You have to decide the right way for yourself.

I would bet that if you’re a regular reader (or listener) here on Humans Leading or resonated with the questions I asked at the opening of the episode, you have some things in your life that you’d like to change, one of them being to have less stress.

The most important thing to remember is: if you want to live a different life, you have to start doing something differently.

And you have the power to do that today with this episode and whatever small change feels manageable for you. Just commit to one thing.

I’m over here cheering you on and doing my own work along with you because no one has it all figured out, not even me.

And if you missed this workshop but would like to get on the list to know about upcoming events, just subscribe to Humans Leading and you’ll be in the loop.

Subscribe now

To get yourself started today, ask yourself: What is one thing you could do differently today (or tomorrow) to create even a little more calm in your day?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

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✨ Last time: 5 steps to help when you’re feeling overwhelmed or burned out. Read it here.

✨ Today: The magic of pep talks to get yourself out of the stress loop

A few years ago, I was asked to give a keynote speech about stress management for a large group of nurses in my organization.

It was one of the first times I would be speaking to such a large group, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect.

The night before the speech, I had a hard time falling asleep. My mind was buzzing, and my body felt unsettled.

Despite meditating, I still felt a bit restless on the morning of the speech: my heart rate was up, breathing was a bit shallow, and my stomach felt a little off.

Shortly before it was my turn to speak, I stood talking with a small group of people.

“Are you nervous?” one of them asked me.

At another time in my life, I may have answered "yes.” But I knew better.

I was not nervous. I was excited, and my body was getting me ready to speak.

Being nervous and being excited create the same sensations inside your body because they are both a result of the chemical “stress” response inside your body.

Although stress can be unhelpful when it becomes chronic, little bursts of stress are helpful (and necessary) for getting things done in our lives.

Which feeling you feel has to do with the story you tell yourself about what your body is doing. In other words, do you label the sensations as good or bad?

As I discussed in a recent podcast, our stress response is not the enemy. It is the “gas pedal” for our nervous system and exists to help us get through our lives. Yes, it can be activated inappropriately (especially in those with a history of trauma), and, when activated chronically, it can lead to poor health outcomes. Therapy can be incredibly helpful in both of these cases.

When activated appropriately, the stress response is what gets us ready for a challenge when it arises. Evolutionarily, this is what allowed us to fight or run away from predators. In today’s world, it’s what lets us run marathons, navigate emergency situations, and perform our best in a variety of settings.

It’s what allows me to go out and perform on stage or in virtual workshops like the one I held recently.

When I was younger, I had terrible performance anxiety.

Prior to piano recitals or public speaking, I felt nearly paralyzed by the tension in my own body. Often, I made mistakes, forgot parts of the pieces I was playing, or couldn’t remember the experience of speaking because I was so nervous.

I judged myself for these feelings and for the less-than-stellar performances. As you might have guessed, this only made things worse.

Back then, I didn’t know that my fear and self-doubt were causing stress to derail my performance.

A few years ago, everything changed while I was out walking.

I was listening to this episode of the Radical Candor podcast when the host and her guest, an improv expert at Second City in Chicago, began talking about this topic.

“It’s not like the Tina Feys and the Stephen Colberts and the Steve Carrels weren’t nervous before going [into auditions], but they found a practice by which to turn their stress into positive stress to be a peak performer. I was talking to my friend Alison Wood Brooks at Harvard one time about the fact that I was out doing public speaking when my book came out and that I got nervous like everyone does and she goes, “I got a trick for you. Before you go speaking, don’t say out loud you’re nervous. Say out loud, I’m excited.” 

-Kelly Leonard, author of “Yes, And”

I have been doing this ever since, and it’s the #1 thing that has improved my performance.

I still feel the same feelings in my body, but my mindset has changed. I don’t push the feelings away. Rather, I welcome them with a cheesy little practice that goes something like, “thank you, body, for getting me ready. We can do hard things, and we can do this today.”

In other words, I give myself a pep talk.

While we don’t want to veer into the territory of toxic positivity, the language that we use in our self-talk has a huge impact on how we perform. Giving yourself a pep talk can help interrupt the negative thought spiral that drives your stress, wrecks your confidence, and decreases your performance.

If you’re stuck in self-doubt, fear, or uncertainty and need a boost to shift yourself from stress to excitement, use these 5 tips from Amy Morin’s book ‘The Mental Strength Playbook’:

1. Find a quiet moment:

   1. Pause for a moment of stillness. Take a deep breath. Or take several with this centering practice.

2. Acknowledge the challenge:

   1. Acknowledge the neutral facts of the situation instead of letting yourself get carried off in the story.

   2. Ex: “There are a lot of people at this event” instead of “I can’t speak in front of this many people”

3. Deliver the pep talk

   1. Speak to yourself like someone who believes in you (a coach, friend, mentor, etc.)

   2. Use whatever language feels right for you, not language that feels cheesy or inauthentic. Your brain knows the difference.

   3. For me, this looks like what I mentioned above, “We can do hard things, and we can do this today. Let’s go.” Nothing too flowery, just true.

4. Use your strengths as evidence

   1. Remind yourself of the hard things that you’ve done before as evidence to support your pep talk

5. Step into action

   1. Get going on the thing that was driving your self-doubt, fear, or uncertainty. Give the talk, have the hard conversation, make the ask, etc.

   2. Use the confidence from your pep talk to propel you forward.

If you would like to add another layer of effective cheesiness to your pep-talk, try this: a Rebecca Welton power pose in the mirror (see the link for the full effect).

Give yourself the pep talk.

Make yourself big.

Feel the excitement.

And get out there and do the damn thing.

To get yourself started today, ask: where would a pep talk be helpful in your life?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

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✨ Last time: Rewriting the stories that keep us stuck. Listen here.

✨ Today: 5 steps to help when you’re feeling overwhelmed or burned out.

I genuinely believe that one of the reasons that I’m on the planet is to be of service to other people.

Of course, my job as a pediatric critical care physician gives me a lot of opportunities for this. In any one day, I may help patients, their family members, my team members, or other members of the healthcare system.

But my mission extends beyond my clinical work in the hospital.

It’s a key part of why I coach, lead wellness trainings, write, and podcast. I really feel that taking the things I’ve learned from my own personal experience with burnout recovery and breaking down the mountain of information that is out there into practical, digestible tools that other people can use is a large part of why I’m on the planet.

Which brings me to today’s post.

The answer I give isn’t always what people want to hear.

When you’re feeling worn out, depleted, frustrated and even considering leaving your job, you’d like something to help you feel better.

Not in a few weeks or months. Or even tomorrow.

You’d like to feel better immediately.

But now comes the part that you might not like: burnout (or overwhelm, or feeling stuck, or any other difficult life situation) can’t be fixed immediately because the problem didn’t develop in a day.

It developed over time, and it will take time to fix.

The good news is that you can start feeling better today if you’re intentional about it.

The key to burnout recovery is believing that you deserve to feel differently and that it is possible for you. If you’re not yet in a place to believe this, don’t worry. I already know that it’s true. So, feel free to imagine me cheering you on as you get started.

These five steps can help.

Step 1: Recognize that you are struggling (burned out, exhausted, etc.) and will need to make changes in your own life

Now, we all know that burnout is generally thought of as a workplace phenomenon that is best addressed by changing the systemic conditions of the workplace (including for people who work inside the home in a caregiving role).

In healthcare, this means doing things to create a culture of wellbeing, decreasing inefficiency, and improving autonomy among other things.

But it also means taking care of ourselves as human beings for us to be as well as possible. As I’ve written about previously, I did not do a great job of that earlier in my career, and it definitely contributed to my burnout.

It wasn’t until I was aware of the changes I needed to make in my own life that I was able to make progress.

So, if you’re feeling burned out, accept that you will also need to make changes. But you don’t need to change everything all at once, and you definitely don’t have to do it alone. Which brings us to Step 2…

Step 2: Tell someone else that you’re struggling

Why tell someone else?

I can almost hear you saying, “I can do it all myself!”

But, my dear person, I promise that you cannot.

I know this firsthand because I was you (multiple times). I was the helper, not the one who needed help. I was the strong one. I was… the one with burnout. I was the one needing help.

And, once I finally got over myself and my ego (not an easy feat it turns out), I was able to begin to move forward by telling a few trusted people what I was going through. These people included my partner, a coach, and a few friends. They were incredibly supportive in different ways, and their support allowed me to begin to navigate a path forward.

If you’re currently experiencing high levels of stress resulting in overwhelm and/or burnout, pause for a moment and think: “Who would have my back right now?”

This person (or people) doesn’t have to have the solutions for you. They just have to be the kind of person who will support you and cheer you on without judging you.

Tell them that you’re struggling and feel the relief that comes with not having to carry it all by yourself anymore. Then move on to the next step.

Step 3: Identify how you would like to feel instead of burned out

This step seems too basic to be helpful, but it’s an important consideration before taking action.

Ask yourself a few questions:

• How am I feeling right now in my life? (ex: stuck, angry, exhausted, etc.)

• How would I like to feel instead? (ex: calm, energized, competent, spacious, etc.)

There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Just go with whatever comes, even if it seems out of reach.

Once you’ve done this, pick an activity that will give you even a little bit of the feeling that you want.

Step 4: Pick an activity and do the thing

During a coaching session with one of my first clients, I asked them to identify something they could do for themselves as a reset during the day that would help them feel a little bit less burned out. The “a little bit less” part was intentional as this client was having a really hard time coming up with things that would help.

Even with my encouragement to start small, the client stared blankly up at the ceiling for several seconds. They appeared to be combing through the catalog of their mind and coming up with nothing.

So, I tried a different approach:

“When you were feeling good (aka pre-burnout), what did you like to do?” I asked.

Their face lit up a little, eyes shining brighter.

“Read!” they declared decisively.

I smiled and asked the next important question:

“What would happen if you read at some point during your workday?”

After the initial surprise of this question, they agreed that reading for a short period of time (5 minutes) during their lunch break could be helpful as a reset during their day. They said they’d try it out before our next session and report back on how they felt.

A few months later, they were still reading every day at lunch and often chose to go outside while they did it. And 5 minutes had blossomed into 15-20. They described feeling so much better as a result of this break during their day.

I have seen this type of scenario play out over and over with coaching clients, mentees, friends, and colleagues who are experiencing burnout or chronic stress. In these conditions, your nervous system is so overloaded and overwhelmed that it doesn’t feel possible to make decisions.

It may feel like there are too many choices to consider or that doing something small won’t be effective. But, as I have written about so many times here on Humans Leading, starting small is the only way to go.

For that client, 5 minutes felt doable as a starting point.

For you, it might be 3 minutes. Or 1 minute. Or a few seconds.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter how long you do the thing for when you are starting out. It matters that you start to do the thing in a way that lets you build momentum to keep doing it, thus maximizing the chances that you’ll keep moving forward with your progress.

Which brings us to the final step…

Step 5: Repeat

Burnout doesn’t go away in the blink of an eye because you didn’t get there overnight. It takes intentional, gradual steps like those outlined in steps 1-4. Repeating steps 1 and 2 may seem unnecessary to you, but I encourage you not to skip them as they are important parts of the process.

When you start doing something new/making changes in your life that is out of line with how you have previously acted, your brain will likely begin to make up stories.

It might tell you that you’re lazy. Or a bad mom/partner/person.

Or selfish.

Or not worthy of rest because you’re being “less productive.”

Or that you’re letting people down.

Or an infinite number of other things because our brains are infinitely creative when it comes to trying to keep us “safe” (aka: doing the same things we’ve always done).

But, as we’ve outlined already, you don’t recover from burnout by continuing to do the same thing.

This is why it’s so important to repeatedly tap into a support network of people who can remind you why you wanted to make change in the first place, cheer you on, and help you brainstorm if you feel stuck as you go along.

When I was recovering from burnout, having a coach to help me identify the patterns that had gotten me there was immensely helpful. I wasn’t able to really make changes in my life until I got to the root of the issue.

Now, as a coach myself, this is how I help people.

When they don’t believe that recovery is possible or don’t see a way out, I’m there to remind them that they already have everything they need to make the changes they wish to make. I also help them remember that the fact that it is uncomfortable and slow work does not mean that they are doing it wrong. It’s just how it is.

If all of this seems too overwhelming to do alone, why not join me and a great group of people for a free workshop on May 27th to get you started?

In the workshop, we’ll talk about the basics of stress management, how to choose activities that really support your nervous system (even during busy times), and how to start tackling the beliefs that are keeping you stuck. Participants will also leave with a free mindset workbook to continue the work beyond our session.

By writing different, more helpful stories for ourselves and choosing the right activities, we can put ourselves on the path to a satisfying life that is free from burnout. If that sounds helpful for you, you can register by going to jillianbybeemd.com or here.

Hope to see you there!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

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Leave a comment

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Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

I think sometimes people can get the wrong idea that, because I’m a coach and a wellness trainer who gives speeches and facilitates workshops, I must have somehow figured it all out.

But I want to assure you that that is just not true.

I might be a few steps ahead of you on the path, but I’m still right there on the path with you doing the process alongside you.

And that’s where today’s podcast episode comes in.

Recently, I’ve been making some changes in my work life after spending a lot of time knowing that I needed to make some changes in order to free up some time and space for myself.

It has felt really uncomfortable to consider these changes.

And it feels WAY more uncomfortable now that I’ve started implementing them.

As I’ve been going through this process, I realized that some of what’s been holding me back have been the same old little stories and limiting beliefs that often crop up for me including:

• what a good doctor looks like

• what a good woman looks like

• what success is

• a story about productivity and worthiness

To help myself navigate these stories, I decided to relisten to a conversation that I had with Caroline Ferguson on the first season of the podcast, and it was so helpful that I thought I’d bring it back for you to benefit from.

is an experienced mindset trainer and speaker. After many years working in business communications, Caroline pivoted her career to become a trained psychotherapist. Although she found therapy rewarding, she realized that helping her clients with their mindset and limiting beliefs was her true passion. She facilitates workshops, coaches, and writes a Substack newsletter called “Born for Something More” where she shows her clients how to overcome the limiting beliefs, emotions and habits that are stopping them from using their gifts to make a bigger impact.

In our conversation, Caroline shares her PACES tool that she uses with clients to help them get at the core of their limiting beliefs. It was helpful for me, and I think it will really help you as you navigate your own stories.

If you find the episode helpful and you’d like some support to go deeper in this work, I will be holding a free stress management workshop on May 27th from 7-8pm eastern time called “Transform Your Day: 3 Simple Strategies for Stress Management.”

In the workshop, you’ll learn to identify limiting beliefs you have around self-care and stress management and begin to transform them. These beliefs can cause us so much stress and keep us stuck, as I have seen in my own life.

By writing different, more helpful stories for ourselves, we can put ourselves on the path to a less-stressed, more satisfying life. If that sounds helpful for you, you can register by going to jillianbybeemd.com or here.

To get yourself started today, ask yourself: what belief has been quietly running in the background and has been holding me back from taking a break?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

✨Today: Time management strategies for wellbeing

✨ Last time: Work won’t love you back - Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

Several years ago, a few colleagues and I began creating a professional development and wellbeing curriculum for the pediatric critical care medicine fellows (doctors in-training) at our hospital.

We didn’t have any formal experience with curriculum building, but we knew that this content filled a need for the group of doctors-in-training and for ourselves as early career physicians without many institutional resources. We started building from topics that we had learned about while we were in training and those we wished we had learned. As we built, we found that each of us gravitated toward certain topics that supplemented what the others were doing.

One topic that kept calling to me was time management. As a type-A perfectionist with an eye on climbing the ladder, I felt certain that I could be using my time in a way that allowed me to be more productive and focused. Then, of course, I’d be able to do everything I wanted to do in my career and achieve balance.

I think we all know how that turned out.

On reflection, I don’t blame my early career burnout on the time management strategies that I learned, taught, and continue to teach. These strategies (which I’ll share in more detail in an upcoming post) have been genuinely helpful for me and have allowed me to be much more productive and focused than I would have been without them.

The thing is: I don’t only want to be productive.

In the past few years, I’ve realized that, although they aren’t traditionally taught as wellbeing strategies, two time management strategies that I use regularly have been the key to my avoiding another episode of burnout: time blocking and time boxing.

While the nuances of these two strategies really just seem like semantics to me, I’ll briefly break them down for you.

Time blocking

This is just what it sounds like: setting aside a specific block of time for specific activities. During this time, you block out distractions from the outside world and do whatever it is that you set aside the time for (either work or personal).

As this Bullet Journaling article says, “time blocking is about protecting your time from others.”

From a productivity perspective, I use time blocking to carve out blocks of time to work on specific projects when I am most likely to be focused and productive. For example, if I know that I need to have creative energy for content development, curriculum design, or researching, I will block off a period of time on my calendar in the morning when I do my best work.

From a wellbeing perspective, I use time blocking on my administrative days to carve out blocks of time on my calendar that say “wellbeing” or “break between meetings.” These are a signal to myself and to other people that I am unavailable for other meetings to be scheduled during these times (unless absolutely urgent).

Once I have the blocks of time carved out, I can move on to timeboxing.

Timeboxing

Although I hadn’t heard the name ‘timeboxing’ until recently on Dr. Kate Henry’s podcast, it has been around for a while, and I’ve been doing it without realizing it for several years to make sure I have time to do the things that matter to me.

Timeboxing is a term that was taken from agile project management and, as it was originally developed, involves translating your to-do list of certain tasks into the blocks of time on your calendar.

It can also be thought of as a way of putting little fences around the tasks on your calendar so that you control how long you spend on them. As this Bullet Journaling article says, “timeboxing is about protecting your time from yourself.”

One of the reasons that this is important relates to Parkinson’s Law which suggests that tasks will expand to fill the time that we allow for them. In other words, we will spend more time on something because we have more time set aside for it, not necessarily because we need it. For example, we may spend 2 hours working on a project that we could have done in 1 hour if we were more efficient and focused.

But timeboxing is about more than efficiency and productivity. When used strategically, it can help with your wellbeing, make you feel more agency in your life, increase personal and professional satisfaction, and decrease your stress levels.

How? Picture this:

You’re on the edge of burnout and you have no idea what to do. You feel as if you’re rushing from one thing to the next without any time for yourself, and you’re not sure how much longer this can go on.

Tonight, you must get out of work on time to go pick your child up from childcare and bring them to a 30-minute activity across town. You’ll wait there during their activity. Then, you’ll drive them home, get them fed and ready for bed, put them to bed, and then crash out on the couch from exhaustion and scroll on your phone.

Tomorrow, you’ll do some version of this again and beat yourself up about not doing things differently yesterday.

Does any part of this sound familiar?

If so, you’re not alone. As I’ve talked about in several recent posts and podcast episodes, the chronic stress that many of us live with can make us feel like we need to rush from one thing to the next.

But that’s not reality. It’s simply how we feel while we are revved up with stress.

The reality is that we have many opportunities throughout our days to pause, consider our stress levels, and choose an activity that would help us. Of course, this can be incredibly difficult to do in the moment or when we are feeling burned out.

That’s where timeboxing comes in.

When we consider the scenario above, there is an approximately 30-minute-long period of time while the child in the scenario does their activity. What would happen if we began to consider these periods differently, not as something we had to endure but as something that could help us?

We might read a book, go on a walk, call a friend, draft a blog post, do a stress relief meditation, etc.

Drawing a timebox around this time helps signal to our brain that the time is important. It is for something other than sitting scrolling on our phones or trying to catch up on work (unless that’s what’s really important for you right now).

I like to make sure I have a well-being timebox in the morning before the rest of the world is awake. This allows me to set a timer for a certain amount of time and really lose myself in an activity that feels good. Often, it’s somewhere between 15-20 minutes. I may journal, do a meditation, stretch, write, read, or go outside for a few minutes.

Because I’ve set a timer, I don’t have to worry about spending too much time doing it. And because I do it first thing in the morning, I don’t have to spend all day lamenting that I haven’t had any time for myself.

Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for timeboxing. What works for me may not work for you. You’ll need to experiment in order to figure out what works, and you’ll likely need to readjust when life’s circumstances change or the thing that was once working for you doesn’t seem to be working anymore.

As a busy woman, time for yourself doesn’t often look like hours to do whatever you want, whenever you want.

Instead, it looks like the 5-10 minutes you timebox to sit in the sun in your car on the way to work on Saturday where you jot down how you’re planning to create more time for yourself in the future.

The life you dream of doesn’t happen all at once. And you don’t heal from burnout all at once.

Both of these come through a series of small steps repeated often.

They come from you choosing to change how you do things.

They come from you starting again when life inevitably throws you off track.

The actions you do each day either keep you stuck in the life you don’t want or they bring you even 1% closer to the life you do want.

As a professional woman, you are carrying immense responsibility. You are leading teams, caring for others, and striving to do meaningful work. But the pace and pressure of high-responsibility careers can quietly create overwhelm, exhaustion, and the feeling that there’s never enough time to take care of yourself.

You don’t have to choose between doing meaningful work and feeling well while you do it.

Earlier in my career, I thought that “stress management” meant taking a vacation or going to the spa.

It wasn’t until I experienced and recovered from burnout that I learned how essential it is to manage and address stress on a daily basis through practices that help your nervous system.

It doesn’t have to take you a lot of time. It just has to be effective.

If you’re feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, stuck, or burned out, the 3 strategies in my upcoming free workshop can help you learn to truly support your nervous system without adding yet another thing to your to-do list.

Here are the details:

• May 27th, 2026

• 7 pm Eastern

• Live on Zoom: Register here

To get yourself started today, ask: what amount of time can I block/box for myself today?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

✨Today: A reminder that life is more than work

✨ Last time: A Busy woman’s guide to stress management- Listen here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

A few years ago, I was asked to be a guest lecturer in the Business of Medicine course for medical trainees in my organization.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I had to offer them. I’m no financial or business expert.

The good news was that they did not want me to talk about those things. Rather, they wanted me to talk about my career path and how I have crafted my work to make it fulfilling for me (still a work in progress).

I’ve given the talk several times now in that course (and during a national conference a few years ago). Each time, I receive positive feedback about the lessons that I share, my transparency about my burnout, and the advice I give to the audience.

But, as I’ve been starting to review the content for this year’s course, something has been feeling incomplete. The title “Crafting a Career: Writing the Story of Success, Professional Quality of Life, and Professional Fulfillment” does not tell the whole story of the message that I’m sharing.

That talk and the writing that I share here on Humans Leading isn’t just about job crafting or having satisfaction inside my work but rather the experience of having satisfaction inside of my entire life. It’s about reminding all of us who often forget that life is about more than work, job roles, productivity, or fitting ourselves into the boxes created for us by our professional disciplines.

With a child about to start kindergarten in the fall, the loss of a parent, the sometimes uncertain health of the other parent, the instability of the world, and the reality of my eventual life’s end getting closer as I move through midlife, it has become even more clear that I do not want to spend my entire life working. I especially do not want to spend it all working inside of an organization that, as I share in my business of medicine talk and recently shared on Instagram (again) will never love me back.

This message has been a beacon for me as I continue to refine what a satisfying life looks like for me and make the necessary changes to actually get it. To do so, I have had to start to consider what is truly aligned for me as the person I am at 42 rather than the person who said yes to things in a different phase of life.

That has meant starting to scale back some of the things that I no longer have enough time for within the container of my whole life or that I have not been interested in as much for a while.

As high achieving women, we have the tendency to add and add and add to our lives, both in the personal and professional spheres. But we never subtract.

At some point, if you continue to add without ever taking away, you will inevitably reach a breaking point. I see it in my colleagues, my friends, my coaching clients, the stories of other professional women on the Internet, etc. I’ve reached it myself, and I don’t want to experience it again.

I want to live and work in a way that doesn’t completely deplete me.

I want this because I think I deserve it.

And I want it for you because I think you do, too.

If you want to learn more about how to recover from burnout or get some support as you make changes in your own life, I’ll be teaching a free online workshop on May 27th called Transform Your Day: Stress Less with 3 Simple Strategies. I’ll be sharing more information and a link to register next week!

To get yourself started today, ask: what work or task am I doing that no longer serves me in this stage of life?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

✨ Last time: Simple stress management practices- Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

Recently, I was interviewed for a podcast that will be coming out in a few weeks.

As the host and I were talking about self-care practices, she said something to me to the effect of:

“Well, we all know that we should be taking breaks and caring for ourselves, don’t we?”

As she said that, it was like a little bolt of lightning went off in my head.

I could see clearly that the me who burned out earlier in my career very much had no idea about this need. I did not think I needed to be taking care of myself. Instead, I thought I was invincible because I had been conditioned to be that way by medical training.

Even if you aren’t in healthcare, I think a lot of professional women can find themselves feeling like they are supposed to be people who don’t need any breaks or self-care. I had to learn the hard way that that just wasn’t true.

And I’ve seen a lot of my coaching clients and colleagues have to learn this way as well.

So let me assure you, as a human being who juggles a lot, you need and deserve rest and regular breaks.

Not just the rest that you might get on vacation or if you have a free moment, but the kind that is regularly scheduled into your day.

But it doesn’t have to take you a lot of time. It just has to be effective.

Today, you’ll learn to start weaving practices into your day that truly support your nervous system.

And if you’d like to go deeper, learn more about how to recover from burnout, or get some support as you begin to build these skills into your life, I’ll be teaching a free online workshop on May 27th called Transform Your Day: Stress Less with 3 Simple Strategies. I’ll be sharing more information and a link to register next week.

To get yourself started today, ask: what kind of microbreak (or longer) can I take today?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 stress management and life design coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• Stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices like these throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

✨Today: 6 simple stress management practices that you can start using today

✨ Last time: A 6 -minute practice to help your overwhelm- Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

As I’ve written about previously on Humans Leading (and recently discussed with on her podcast), I have a lot on my plate.

I take care of patients in the pediatric intensive care unit, teach the next generation of physicians, design wellness and leadership initiatives, coach inside and outside of my organization, and teach overwhelmed, ambitious people evidence-based ways to navigate stress and thrive in their lives.

Outside of my professional roles, I have a young son and husband, write this publication, record a podcast, and try to carve out enough time for myself to rest and prevent me from burning out.

I do a lot of things. And, if what I write here on Humans Leading appeals to you, I bet you do, too.

And maybe juggling your responsibilities is starting to wear on you.

But you’re not experiencing burnout… or are you?

Most people assume that burnout looks like total collapse and inability to function.

At first, it’s more subtle than that, especially in high achieving people.

Early signs of burnout may look like:

• feeling exhausted in spite of sleeping enough hours

• feeling like you’re failing at everything

• being irritated by everyone and everything

• feeling like your brain never shuts off

• the need to rush everywhere

• the need to withdraw from activities or people you once enjoyed

Paradoxically, in spite of feeling that you already have too much on your plate, you may find yourself adding even more to try to give yourself a sense of control and agency over a life that feels overwhelming.

If you can relate to anything on this list or have reached the point of full-on burnout, you’re not alone.

Many people I know have been struggling with the kind of burnout that a physician colleague recently messaged me about:

“I feel like I am busting at the seams over here to the point where I am so overwhelmed I’m just totally blocked…resulting in feeling like I’m a terrible doctor, parent and spouse.”

If you’re feeling that way, too, let me assure you that you aren’t a terrible anything.

You’re a human being who is experiencing so much stress that you’ve reached the point of overwhelm and burnout.

The good news is you don’t have to completely overhaul your life to start feeling better today.

But, if you want a different experience, you’ll have to learn to do something different.

When I was first recovering from burnout, Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book ‘Burnout,’ transformed the way I thought about wellbeing and stress.

They write:

“Wellness is not a state of being. It is a state of action.”

This is in line with the Global Wellness Institute’s definition of wellness:

“Wellness is the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.”

In other words, wellness is not a place we reach. It’s a set of actions that we take in response to the stress that we experience in our lives. In order to stay well and avoid burnout, we have to routinely utilize practices that actually address our stress, including during the busy times.

But most of us have not learned to truly address and manage stress. We often avoid it by pushing it aside and hoping it goes away. We also tend to believe that there will someday be a time when we reach a point of feeling calmer, settled, and content.

And we believe that, once we finally reach this magical point, we’ll finally have time and space to take care of ourselves.

I know because that’s exactly what I used to do and believe before I experienced burnout (twice).

Here’s what I eventually learned the hard way:

In order to get out of the cycle of chronic stress and prevent myself from burning out again, I need to build stress management activities into my daily life, no matter how busy I am.

And so do you.

The practices that are the most helpful (and science backed) are not complicated. They are the ones that actually allow your nervous system to recover. Before we get into those, it’s helpful to understand a little bit more about stress and your body.

Stress 101

Stress is caused by the sympathetic nervous system. It’s the chemical reaction that is activated in response to obstacles or threats that occur as you pursue your goals and live your life.

Although we often think of stress as a bad thing, it can be helpful. Not only does it help us escape from danger, but it is what allows us to rise to daily challenges and achieve our goals. It’s the gas pedal. Without it, we wouldn’t get anything done.

But it’s not helpful to get stuck in the cycle of chronic stress that I referenced above. This is where wear-and-tear starts to happen. And, if chronic stress is left unaddressed, we will eventually experience burnout.

In order to get out of the cycle of stress, we have to signal to our bodies that we are ‘safe’ and allow the cycle to complete.

How do we signal safety?

That’s where the parasympathetic nervous system comes in.

If the sympathetic nervous system is like the gas pedal, you can think of this part of your nervous system like the brake. It allows you to get out of the cycle and on your way with your day.

It doesn’t take long to activate this recovery response. It can happen in as little as a few seconds.

I often weave these practices into my day via “microbreaks” (e.g. less than 5 minutes).

These 6 activities have been shown to help with nervous system recovery:

1. Moving your body

2. Having a positive social interaction

3. Laughing

4. Breath practices

   1. Especially this 6-minute one that I shared recently

5. Creative expression

6. Affection

What works for me may not work for you, but here are some examples of what recovery breaks look like for me while I’m at work (either in the hospital or at home):

• taking 5 minutes to walk the stairs with a great playlist

• getting outside for 15 minutes to hydrate, eat, and read something non-work related

• assembling the components of a lunch I packed and eating it without working

• painting (yes, I’ve really painted on my lunch break at home)

• a mindful walk from one meeting to the next

I understand that our days are extremely busy.

Because of our chronically activated stress cycle, we often think that we can’t take a break or that we don’t have time for one.

But this is exactly when we need to take one.

Feeling like you need a break is a signal from your body that you need a break. Continuing to override this feeling will eventually lead to burnout.

If you don’t think you have time, consider the smallest step you can take to build these 6 practices into your day by adding them to places that you already spend time (your commute, walking somewhere, etc.).

Give yourself 1-3 minutes as a place to start and build up from there.

We all need and deserve more than just a few minutes of recovery in order to stay well, but microbreaks are a great place to start if you’re already experiencing burnout.

If you want to learn more about how to recover from burnout or get some support as you begin to build these skills into your life, I’ll be teaching a free online workshop on May 27th called Transform Your Day: Stress Less with 3 Simple Strategies. I’ll be sharing more information and a link to register in the coming weeks.

To get yourself started today, ask: what kind of microbreak (or longer) can I take today?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to help you overcome burnout and start living a life you love.

• stress management workshops: to help you learn to weave helpful practices like these throughout your day

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

✨Today - a reset practice for when it feels like things are too much

✨ Last time: Cultivating what you really want without burning out- Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified coach, and creative who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

Do you find yourself rushing through your day feeling scattered, irritable, or stuck?

You’re not alone.

Nearly everyone I know has been struggling with some form of stress, whether from work, home, the world, or some combination of the three.

And many people I know have been struggling with the kind of overwhelm that a physician colleague recently messaged me about:

“I feel like I am busting at the seams over here to the point where I am so overwhelmed I’m just totally blocked…resulting in feeling like I’m a terrible doctor, parent and spouse.”

If you’re feeling that way, too, let me assure you that you aren’t a terrible anything.

You’re a human being who is experiencing so much stress that you’ve reached the point of overwhelm.

That’s the exact moment I designed this short, guided reset for.

In it, I walk you through a simple, 6-minute practice you can use anytime you feel overwhelmed. You can listen to it here on Substack or download the podcast version here to take with you on the go.

We start by helping you get comfortable wherever you are and using your breath to help you settle yourself.

It’s not about doing this practice the “right” way.

It’s about creating a tiny pocket of space so your nervous system can settle, and you can think again.

We finish with a practical question you can take into the rest of your day.

If you’re looking for nervous system regulation and a realistic way to manage stress during overwhelm, burnout recovery, or busy seasons, just press play below.

How did that reset go for you?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to overcome overwhelm and start living a life you love.

• Begin to recover from the perfectionism that holds you back from making changes in your life: The Gifts of Imperfection Read Along

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

Share

✨Today we reflect on what we really want this Spring and give ourselves permission to do it

✨ Last time: When grief returns to work with you- Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified coach, and creative who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

Happy Spring! (in the Northern Hemisphere)

Although the transition to daylight savings time is never easy, I have been enjoying the extra daylight in the evening, especially when the weather cooperates enough for us to go outside.

As we begin to experience more daylight, we may begin to feel a natural boost to our energy. This boost can propel us through the grind of day-to-day commitments, and it may even help us to be able to check more things off our to-do list for a brief period.

But, as with all things, this boost has a limit. If we aren’t mindful of our energy, we eventually be left feeling depleted.

This is because, instead of taking time to celebrate ourselves for our accomplishments or using the extra hours of daylight for more enjoyment or rest, many of us simply add more things to our to-do lists and then berate ourselves when we can’t find the energy to do them.

We don’t like to admit that we are human beings with limitations.

But, for better or worse, we are. We can do anything, but we can’t do everything.

When I ask my coaching clients or friends what they really want, the most common answer is some version of: A FREAKING BREAK.

They want time to enjoy themselves or recover from the hard work they have been doing. But they don’t feel like they can because of everything they have on their plates.

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.

And I’ll tell you what I tell my coaching clients:

If you want a different experience, you have to do something different.

You won’t get a break if you don’t find a way to take one.

I’ve very much needed this reminder recently as I wrapped up a long stretch of work in the hospital.

In order to combat the exhaustion of the past weeks, I’ve needed to seek out inspiration and find a way to prioritize real rest for myself.

Of the seven types of rest, I have needed emotional and sensory rest the most recently. Journaling in the quiet of the morning or outside listening to the sound of the birds checks both of those boxes for me.

As part of my journaling, I’ve been reflecting on the kind of spring that I want to have and how I’d like to feel.

Here’s some of what I came up with:

• Less busy with extra tasks for work

• Less irritable

• More present

• More energized

• More joyful

Basically, the opposite of how things have been recently. With some intentional work, I believe it’s possible for me.

And I believe it’s possible for you as well.

No matter how you are feeling in your own life, I highly recommend setting aside some time to check-in with yourself.

This practice allows you to face the coming months with intention rather than with overwhelm.

It’s especially important to take a pause to reflect when you don’t think that you have time to pause. The constant state of rushing and living in survival mode is what contributes to chronic stress and burnout.

Here are some reflection questions to get you started (take what you need and leave the ones that aren’t helpful):

1. How are you doing right now? How does life feel?

   1. No judgment here. This is just about recognizing how things are, not about berating yourself for it.

2. How did the first three months of the year go for you?

3. What is a win you are celebrating?

4. What didn’t go so well?

5. What’s one thing you’ve been telling yourself you “should” do that you actually don’t want to do at all? What would happen if you just... didn’t?

6. Complete this sentence: “I want my life to feel… “[fill in the blank]”. (e.g. spacious, easeful, joyful, energized, etc.)

   1. What is one action you can take in the next week to get you on your way to having that kind of Spring?

7. Think back to who you were before you became responsible for everyone else’s needs. What did that version of you love to do? How might you reconnect with that version of yourself?

8. What does rest actually look like for you? (look here if you need some ideas)

   1. How could you ensure that you get some rest this spring?

As a reminder, don’t “should” on yourself during this process.

The purpose of a check-in is not to judge yourself for not accomplishing what you wanted to accomplish last quarter. It’s to take stock of where you are at now and where you would like to go.

Be kind to yourself as you go along.

We are all just doing the best we can given the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

What kind of Spring do you want to have?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that I can cheer you on. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to overcome overwhelm and start living a life you love.

• Begin to recover from the perfectionism that holds you back from making changes in your life: The Gifts of Imperfection Read Along

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

Leave a comment

Share

✨Today: A framework for navigating grief and work from

✨ Last time: Learning to listen to your inner voice- Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified coach, and creative who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

Although I haven’t written about my grief on Humans Leading for several months, it is still my daily companion.

To the outside world, it probably seems like I’m not affected anymore, but nothing could be farther from the truth. My grief might be a little quieter than it was during the first year after my dad died, but it definitely isn’t gone. Several times per week, I still find myself tearing up at something related to him (large or small).

That being said, the world around me has long-since moved on, as it always does. And I, like most griefsters, have mostly learned to compartmentalize.

But, as Ruth Cooper-Dickson reminds us in today’s guest post, grief doesn’t just disappear because we have returned to work or a certain amount of time has gone by. It may always be with us, and it doesn’t follow a prescribed path. But there are things that we can do to help ourselves and build better workplaces.

Read on for Ruth’s practical wisdom because, as she reminds us, each one of us will experience grief events during our working lives.

Grief does not stay at home when we go back to work.

It sits quietly in meetings.

Behind email replies.

Inside the effort it takes to concentrate on something that once felt easy.

In the last eighteen months, I have found myself speaking about grief and loss inside organisations more and more, not because grief has suddenly appeared in workplaces, but because we are finally beginning to acknowledge something that has always been there.

Grief is a universal experience, and research by the charity Sue Ryder recognises that most of us will experience the death of someone we know during our working lives. This does not account for other forms of grief, such as fertility loss, relationship breakdowns, pet loss, or serious health diagnoses.

Grief does not sit neatly outside business hours. Its impact on productivity may be subtle or visible, temporary or prolonged, but it is real.

I realised how significant this topic had become in 2025 when I hosted a series of global grief-awareness webinars attended by hundreds of employees. During the sessions, and often afterwards in private messages, people shared that they were still struggling with grief long after their workplace support had ended, highlighting the expectation, real or perceived, that we should return to normal once bereavement leave finishes.

For some, the impact of loss continues to affect mental health long beyond those early months. In certain cases, grief does not simply soften with time, and clinical frameworks now recognise this reality.

Prolonged grief disorder, sometimes referred to as complicated grief, describes intense and persistent symptoms of grief alongside ongoing difficulties coping with daily life for more than six months after someone dies (CRUSE).

Even recognising that every grief journey is unique, it rarely follows a predictable timeline and is not neatly wrapped up after the first year of firsts, e.g. the first wedding anniversary, birthday, Christmas, etc. We may feel like we are coping with life, but grief still holds on tightly.

If you are employed by an organisation, workplaces do not always “get grief”. Even if your workplace does have a policy in place, it is often down to your direct line manager to decide how this support is given. Most managers are not trained in grief literacy. While a framework of support can exist, for a manager or supervisor to truly understand what is happening for the person experiencing grief, there has to be a conversation, and it should be more than just one chat.

An HR professional once admitted to me that they never really understood how grief impacted someone and perhaps did not extend the empathy needed. It was only when they had a parent die that it became a part of their own frame of reference that they could apply an understanding.

We don’t have to have a shared experience of grief; it really comes down to seeking to understand before being understood. Many workplaces struggle to support grief or loss that falls outside immediate family bereavement, particularly with disenfranchised grief, such as pet loss, non-death losses like divorce, and cultural differences around mourning rituals.

In my work with organisations, I often see how this mismatch between workplace timelines and the reality of grief plays out in practice. Research from Sue Ryder suggests productivity may be impaired for up to a year after a bereavement. During the first six months, employees experiencing intense grief are estimated to function at around seventy per cent of their usual capacity, rising to approximately ninety-five per cent in the following six months. This is often where workplaces fall short, failing to recognise that grief remains an ongoing part of someone’s life.

One of the most common things my coaching clients say to me is that they thought they would be further along by now. They returned to work, they kept functioning, they did everything they believed they were supposed to do. Yet grief does not follow workplace timelines. It moves at its own pace, often quietly reshaping the way we experience everyday life.

So how do you continue working while you are still living alongside grief?

There are different ways you can approach this, depending on your job and day-to-day responsibilities. But I thought it might be useful to outline a few ideas that could help.

The first six to twelve months

• Recognise when you need help and try to communicate with those willing to support you.

• If you work for an organisation, ask ahead for help with anniversaries, e.g., annual leave day, or if you’re self-employed, look ahead to create space if you need it.

• Take time for yourself and check in on your emotional resilience – do not set unrealistic expectations for yourself; don’t even set the bar. If this is your first experience of grief, you won’t know what to expect.

Considerations

• Boundaries around work and home.

• Time management – give yourself time to ease back in.

• In the workplace, review the supervision and support systems available to you.

• Check what support is available internally in your organisation – if you work in a larger organisation, there is usually a lot of support available through your Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), and I guarantee it will be confidential. If this support is available to you, it is there for you to use.

If you’re self-employed, this can be the hardest, especially if you cannot easily take time out. For me, it meant scaling back on the less demanding aspects of my business and being mindful of my energy. I did lose money, and my business took the financial hit, but I am glad I put myself first. Otherwise, I don’t think I would still be here.

Everyone’s experience is different. You can’t compare your grief journey with Carol’s from accounts or your best friend Mark’s approach to throwing himself into work, because everyone experiences grief differently.

Work can be a distraction, but if you are not dealing with the grief and loss, it will hang around like a shadow until you acknowledge it. It will continue to affect your nervous system and cognitive load, which show up as brain fog, decision fatigue, and concentration lapses, and will, in turn, affect how you make decisions about other issues.

The moment when people stop checking in

For many people, the harder moments come a little further down the line, not because things are getting worse, but because the reality is settling in. People will stop checking in, not out of malice but comfort bias.

Create your plan:

• Identify 1-2 ongoing supports.

• Name your needs clearly.

• If you are employed, use check-ins with your manager proactively.

• Join supportive spaces (grief circles, therapy, community).

• Keep checking in on your boundaries – are they still working for you?

When to seek professional help?

I am a huge advocate of accessing professional help for grief, whether that means a coach, therapist, grief circles, counselling, etc. I had a coach for 18 months when I was navigating multiple losses, and it was the one place I felt I could show up and navigate everything that was in my head.

You deserve help long before you reach a crisis.

Consider professional support if:

• The impact of grief is still intensely painful and unrelenting.

• You are not coping day-to-day.

• Your mental health is deteriorating.

• You feel overwhelmed, unsafe, or disconnected from yourself.

• Grief is severely affecting your sleep, work, relationships, or physical wellbeing.

This is not failure. It is wisdom.

Although it is easy to say, try not to put pressure on yourself to rush through grief.

Grief does not mean something in you has failed. It means something in your life mattered. Despite the phrase, time isn’t always the healer. It requires you to keep moving forward in small ways, and some days those steps feel easier than others.

Ensure your self-care becomes strategic, checking in with what you need. You won’t go back to who you were, but you are allowed to set the direction of where you go from here.

If you are navigating the quieter middle stage of grief and want practical guidance for moving forward, I have created a free training that explores this space in more depth. You can access it here.

You can also find more reflections on grief, resilience, and life after loss on Coffee with Coops.

For my paid subscribers, I run online grief circles every other month. The next one is March 31st at 7pm BST.

What has helped you navigate grief and work?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that we can keep supporting each other in this community. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• Begin to recover from the perfectionism that holds you back from making changes in your life: The Gifts of Imperfection Read Along

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to overcome obstacles and achieve your personal goals.

Share

Leave a comment

✨Today we learn to ask ourselves what we need and give ourselves permission to do it

✨ Last time: Learning to express our anger and speak up- Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified coach, and creative who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Subscribe now

For the past several weeks, I have been taking a mostly asynchronous writing course.

Once per week, a live course is offered. Replays are available, but I really enjoy being able to participate live in order to write in community. Due to a hectic work schedule in the hospital, I had not been able to attend any of these sessions until recently.

To make the most of the session, I carved out time in my schedule and secured some alone time thanks to my partner agreeing to take our son elsewhere for the afternoon.

At the beginning of class, writing came easily for me. But things went downhill quickly as the class progressed.

With each new prompt, I felt increasingly unsettled and restless. Eventually, I found myself unable to write or focus on the prompts being offered. I was about ready to give up when I tried a different approach.

“What is happening right now?” I asked myself.

Something unlocked inside of me with this question, and I wrote:

“I want to leave this class. I am feeling restless, tired, and under slept. Due to my recent schedule, I feel that I have not had enough time and space to myself.”

“What do you need? I asked.

“Room to breathe,” I answered. “I need to go outside.”

Without stopping to judge this reply, I logged off and headed outside.

I made my way out into my backyard where I found a patch of sun to stand in. I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on my face and the cold breeze on my neck. I listened to the birds and the snow as it melted. I took several deep breaths before opening my eyes and wandering around the yard.

Eventually, I made my way back to the house, stopping briefly by one of the flower beds to note the daffodil shoots poking up through the snow. Once I was back inside, I read a novel until my partner and son came home.

In general, the process of writing is enjoyable to me.

I often relish the alone time, the quiet, and the way I’m able to express myself in ways that I can’t otherwise.

But for whatever reason, on that day, writing felt constricting. I didn’t want to be sitting inside at my dining room table. After spending several days (and nights) inside the hospital that week, I wanted fresh air and movement.

At a different time in my life, I may not have logged off of the class.

More likely, I would’ve forced myself to stay and write, becoming more irritated as the class went on. I would’ve judged myself for not being disciplined enough to be able to sit down to write when I had scheduled it.

Eventually, I may have judged the course instructor for not making the content “good enough” for me to have a good experience. And I may have become so irritated with the class to give up on it entirely.

But I didn’t.

I simply went outside, got what I needed, and came back to the course the next day with more energy and a more positive attitude. This allowed me to navigate the new week’s exercises with more clarity and enthusiasm.

What I ended up with as a result is a reminder to myself (and for all of us):

We have been stuck in survival mode.

The world is uncertain.

We are waiting for someone.

But we are the one we are waiting for.

When we are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, we hold the key to our feeling better.

No one else is going to show up to give us permission to take a break or solve our situation for us.

So, we must give ourselves permission to get the recovery that we need and find our own solution (including asking for help when we need it).

To start, we can ask ourselves two simple questions:

1. What is happening right now?

2. What do I need?

And we can follow these questions with one simple (but not easy) action:

1. Do the thing you need.

You have the power to transform your life by repeating this practice over and over.

If something doesn’t work, try something new next time. If you get stuck, find someone to help you.

As a coach, I love helping women learn to start giving themselves the permission that they need to transform their lives. And it starts with seemingly small moments like this. If you are looking for a coach, you can get in touch via the link below.

Either way, I’ll be here cheering you on as I continue to build this practice in my own life.

Are you good at listening to your own voice and giving yourself a break when you need it?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that we can keep supporting each other in this community. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• Begin to recover from the perfectionism that holds you back from making changes in your life: The Gifts of Imperfection Read Along

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to overcome obstacles and achieve your personal goals.

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✨This week: I will not be… staying quiet to make you comfortable

✨ Last time: Taking some of the stress out of dinner planning- Read it here

Welcome to Humans Leading, a space designed just for you by me, Dr. Jillian. As a busy physician, toddler mom, certified coach, and creative who has experienced and recovered from burnout, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck. Via the Humans Leading publication and community, you’ll learn ways to live a less stressed, more satisfying life without completely overhauling your life. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

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When I was fairly new at my hospital, I was asked to join a project that was starting in the pediatric intensive care unit.

One afternoon, I arrived at work for a project meeting. Upon entering the patient care space in the pediatric ICU, I was met by one of my colleagues. Instead of returning my greeting, he proceeded to raise his voice at me as he began relaying his frustrations related to me and my input on the project so far.

Several people around us looked up from the work they were doing, but no one said anything. I walked quickly past them.

As I continued walking toward the meeting room, I told my colleague that we should talk about these issues in the meeting we were about to have. He followed me as I went, holding his laptop in one hand and gesturing wildly with the other as he continued yelling.

My colleague followed me to the meeting room but did not come in. Instead, he stood in the doorway with his body propping the door open and continued yelling mostly at me but also now at the group of eight or so other people who had already assembled in the room.

After he’d said what he had to say, he turned and left, kicking the small garbage can that had previously been propping open the door and sending it skittering a few feet across the room.

“Well, that was professional,” the organizer of the meeting said as the door clicked shut behind him. She then proceeded to lead the meeting.

I can still remember how my body shook as I recovered from the interaction. But I didn’t say anything. Everyone else’s behavior seemed to suggest that staying quiet was the expected thing to do.

In the years that have passed since that interaction, I have thought about and referenced it often.

I have shared it as an example of:

• the double standard that exists between male and female behavior (especially women physicians’ behavior)

  • I know without a doubt that if I had been doing the yelling, I would have been written up and held accountable for “unprofessionalism.”

• workplace violence

  • verbal abuse and public shaming are acts of violence

• how workplaces fail to support the victims of workplace violence

• the importance of being an upstander in instances of workplace violence

  • an upstander = someone who chooses to intervene and offer help in situations that are, or could be, harmful to others

But I haven’t spoken much about how angry the experience and the scarcity of support made me.

Like most women who have similar experiences, I instead prioritized workplace “harmony” and maintaining other people’s comfort surrounding this event, things that most workplaces and the broader culture teach and expect women to do.

As Soraya Chemaly says in her book, Rage Becomes Her:

Even as an outspoken, overachieving professional woman, I knew that there would be a professional cost to speaking up. As a young female physician, I did not feel like I could risk being labeled “difficult” “emotional” “angry” or “a bitch” so early in my career.

But as many people who know me now would tell you, those days are long behind me. I generally say what needs to be said even though I know it will cost me. Still, it often costs me much less than it would if I had less experience or was part of a minoritized group.

Even so, I am not infrequently reminded of the costs. For example, one colleague wrote something to the effect of “she is too quick to bring up gender issues” on a 360-review feedback form.

Even though these forms are anonymous, I know without a doubt that this comment came from a male colleague who believes that it would be “better” if I (and the other women) was quiet more often. And I know that he is likely not the only one to feel this way. He is just the one who may feel he is doing me (or other women) a “favor” by reminding us to stick to our culturally assigned roles.

The personal cost to me of staying quiet and agreeable is too high for me, as it is for most women.

We experience the side effects of repressed anger in our bodies, where it contributes to depression, anxiety, self-harm, and physical illness.

But this doesn’t mean that I express all of my unfiltered rage. To do so at work or in my home would be damaging, unhelpful, and unprofessional.

So, I’ve had to find ways to navigate my anger in healthier ways that allow me to speak up more productively to make change and that keep me from getting sick from my repressed anger.

Three extremely helpful practices for getting anger out in a healthy way:

1. Move your body

   1. This doesn’t just mean exercise. It can mean shaking, jumping, dancing, throwing pillows, weightlifting, yelling to music in private (the car is a favorite), or intentionally screaming with other people (see graphic above for a weekly event).

2. Channel creativity

   1. Write it down, paint, make something with your hands, make music, dance, etc.

3. Get help

   1. Talking to a mental health professional, especially if you have a history of trauma or are experiencing chronic stress, can be extremely helpful.

Sometimes, when we do get up the courage to tell our stories after processing our initial anger, we are still told that we are being dramatic. Or overreacting. Or gossiping.

We are questioned. Were they really yelling at you?

Even when we state our experience calmly and clearly, we are shut down or told that we are the problem. This is why we end up sharing them often with the people around us.

As shared in a recent post:

“These stories are not rehearsed because we love drama.
They repeat because they were never received.

We keep telling them because, somewhere deep down, we are still hoping for a witness. Or a reckoning. Or at the very least, a sentence that begins with: “You’re not wrong. That shouldn’t have happened.”

The way to change culture and eliminate the need for repeated storytelling is to listen to the people telling the stories in the first place.

And, until then, it falls on us to continue the process of speaking up and finding ways to express our anger in a healthy way rather than repressing it or ignoring it.

If you’d like to read more about this from someone better with words than I am, I highly recommend heading to Kate’s original post:

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Why the Faithful Might Need a Complaints Department

I am blown away by the response to this Lent series. The number of you reading along. The comment section full of people praying for one another. This is the kindest place on the internet. What we’re talking about this Lent—how to live with what is unfinished, unsolvable, and still say yes to hope—is actually the heartbeat of my new book…

Read more

5 months ago · 703 likes · 306 comments · Kate Bowler

What comes up for you as a result of this discussion?

I’d love for you to share in the comments so that we can keep supporting each other in this community. If this resonated with you, feel free to click the heart icon to let me know. And if you fancy sharing this post using the restack button to help more people discover it, I’d really appreciate that too. See you next time!

xJillian

Looking for more resources?

• Over 100 posts to help you get started on transforming your life: Humans Leading Archive

• Begin to recover from the perfectionism that holds you back from making changes in your life: The Gifts of Imperfection Read Along

• Dip into the Humans Leading podcast archive for inspiring interviews and mini-episodes.

• 1:1 mindset and life coaching: to overcome obstacles and achieve your personal goals.

Share

Leave a comment