Avoid the Trap of False Urgency
Take a (micro)Break
Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, mom, and coach who is on a mission to help other high achieving professionals and recovering perfectionists reduce overwhelm, recover from burnout, and learn to live the lives they truly want to be living. Humans Leading is a way for you pause for reflection amidst the hustle of your life and an invitation for you to consider how you might change up what you’re doing in order to find more joy and ease. Subscribe here to get this newsletter straight in your inbox:
After an upsetting patient care experience, I found myself utilizing our employee assistance program to access therapy. I had been running on fumes during the surge of respiratory season in the children’s hospital, and pushing through the stress of it all was no longer working.
As we spoke, I told the therapist about how difficult it had been to go straight from taking care of that patient to the rest of the work that was waiting for me.
After validating my feelings and digging a little further into the situation, she asked a follow-up question:
“What would’ve happened if you had taken a short break instead of going straight to the next thing?”
I started laughing.
False urgency had gotten the best of me… again.
It can happen so easily, can’t it?
You feel stressed about something (whether it be work or life), and you find yourself feeling like you have to rush through the next thing in order to get it all done.
You don’t feel like you can let yourself take a break. You don’t think that you have time.
And it ends up wearing you down over time.
As someone who sometimes deals with true emergencies on a regular basis at my job, I know that everything is not as urgent as we feel that it is. But, with all of the stress chemicals floating around our bodies, it can start to feel like everything is an emergency.
Feeling like you can’t take a break is a sign that you need to take a break.
Feeling like everything is urgent is a sign that you’re experiencing stress, and this can lead to chronic stress over time. Eventually, it can lead to burnout.
They say that burnout whispers first. If you don’t listen, it can feel like a bus running you over.
This was certainly my experience with it.
It’s important to give yourself permission to pause.
Even a short (micro) break can be helpful. As I’ve written about before, even 30 seconds can be enough to calm down your nervous system.
Next time you feel false urgency creeping up on you:
Take a deep breath and pause.
Evaluate how long of a break you can take.
Choose a recovery activity (see below).
Do the thing.
Feel better.
What keeps you from taking breaks when you need them?
"Burnout whispers first," hit me like a rock thrown from an unseen bystander today. I literally had to sit down and evaluate why the entire list had to be done today. It didn't. In fact what I needed more than anything was working on nothing that was on the list.
Burnout whispers first, then it certainly roars. Breaks are so important. Thank you.