By Brandon Hess, CVPM, CCFP
If you would have told me five years ago that I would still be working in veterinary medicine, I probably would have doubled over in laughter. I was beyond burned out. I was working crazy hours, not taking vacations and working while I should have been spending time with my friends and family. I spent a lot of days blaming the practice I was working for, building resentment, wondering why they didn’t value my work-life balance. It wasn’t until I heard a leadership consultant talk about the R factor that things changed for me.
E + R = O
The E represents events in your life. Often these events are unpredictable, and are naturally occurring things that tend to be out of our control. The R represents your response to that event, and the O stands for outcome.
“If you don’t like the outcomes from the events that occur, the only thing you can control is your response (R).”
Looking back now it all made sense, but I fought the idea tooth and nail.
“If the practice would not expect so much from me”.
“I deserve more money than I make to put up with this crap”.
“I wish everyone would just do their job”.
It was much easier to blame everyone else rather than taking responsibility for my R.
Fast forward to current day; I travel all over the United States, with over 100 flights and 100 nights in a hotel. Even with the chaotic work schedule, I can honestly say that I have the best work-life balance I have ever had.
What were the keys to bridging these opposite sides of the work-life balance scale?
- Quality vs. Quantity: As I explored my personal work-life balance I realized that I could not decrease the amount of work and still meet the financial expectations in my life. I then began to think about how I spent my time away from work, which generally revolved around me being attached to my phone or computer, working. The key was to make sure the time I spent away from work was the best quality possible. This meant no checking work email while on vacation. Also, minimizing how attached I was to my cell phone so I could spend quality time with my wife. All the bad habits that I, on my own, had created.
- Happiness vs. Success: I kept on looking at the other side of the grass as some benchmark for my happiness. Every time I met a goal I just changed my goal, so I never felt successful and therefore I was never happy. What I needed to do was change my priorities. If I could learn how to be happy, then I would feel successful. This started by looking at the things in my life and identifying what/who made me unhappy. What could I do differently to change my happiness?
- Owning my R: I began, and continue to take responsibility for my actions and decisions. It has been a very humbling process, but I have learned it’s OK to not strive to be perfect; because that in itself is an unrealistic expectations. Instead I take a look at every challenge, every failure and try to identify how I can avoid that same result in the future. Learning, and growing help increase my happiness, which then turns into success.
The most exciting thing about all of this is that the solution is you. 1. Define what work-life balance means to you (it’s OK for this to change over time). 2. Look at bad habits or unrealistic expectations you have created. 3. Change your behavior. How does it go again? Oh yeah “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insanity.”