The Perfect Healthcare Professional?
How perfectionism, over commitment and high achieving is squeezing the life out of your career…
I got in!... That’s the start of it really, well it was for me. A celebration, yet the formation of my limited belief, that achieving perfection was the only measure. I wasn’t even sure what perfect looked like; it was an intrinsic unclear concept I’d created in my young mind. My personality and many of us in the Allied Health Profession are overly committed to overachieving. Our ‘A Type’ personalities almost guarantee it. That’s where the squeeze begins! Powering towards an unattainable, unclear concept of perfect, without boundaries. This pursuit was a very tough ride for me for the better part of 15 years of my career and is a familiar journey for many health career professionals.
The pursuit of perfection really began for me with the transition to university. The life imbalance began young when I had less things to balance and career settled in as the major focus. The way my academic achievement was celebrated by my significant others fed my desire to do more and be more. My identity became attached to these outcomes as it did throughout my entire career. For the student wanting a career in Physiotherapy or other Allied Health professions the stakes are high. It’s a competitive field, and the courses are not easy to get into, nor is it easy to get through. You are pushing for perfection, always in a race towards what felt like the never-ending finish line, fuelled by the fear of failure. Success and achievement so tightly tied to your self-worth and identity that pausing or ‘being enough’ was simply not an option.
I have written of burnout in clinic owners and our industry often. In fact, it’s now my life’s work. I help others identify and build pathways to their best life vision, preferably before burnout kicks in. After coaching many and experiencing it myself, there are consistencies in the drivers, types, and actions of those that succumb to various states of languish or burnout in our industry of Allied Health. This occurs when the unrealistic goal of perfect, meets the ‘A Type’ overachiever personality and is let loose without balance or boundaries on a journey towards compassion fatigue. If you are a clinic owner, layer this with a good dose of practice business excellence and we’re on the fast train to burnout. It’s worth breaking some of these ingredients down so we can dig a bit deeper to understanding the solution.
If you are in the Allied Health industry you are a high achiever, the study, practice, and learning is so challenging you just wouldn’t have made it through! High achievers typically carry ‘Type A’ personality traits such as high competitiveness, urgency, and fear of failure. They can be defined as having strong long-term focus and self-discipline. Typically, they like to set a goal, and then work persistently towards it until it has been completed. High achievers frequently have a narrow internal focus of control. They believe that they, and they alone, are responsible for where they'll end up in life. They like to be the "go to" person, taking the full responsibility and onus of outcomes. Overlay this with ‘Type A’ behaviour and we get a powerful yet vulnerable professional.
Enter perfectionism: a trait commonly found in high achievers in the health profession. Much has been written about the relationship between perfectionism and burnout in our profession, particularly medicine. By way of definition:
Perfectionism, in psychology, is a broad personality pursuit characterized by a person's concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_(psychology)
We are taught early on that the quest for perfection should be applauded. Given Allied Health clinicians have a predisposition to attach self-worth to the idea of achievement and perfection. Perfection is a construct that we devise within ourselves and is often unattainable. In fact, it’s damaging, as many of us attach our self-worth to the concept of achieving perfection to please others. We feel like failures if we fall short but often never really know if what we were striving for was achievable in the first place. It’s not surprising that we become vulnerable to compassion fatigue and burnout.
So here we have a driven personality on pathway to an unattainable goal that is tightly attached to their self-worth, in a bid to please others. If that wasn’t tough enough, when we introduce over commitment to the mix, we have a very challenging situation. Over committers tend to put the needs of others before that of their own. My belief is that this overcommitment is product of our position as care givers in our community. We are seen as the people who solve other people’s problems and thus the perception of ourselves as the saviour emerges. Saying no and not being able to set boundaries and keep balance, is often seen as weakness. There have been moments where I personally prided myself on seeing more clients, doing more hours, and taking on clinical cases that others might have struggled with. I had the limiting mindset that no one else but me could deliver the outcome. Over committers tend to have no boundaries and are narrow and selfless in focus. I felt this but I carried on as though my capacity was limitless. Turns out it wasn’t.
The diagram below illustrates how the 3 factors combine to take us on a journey to burnout:
It’s a complicated, exhausting situation that is buried deep within limiting beliefs. We feel we must overachieve, do it all ourselves, to please others and it’s got to be perfect, or we are regarded as under achieving! No wonder we burn out. The great news is it doesn’t have to be this way. Overachieving can be a gift, the quest for perfection can be replaced with imperfect excellence. We can set constructive boundaries that limit overcommitting to allow us to be our balanced best self. My recent experiences have shown me, achievement, perfection and over commitment is not the issue; it’s alignment. What’s achievable is not always what’s important. We need to shift our thinking from ‘How do I achieve more?’ to ‘How do I want to live?’ Once we move away from the singular pursuit of external achievement for achievements sake and align to a broader life vision we see balance, sense of purpose and clarity return to our life. We feel energetic not exhausted as we realign our thoughts and behaviour so we can experience growth, well-being, and fulfilment as we strive for high performance. It’s not the outcome that is crucial more the journey to achievement. This allows us to serve better, be better and offer greater longevity to our significant others, patients, teams, families, and those that rely on us as care providers.
This is not a lofty aim. My days are now spent coaching people to do just this. The formula is simple and something I have written about before:
Take pause
Build a vision - a broad life vision that is balanced not just a business/work/career vision.
Set intentions - what is the end state? You need a finish line.
Build a plan - add in measures what is your idea of perfection? How will YOU measure your achievements?
As a high achiever you will need timelines.
Review, measure, be intuitive and adapt. Uncertainty and imperfection are key components for growth, embrace them.
Get the right help to support you - it’s hard to go it alone!
It’s easy and common to find yourself striving towards perfection, over committed, suffering compassion fatigue or worse burn out. Much of what we feel in this state has been entrenched in us for years. Are you wearing your over achievement like a badge of honour? Know that the shadow of the wonderful gifts that make this industry what it is also make us vulnerable as clinicians and practice owners. If you feel stuck, burnt out, or just unclear about what’s next, or where to?
Please reach out. Sometimes a call is all you need to start the solution. Email me at Josh@purposeandflow.com.au or book in a call via this link here. I’m here to share how I turned my life around and how I can help you too!