Lean Out Podcast

Solocast: The Essentials

• Dawn Baker • Season 4 • Episode 10

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In this episode, Dawn Baker talks about the essentials. She shares what prompted her to consider hers, and she gives examples of the things she needs daily or almost daily to feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled. She also shares tips on how you can figure out your own essentials. 

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Welcome to the lean out podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Don baker. Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance? You've come to the right. Place. For inspiration. information. and a community. community. of like-minded. Professionals. Let's get to the show. Hello, hello. Thanks for being here. I'm getting this solocast episode out a little later than I had wanted to because during this spring season, I have been a little bit more busy with my clinical work than normal. I decided to say yes to a locum tenens job in Michigan, in addition to my regular per diem job that I do in Las Vegas. You can imagine that the travel between Southern Utah and Michigan is a little more significant. And originally, I was worried about the different types of patients, the caseload, things like that, the acuity level. And it turns out, now that I have done a couple different weeks at this facility, that the work itself is fine. The issue that I have been having with this job is the travel. I find that the older I get, the harder it is to do long distance travel. It's just very draining, and the two-hour time difference kind of messes with my body in a way that it didn't used to when I was younger. So I'm just finding that it's getting harder for me to recover after a work trip like this. But something happened on the most recent assignment that made me decide to do this podcast episode about the essentials. So what happened was, I'm staying at my hotel that's near the hospital site, and at 2:30 in the morning, the fire alarm went off, and it was quite loud. It says,"Proceed to the nearest exit, down the stairs. Do not take the elevator." And it's repeating over and over again, and a siren is sounding. So I'm like,"Is this real or not?" So I decide to call the operator and say,"Hey, the fire alarm is going off on our floor." And when I dial the zero, they nervously say to me on the phone,"Please just proceed down the stairs immediately." So I'm thinking,"Okay, I guess maybe it is real." So I hang up the phone, and then I start hearing sirens from the fire department coming our way. So I'm like,"All right. It is real." So at this moment, I'm thinking,"Okay, maybe it's a real fire, maybe it's not a real fire. Maybe the whole hotel is gonna go up in flames, and maybe it isn't." So I decide to take a few essentials with me. First of all, it's 2:30 in the morning, and it's like 40 degrees out, so I put on my jacket because I am very sensitive to cold. I put on my tennis shoes, and I get my glasses and my phone. Then as I'm walking out, realize that I need to probably get my wallet and the keys to my rental car in case for some reason we were stuck out there for a long period of time. Now, I didn't really have the assumption in my head that everything in the hotel was gonna burn down, so I didn't take my whole suitcase or anything like that. And I wanted to comply with what the operator said and get out of there as soon as possible. So I go down the stairs, and I go outside to the sidewalk, and I see everyone else that's staying in the hotel. And it was really interesting to witness what other people had decided were essentials for them. I really saw the gamut of personality styles. There were people that were fully dressed, had their suitcases, had... their laptops, things like that, like they're ready to leave And then I saw people that were barefoot, had no jacket on, people that were like half dressed. It, it's just so funny thinking about what might have been going through different people's heads when they were experiencing this alarm just like I did. So the alarm had gone off in a different section of this old building based on someone's stove or something like that. There's an apartment complex that's in the same building, and it had triggered the alarm in the hotel. After about a half an hour of inspection with the fire department and such, we were let back into the hotel, and I was able to go to sleep for the rest of the night. Now, mind you, this did disrupt my sleep for my first night of my assignment, but it wasn't too bad of a situation, and I was grateful that this wasn't a true emergency and everything that was in the hotel was okay and things like that. But it got me thinking about the essentials, and so that's what I wanna talk about today. What are your essentials? And I don't mean in a way of, what are you gonna grab if you have to leave a burning building? That's very individual to different people, and it involves sentimental value and different things like that. But what it really prompted me to think about were the kind of essentials that I need every day. What really matters to me? What do I want in my life on a regular basis, like a daily basis or at least a weekly basis that makes me feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled? One book that I thought of when I thought of this topic is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. And if you haven't read this, I definitely recommend it. I will link the book in the show notes so you can check it out if this isn't one that's familiar to you. In the book, the author talks about the paradox of success, which is kind of like the treadmill of achievement in that when you are successful, it brings more opportunities, more money, more resources, and more things. But the problem is then you end up taking on more. Just like how when we achieve The reward is more responsibility, more opportunities, and it's very difficult to say no to this. And what ends up happening is that people live in a very distracted state and they're not able to recognize the essentials that are really necessary for them to thrive. So the question you need to ask yourself is, what truly matters to you? I see this as an issue of aligning your core values and your goals with how you're spending your time. I saw the people out at the fire drill, for example, maybe someone who brought all of their things, their suitcase, their laptop, everything, they prioritize promptness, and they thought,"Maybe if I'm stuck out here for the next few hours, I am going to be late for my job, and that is unacceptable to me." Maybe the person who was half naked and didn't have their jacket, didn't have their shoes on, maybe the thing that they value and they prioritize is spontaneity. Maybe it's connection. Maybe it's something that is just totally unrelated to getting their computer and being prepared to leave and to be able to go to work that morning, you know, if you were stuck out there for hours. I'm realizing more and more what my essentials are for being happy, healthy, and feeling fulfilled. And the older I get, the more honed I get on these things. So one of my essentials is variety. This shows up in how I work and the different identities that I play every day. Sometimes I'm an anesthesiologist. Sometimes I'm a retiree, and I'm playing pickleball with sixty and seventy-year-olds. Sometimes I'm a coach helping someone through a work transition or honing their work-life balance. Sometimes I'm a teacher because I do homeschooling, and I'm a mom. I mean, of course, I am all of these things all of the time, but my days ebb and flow with one or two of these roles really being at the forefront, and I like how the roles undulate and shift as the weeks and the months go on. This is something that I really enjoy. Or else I wouldn't have chosen anesthesiology as my profession in medicine because we have a lot of variety. We take care of patients of all different ages, having all different kind of surgeries, different levels of health, different states of disease, and things like that, and I really enjoy that. And as a locum tenens and per diem person, I actually do like the variety of going to different places and the challenge of having to Navigate new sites or unfamiliar sites or different places. One of my other essentials is learning. I really like to have learning and challenge built into all of my days. If I'm not at work, which has learning and challenge, then I am listening to podcasts or reading articles, listening to audiobooks. I really don't watch a lot of television shows and series. I am usually watching YouTube videos, how-to videos, and videos about improving things in your life, like improving your health, how to lift better, um, things like that. Another thing along those same lines that is an essential for me is movement and activity every single day. If it's not strength training or doing a sport like pickleball, it's walking and hiking and doing outdoor chores on the homestead. I have a goal of taking ten thousand steps per day. That's something that I tend to meet about ninety percent of the time. It's very important for me to feel like I have moved my body each day, to have that satisfaction and to have that feeling of fulfillment. If I have to do long periods of computer work, I tend to take five-minute movement breaks, and this is something that I just have automatically started to do in my life. Even if I'm in the operating room and I am doing anesthesia for a really long case, I will get up maybe every forty-five to sixty minutes and move around, even though it's just in a small space like the OR. Another one of my essentials is alone time. I need to have a little bit of downtime where I'm quiet each day by myself. If I am, say, speaking at a conference or I'm doing anesthesia at the hospital, I need to have the time afterwards, after the events and after all of the time that I have to be on and talking to patients or potential clients or to an audience, I have to have quiet time for myself, even if it's just a few minutes, maybe at the end of the day. And lastly, one of my other essentials is outside time. I really love being outside, and even if it's just for a few minutes, even if it's cold, and you all know that I hate the cold'cause I talk about that all the time, I do step outside and spend a little time outside. If I'm doing a long ten- or twelve-hour day of anesthesia, I even will walk out when I'm taking a lunch break. I just will take a route back to the operating room that involves stepping outside of a door and walking maybe around half of the hospital or something like that. So I want to shift and talk about how you can figure out your essentials and prioritize them in your life Again, These are not the things you would take from a burning building, but rather the things that you need on a daily and at least a weekly basis to feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled in your life. They're the things that make your work-life balance feel, well, balanced and optimal. First of all, we can think about a few different categories of essentials. The first one would be physical, so things like adequate sleep, movement, as I mentioned, which is one of mine, good nutrition. Maybe you are very keen on making your own food and having very fresh food. Which one of these is a really big lever for you? The next category would be mental, so solitude or quiet time, like I mentioned, being able to do something creative, learning new things. The other category would be social, so having quality connections each day with family members or maybe friends. And the last category that I can think of would be spiritual. Do you sense that you are progressing towards something that matters to you? Does your life have meaning? Do you have a spiritual practice, and is that an essential item in your days? To try to get the juices flowing for inspiration on what your essentials are, I highly recommend, as I often do, that you spend some time alone in reflection. Just doing nothing, basically. You can ask yourself some questions in your reflection time, like,"If I have a day where X doesn't get done, I don't feel like I won the day." That's a good indication that X is an essential for you. You can ask yourself,"What are the anchors that I have each day?" A morning routine or an evening routine or something that really helps you to feel like that the day has progressed with intention. You could ask yourself,"What do I really regret not getting done in a particular day?" One thing that you can also do to think about your essentials is you can go on some sort of a trip and bring very little. It doesn't have to be a camping trip, though that is a good way to do this because you're going to be without all of the gadgets in the kitchen and all of the ingredients and maybe your special coffee maker. That's one for me that I miss when I go away. Um, even your computer or TV and other technologies. When you survive with very little of your regular possessions and then you go home, it gives you a reflective moment of,"What are the things that I really missed when I was gone?" You can just go on a city trip and maybe you're staying at an Airbnb or a hotel, and you can do this exercise as well. Another tip is to identify your values. I know I talk about this a lot. You can get a values exercise on my website by going to practicebalance.com and putting your email into the purple box, and this will give you a guided worksheet for figuring out what your core values are. But these are the signposts for how you figure out what the essential things are for you each day to feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled. You can build daily habits around these in order to make sure that they get met each day For example, if movement is one of your essentials and you don't feel like you're actually getting it during your workdays, you can set an alarm for movement breaks on your phone. If one of your essentials is having solitude or alone time, you can put a chunk in your calendar just like you would a meeting that is specifically made for alone time. Remember that you get to choose what you focus on every day, and if there are too many things going on, going back to the essentials and referring to those is where you can start to streamline and feel more balanced again. Back to the trip that inspired me to do this solo cast, I've realized that traveling is actually not a part of my essentials lists, and I might upset some people by admitting that, especially points and miles gurus and people who really do need to take vacations because they're working too much and they need to prioritize their breaks. But travel for me, it just doesn't do it anymore. All of the lines and the delays and the red tape and buying seats on the airplane now and buying space for your bag in the airplane, it just, it drains me. It is ridiculous. And I used to do a ton of travel with my husband. We rock climbed all over the world, but now I realize that I just don't love it anymore. And because I am a locum tenens and per diem anesthesiologist, I have decided based on this spring job that I took, that I'm not going to say yes to these jobs anymore. If it's not within a couple hours of me, I'm just not gonna do it. I'm not gonna entertain them anymore. It's not an essential for me. Let's say you figured out what your essentials are. Well, are you prioritizing those essentials or do you feel like that there are too many distractions, too many things, too many roles in your life, and your essentials happen to be going by the wayside? I want to plug one-on-one coaching with me. I can help you with this. I have a couple of spots right now in my spring and summer schedule for new coaching clients. So if this is something you'd like to work on, please send me a message or go onto my website, practicebalance.com/coaching and you can sign up for a free consultation phone call with me. If you understand your essentials but you don't feel like you necessarily need one-on-one coaching in order to rearrange your life, Maybe you know what you want to do, but you are just lacking the confidence to carry it out. I would highly recommend checking out my Lean Out Confidence course, and that's on the website under the Courses tab. There is a coupon code pod. for a deep discount, that is still active and another resource for you to check out if you need additional help. Thanks so much for listening today, Happy Mother's Day to all those who celebrate and who identify as mothers, and I will talk to you in the next podcast. Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast. If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services. You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker. Have a great day and we'll see you next time