Here’s Why Burnout Was the Best Thing that Happened to Me

It’s not fun while you’re in it, but it can be the spark that changes your life to what you want it to be

Photo by Radu Florin on Unsplash

I recently read that 50% of American GenX physicians are suffering from burnout. The only thing I find surprising about that stat is that it isn’t higher.

It’s hard not to burn out when you’re juggling so many competing pressures that take you away from what you actually want to do and what you went to school for - helping people and making them better. 

Many healthcare professionals spend more time filling out charts and forms than seeing patients, and their days are dictated by the bureaucratic requirements of health insurance and malpractice insurance. They’re overworked, stressed, and unhappy.

Through a coaching program for medical writers that I run with my business partner, we’ve been meeting a drove of clinicians (doctors, nurses, PAs, pharmacists) who are hanging up their stethoscopes and turning to medical communications as a satisfying alternative career. 

They find this new career challenging and rewarding because it uses their training and expertise, and it enables them to help patients -  through projects such as patient education or continuing medical education - while controlling their schedules and never filling out another insurance form.

Even when you’ve hit a wall and feel like you can’t face another day in your current profession, it can still be paralyzingly scary to think about changing careers. But making such a drastic move can lead to the most amazing next chapter in your life.

I know because I’ve lived this.

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I know what burnout feels like firsthand.

Before I became a freelance writer, I was a patent litigator. It was a stressful, adversarial, can’t-afford-to-make-a-mistake job. The hours were very long and telecommuting was frowned upon. Every day brought new twists and turns that made planning my day practically impossible. Dinners with friends, workouts with a trainer, weekends - all got canceled on the regular.

Litigation sucked the life out of me.

I didn’t realize that I was suffering from burnout for the first three months that it was happening. I thought that I was just sleep-deprived and irritable to an unusual degree. It’s a phase, I thought. Just buck up and get through it. 

I’d hide behind my giant computer monitor, willing myself to focus and do my job. But everything felt foggy and I felt like I was jumping out of my skin. 

It became progressively harder and harder to even think about going into the office, let alone concentrate and do my job while I was there. I’d wake up from dreams about work, crying.

That’s when I realized that I was done.

Transitioning to freelance writing was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done

Litigation may have been a horrible way to live, but it PAID. Oh, those lovely, big, regular direct deposits…I’m not going to lie and say I don’t sometimes miss them still.

But burnout made it impossible to continue working as a lawyer. It wasn’t just a phase or something that a vacation could fix. It was my body telling me no mas - it told me this with insomnia, anxiety, fatigue, massive sugar cravings, and headaches.

It got so bad that I left lawyering without plan B.

Just to be clear, leaving your job first, then making a plan is NOT an option I’d recommend to anyone!

I cast about for some other way to make a living and constantly ruminated about whether there was anything else that I was qualified to do. With a Ph.D. in genetics and a law degree, you’d think I could see plenty of choices, but at the time, I really didn’t. 

There were days when I thought no one would hire me for anything, ever. Not to wipe tables at a diner and not to go back and do another postdoc. 

But I finally noticed that people always came to me when they needed help writing stuff. Websites, marketing materials, articles on the widest range of topics, grant applications, and breakup emails with boyfriends (true story!).

That’s when it hit me that freelance writing is a way to make a good living. 

And that’s when everything fell into place.

These days, I use my extensive legal background to write substantive, informational content for law firms. It’s a career that gives me the income I want and the flexibility to decide my own schedule, my workload and my location (as long as there’s a reliable internet connection). 

If it’s a sunny day, I may schedule my workday so I can take off in the afternoon and go for a long walk. Or I can watch a movie matinee on a weekday without guilt. I can plan to be there for family birthdays and holidays.

It’s not all rainbows and flowers, of course. Marketing oneself is tough (especially for an introvert). Building consistent streams of income is a job onto itself. There’s no such thing as a sick day when a client deadline looms. 

And I’m not going to sugarcoat the effort it takes to write for other people and get their feedback - freelance writing is essentially trying to read another person’s mind and put it into words on a blank page, then wait to see if you got it right. 

But even on my most difficult days, I don’t feel the same dread and despair I felt back then. This alone makes my current life so much better than I ever imagined it could be.

Without burnout, I would have continued a life of quiet desperation, never finding the courage to step away from a seemingly sure paycheck. But burnout forced me to walk away and start something new - and that’s why I’m grateful that I had to go through it.

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If you’re a practicing clinician dealing with burnout or have newly transitioned to freelance writing from a clinical background, we’d love to help guide you in this new and exciting journey. We welcome you to join our focused 90-day group coaching session that starts in a few weeks.