How To Get Out Of Survival Mode At Work

“I didn’t sign up for this.” I had said this to myself endless times. I signed up to be a physician, to serve patients the best way I could, yet I did not plan to also work the fourteen or more hours a day. The work day was supposed to end around 4 pm, and I was spending three to four hours extra a day to finish patient documentation. I rushed home to spend some time with my children, then resumed working after they went to bed.

That routine lasted for quite a few years. Day in and day out, I was going through the motions. I felt trapped. For financial and family reasons, I wanted to stay in the area and the job had a decent compensation. I would wake up in the morning, dreading to go to work, praying I would go home by 7 pm. I was immersed in this constant stress, unable to pull myself out. I noticed I was not as efficient as before. Every decision I had to make was a chore and was exhausting. I was not connecting with the patients as well as I wanted, because I was focusing on how to get through the day without dying. Needless to say, the joy at work was lost.

Does that sound like you? If your experience is similar to what I went through, it is likely that you are operating in the survival mode. Living in the survival mode can increase physical ailments, such as fatigue, headaches, high blood pressure and insomnia. You may also have an increased risk of infection and cancer because of decreased immune response. Mentally, there is a higher risk of anxiety and depression. Overtime, you may also experience burnout. Looking back, I was experiencing burnout for quite some time. As much as I wanted to get out of that mode, I was beyond exhausted to even have the mental capacity to come up with a plan.

That was until life coaching changed my life. I will share the details of my story some other time. Here I would like to share with you the steps to get out of the survival mode so that you can start living and thriving.

The first step is to recognize and acknowledge that you are in the survival mode. If you are not examining your life, it is easy to accept that it is the norm by default without realizing that you are barely making it. Some of the symptoms to look for are chronic fatigue, easy irritability, decreased productivity at work, chronic stress, having trouble to truly connect with your patients or your coworkers, having difficulty in focusing, and lacking joy in doing things you used to enjoy. You may also experience physical changes, such as intermittent headaches, hypertension, insomnia, non-specific aches and pains, and increased frequency of infections.

Once you realize and acknowledge that you are in the survival mode, the next step is to identify the cause. What is the main reason for you to be barely getting by? There may be many different reasons. Identify the main reason first. For me, and for many clinical physicians, it was the long hours of work beyond seeing patients. The patient documentation, the in-basket tasks, the patient call-backs, etc. took as much as half a clinic day. That was not what I expected. That was not sustainable for me. If there is a discrepancy between your expectation and reality, you will feel stressed. If this is a constant situation, you will experience chronic stress, anxiety and burnout.

Now that you have pinpoint the main source of what put you to survival mode, explore what you can do about it. There is always something we can do about something. There is always a choice – we may not think there is a choice when the other option is not something we want to entertain.

Going back to the survival mode caused by working the long hours you did not sign up for, which was also my situation several years ago. What are some options? You may consider cutting down your hours by seeing less patients or going part-time. You may consider changing your job. You may consider learning ways to be more efficient without cutting down the number of patients you see in a day. Which ever the choice, remind yourself why you make that decision. For example, I choose to stay in my current full-time job because of the financial compensation and because of the proximity of the work place from home. My choice was to find ways to cut down on the patient charting time. I have succeeded in claiming back at least ten hours of my time a week with charting efficiency. Work feels less stressful. I am no longer in survival mode. I am able to fully connect with my patients and spend quality time with my family.

When you are functioning in the survival mode, all you want to do is to get by. All you can focus on is to do the next step just to barely make it. This is not the way to live. This certainly does not feel like living. To get out of the survival mode, recognize and acknowledge it. Identify the biggest reason for getting you into the survival mode. Be open and explore what the choices are to change that situation. It may be changing your job or it may be modifying your job. You can only start living when you are out of the survival mode, where you are just going through the motions to get by.