Physician Burnout Causes And What to Do About Them

What are the most common physician burnout causes? One major cause of physician burnout is ignoring the warning signs early on.

Have you ever experienced that sinking feeling of dread about going into work on a Monday morning? But maybe you just brushed it off, decided to suck it up and keep going. While it seems like a noble thing to do, ignoring your career discontent may actually be leading you right into burnout.

Burnout doesn’t happen at all once. It’s a gradual build up with predictable warning signs. Warning signs that we tend to ignore.

My guest this week Dr. Shola Ezeokoli, shares her story of taking responsibility of her own happiness, recovering from burnout and building a thriving business as a physician life coach and bestselling author.

During this conversation we talk about:

How to navigate the voices of self-doubt that try to keep you stuck
Two key things that you MUST in place to recover from burnout
Behaviors and mindsets leading to burnout and how to spot the warning signs early on.
Creating your own definition of success
The truth about starting your own coaching business

And so much more.

This episode is full of empowering messages and mindset shifts and will be sure to leave you feeling POWERFUL- like you can do anything. I’m so excited for you to tune in!

Listen using the player above, or tune in to the Life After Medicine Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Meet Dr. Shola Ezeokoli

Dr. Shola Ezeokoli is the CEO and founder of Balance With Dr. Shola LLC, an internist and Physician Coach. She helps physicians defeat and prevent burnout and create options for themselves “outside the box”. She does this through life, career and business coaching.

Dr. Ezeokoli has been featured on Fox 32 news, HUFF post, WVON radio, I heart radio, blackdoctor.org, and many more. She has also been a guest on outcome health TV, and educational health TV network which airs in all 50 states of the US including University of Chicago, Kaiser Permanente, and Stanford University.

Read on to learn more about her journey.

The two epiphanies that started it all

At the age of 15, she knew that she wanted to be a doctor, but that she would be helping people beyond the tangible and beyond the scientific. She read a self help book (Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! by Robert H. Schuller) and realized there is more to life than science. This book peaked her interest on things that are not strictly medical.

She always loved to write. She went to medical school in Nigeria and started to write non-medical books about life, poetry, etc. After she graduated medical school she went to England to work for a while. During that time she met a life coach that changed her perspective on everything.

She started drooling when she heard about the job description of a life coach and at that moment she knew she was going to be a speaker and she was going to be a life coach.

Eliminating self doubt

Dr. Ezeokoli had this huge experience of “THIS RIGHT HERE. This is what I want to be. This is what I want to do.” But then the voices of self doubt came in. The voices that said “you are a doctor not a life coach” and “you already have a job, why do you want a different one” and “you’ve trained for so long to be a doctor, that is what you are doing”.

For a while she let the voices of self doubt talk her out of becoming a coach. From the moment she hear about life coaching it took her 11 years to actually become a life coach. She now thinks that if you are going to do something, just go ahead and do it now. Don’t mind those voices. She has several strategies for overcoming self doubt.

Experiencing physician burnout

During her intern year in the US, Dr. Ezeokoli nearly walked out of residency. She was overwhelmed by the culture shock from moving to the US and also did not have reliable child care. Instead of walking out of residency, she decided to pull herself out of depression and burnout.

Two of her main keys to get out of burnout include: having a support system, having an outside of medicine hobby or passion.

For her, the outside of medicine passion was writing. This was something she always loved doing, but stopped doing during her time practicing medicine in the UK.

What are the physician burnout causes?

There are so many subtle mindsets and behaviors that are actually physician burnout causes. Let’s talk about what they are. Many physicians are taught to have a “middle class mentality” and to embody identities such as the “superhero” and the “martyr” that lead to burnout.

Some personality traits that lead to burnout include: feeling like a fixer you have to fix every problem, being a martyr and thinking that you have to suffer to provide other people happiness, and thinking that you have to do everything yourself.

You cannot do everything, be everywhere or please everyone. To know that is to know peace.
Dr. Shola Ezeokoli

Burnout doesn’t happen all it once. It’s a gradual build up with predictable warning signs. One major warning sign includes waking up with that dreadful sinking feeling about doing to work. Don’t just ignore that. Pay attention to it. Your denial doesn’t serve you or anyone else.

Reduce your physician burnout causes

You must create your own personal definition of success so you stop chasing everyone else’s definition of success.

Create regular reminders of what is important to you.

For you to create a life that feels good to you from the inside, assess yourself and ask questions like:

What are my needs?
What are my wants?
What are my hopes?
What are my ambitions?
What are my priorities?

Starting her own physician coaching business

Coaching is not a go get rich scheme. Being a coach should be something that you are passionate to do.

Dr. Ezeokoli started with little knowledge on coaching business. She invested in herself, sought help from several coaches and mentors and found her own niche.

In 2019, she launched her book, Physicians heal yourself. Then, in 2020, she quit her job because she got a steady flow of clients.