The Secret to Preventing Burnout in Your Medical Career

Have you ever looked around at your coworkers and wondered “how are you still showing up to work every day?” How are some people good at preventing burnout and other people struggle with it?

My guest this week, Kylee Nelson, experienced burnout very early on in her nursing career. Everything changed for her when she took a position volunteering in North Macedonia. She was working more hours than ever before, but somehow felt more energized. What was going on? How did this even make sense?

It was during this time that Kylee discovered her secret formula for burnout prevention. Now she shares her insights of preventing nurse burnout through travel in her highly successful blog passports and preemies.

Listen to this week’s episode as Kylee and Chelsea discuss how to tap into your passions to prevent burnout, dropping the people pleasing and the guilt, why your fulfillment is a moving target and what it really takes to create a successful blog.

Early career burnout

Kylee worked as a NICU nurse and started to experience burnout very early on in her career- during her first job. She constantly felt tired, unhappy, and unfulfilled. Looking around at the older nurses on her unit she wondered “how are you still showing up to work every day”.

Going through a breakup was the catalyst she needed to make some bigger changes. She became a travel nurse and took her first assignment in her hometown where she could live at home with her parents.

During this time she took a good look at her priorities in life and decided to spend some time volunteering abroad. She got a position in North Macedonia and this is where everything started to change for her.

Does travel prevent burnout?

Kylee was working more than ever. Normally as a staff nurse she worked 3 days a week, but in North Macedonia she was working 5 days a week. Although she was working more, she felt less tired. What was going on here?

Kylee realized that spending her weekends traveling was energizing to her. Taking mini trips during the weekend filled her with excitement and energy. She returned to work on Monday’s feeling refreshed and ready to work. This is when she realized: when you do something you love outside of work this can help to prevent those feelings of burnout.

The real secret to preventing burnout

This is when Kylee became highly passionate about preventing nurse burnout through travel. She started her blog passports and preemies and used it as a platform to spread her message.

Eventually, she realized, not everyone likes travel as much as she does, but that’s ok. It’s not just travel that is responsible for preventing burnout. The real key is to find something you are passionate about outside of work and to spend time pursuing that. When you use your off days to take care of yourself and do things you enjoy, you are actually better at your job. You also have more energy and a greater sense of fulfillment. It’s really a win win.

How to know if you are dealing with burnout

It’s important to recognize when you are experiencing burnout. It can look a lot like depression: not wanting to get out of bed, not having the energy to do things you enjoy, feeling unhappy and unfulfilled. Burnout can be a vicious cycle that is difficult to break out of. For Kylee, what helped her break free was taking a step back to redefine her priorities.

She began an inquiry process of asking herself questions like

“What makes me happy outside of work”

“What gives me anxiety outside of work?”

She also realized she was spending a lot of time sitting around worrying about her problems- which weren’t even that bad. Volunteering abroad seemed like the perfect solution to get some perspective and be able to help people with bigger problems.

Boundaries help with preventing burnout

Dropping the guilt and the people pleasing tendencies is another huge part of preventing burnout. If you are basing your decisions around “what will make people like me” you are inevitably going to burn yourself out. When you can feel empowered to say NO to something that isn’t working for you or your mental health, that is a major step.

You don’t have to feel guilty for saying NO to picking up extra shifts. Your health is the most important thing.

What it really takes to grow a blog

Kylees journey towards building a travel blog hasn’t always been an easy one. Initially she didn’t feel like a great writer, but thought of writing like a muscle that you just have to keep using. Writing weekly content helped her to improve her writing and consistency. She started off with 300 monthly readers for a whole year but was determined to keep going. She realized she was in it for the right reasons because she is never going to quit.

Her determination paid off as her audience began to grow. Now she has a successful travel blog that reaches 25,000 readers a month. She’s work with brand partners and has even created her very own digital products “The travel nurse bundle”. So many people have a dream on their heart and they never take action on it. Kylee’s advice is just to go for it. What is the worst things that could happen?

Sometimes the method to preventing burnout changes

After 4.5 years of working as a travel nurse, Kylee is ready for a change of pace. She started to get burned out by moving around every 13 weeks and felt a pull towards some stability.

Recently, she took her first staff nurse assignment in Chicago and is planning to stay there for at least a year. Finding fulfillment and preventing burnout is a moving target. Your needs and desires shift and change. It’s important to listen to yourself and do what is best for you. At one point, traveling was the solution to Kylee’s burnout, now she is ready to slow down a bit. It’s all ok.