Finding Your Alignment: The Antidote to Physician Burnout That YOU Control

In a healthcare system that often feels designed to burn you out, what if I told you there's a principle that could help you reclaim your joy in medicine?

It's called alignment.

What Is Alignment?

Alignment is a state of living and making decisions in a way that consistently honors your core values, leverages your unique gifts, and energizes you through your passions and interests.

Think of it like driving a car. When your tires are properly aligned, the journey is smooth and efficient. You still burn gas, you still hit bumps, but the overall experience is one of forward momentum without unnecessary resistance.

When you're out of alignment in your medical career, every day feels like driving with the steering wheel pulled hard to one side. You're expending enormous energy just to stay on the road.

The 20% Solution You Haven't Heard About

Here's something fascinating that most burned-out physicians don't know: research suggests that spending just 20% of your time—one-fifth of your professional life—doing work that aligns with your gifts, talents, and passions can significantly protect against burnout.

That's right. You don't need to completely overhaul your career or practice. You just need to ensure that a meaningful portion of your time is spent doing what energizes you.

Take Dr. Rachel Rubin, a sexual medicine specialist who recently gave a brilliant lecture on menopause and women's sexual health on Peter Attia's podcast. She has clearly found her alignment; the intersection of her gifts, talents, and passions. And while she works incredibly hard, her energy and enthusiasm are palpable.

That doesn't mean she spends 100% of her time in perfect bliss. Nobody does. But she has identified what lights her up and ensured it comprises enough of her work to keep her engaged and fulfilled.

How Thought Patterns Keep You Stuck

If you're currently drowning in resentment, frustration, overwhelm, anxiety, or rage, the first step toward alignment is recognizing the thought patterns keeping you there.

Thoughts like:

• "I have no choice"
• "I just have to do this"
• "Everyone controls my time but me"

These victim thoughts feel true; and let's be clear, there ARE external forces making medicine harder than it should be. But these thoughts are also keeping you powerless.

As I often say, two things can be true at once:

1. It is NOT your fault that you're struggling with burnout in a broken healthcare system
2. You ARE the only person who can tune into your thoughts and start to change them to feel better

This isn't gaslighting, it's empowerment. Because your thoughts are the one thing in this broken system that you can control.

Boundaries: Your Alignment Protection Tool

The final piece of finding and maintaining alignment is setting boundaries; with yourself and others.

You will always be offered (or assigned) more than you can possibly do. And many of these opportunities might be perfectly good ones that you "should" want.

But if they don't align with your gifts and passions, saying yes means saying no to alignment.

I remember serving on the board of my local Family Medicine Acaedmy. It looked good on paper, but sitting in those meetings, I realized it wasn't where my gifts or passions lay. At the end of my one-year term, I stepped down; a boundary that protected my alignment.

This applies at home too. Sometimes you need to say no to things (even good things) to make space for what keeps you aligned; whether that's exercise, rest, or something else that fills your cup.

Your Next Steps Toward Alignment

If this resonates with you, I invite you to take one simple action this week:

Identify one activity in your practice that energizes rather than depletes you. Then find a way—any way—to do just a little more of it.

That single step can begin your journey back to alignment and away from burnout.

Ready to dive deeper into finding your alignment? Schedule a 1:1 coaching discovery call with me. Together, we'll uncover what truly lights you up in medicine and create a roadmap to bring more of that into your daily practice.

Or if you're not quite ready for that step, start by listening to the full episode where I break down this concept in even more detail.

Remember: You became a physician because you're exceptional. Don't let the system make you forget that.