Kristina Kiefer

Our Book Rounds topic this month was on Burnout. I learned quite a bit, in spite of the fact that I’ve been on a personal mission to avoid burnout even prior to vet school. I considered myself high risk. I get bored easily. I am an all or nothing personality. I get socially exhausted very easily. I care. I make other people’s problems my problems. I am a perfectionist. I am a resentful empath. Honestly and truthfully, I could feel the ebbs and flows of burnout during my pre-vet years. As I overworked myself to afford my education, overcommitted to college credits and grades to be a competitive applicant, became more and more socially isolated due to my schedule choices, and watched people in the profession I looked up to become blazing funeral pyres of sacrifice of their love of veterinary medicine, I got scared. I was already getting tired of the game, and I hadn’t even been officially accepted! I had a several month period where I critically analyzed whether I really wanted this journey. I legitimately thought about quitting vet med before I even arrived. 

I chose to go on, after serious self-assessment and deciding I needed to be VERY pro-active about combating burnout. I wasn’t just on a mission to avoid it- I was on the warpath to combat it. I went on the defensive. It took many years to develop new behaviors and habit changes. And even over a decade later, I still consider myself in high-alert mode. I think because of my fright. Burnout didn’t attack with a nuclear explosion. It was one moment added to another, followed by ignoring stress and feelings, and poor choices. Year after year. It was an insidious virus, rather than a major event I could point too. I came to the conclusion that the cunning trap of burnout I watched people fall into required vigilance and cunning to avoid. It required proactive, intentional work. 

The beginning of my journey was largely focused on personal choices and decisions. It is still legitimately a struggle. But along the way I’ve also come to realize an equally potent skillset: Recognizing my check engine light. Check engine lights are designed to warn us. To get our butt to the mechanic before the engine explodes. Often, the problem is minor. But if you choose to ignore it? That problem leads to another problem, which leads to you stranded in the middle of nowhere, several states away from home, out of money, and out of luck! The effort and investment it takes to solve the problem at that point may have become insurmountable. However, if I took my head out of the sand and looked into the matter, maybe I wouldn’t be trying to sleep in a room left in an abandoned part of the motel, without electricity, decorated by bats flying around the porch and full moon shadows, in the only accommodations for 200 miles, in the middle of the desert after a “helpful” local spent an hour telling me about the skin-walking Native American tribe whose reservation I had the luck to break down on. Yes, that happened. (Although, full discretion, I hadn’t ignored the check engine light- I did bring it in, get it fixed and was not believed that something was still wrong! I could write a book on the adventures this theme has generated throughout my life!) 

Likewise, if you learn to recognize your check engine warning lights for your career, you have a better chance of avoiding burnout. I believe everyone’s check engine light is going to be different. I have several. There is the “I’m feeling like a horrible friend because I haven’t made time for anyone but myself” light. Cultivating and being present in my loved one’s lives is a priority for me. There was the ‘the husky chewed up all of my paycheck except the check number and left it in the middle of the living room’ light. Getting personal time with, and fulfilling my dog’s social needs is a high priority for me- the husky (god bless her soul) was very good at informing me when I was neglecting her social needs. There is the “Why does everyone need me to do this- why can’t they do this themselves!?” light. Boundary neglecting and over-socialization are an express train to destination Burnout for me! Your check engine light might come from within or from other people or creatures! 
Challenge number one is figuring out what your check engine lights are, and challenge number two is getting into the habit of recognizing them early. It has made a world of difference for me! 
What are your check engine lights?