What Actually Helps When You Are Running on Empty?

If you’re exhausted, you don’t need another suggestion to “optimize.” You need something that helps you function like a human again.

Most physicians I work with aren’t lacking motivation.

They’re depleted.

Depletion changes everything: your patience, your clarity, your tolerance, your relationships, your ability to recover between shifts.

It makes small things feel impossible and normal stress feel like threat.

Pushing harder isn’t a strategy when your system is already maxed out.

Depletion is physiology, not a personal failure

Medicine rewards overriding.

Skip the meal. Ignore the bladder. Power through the notes. Be pleasant. Be excellent. Keep moving.

That works—until it doesn’t.

When your nervous system lives in chronic urgency, you notice:

• less flexible thinking

• more reactivity (or numbness)

• more self-judgment and less satisfaction

• less bandwidth at home, even when you’re “fine” at work

If this is you, you’re not broken. You’re overloaded.

What coaching actually helps with

Good coaching isn’t one more thing to do. It’s a protected space to reduce friction and build capacity.

Coaching helps you:

• interrupt the over-responsibility reflex (so you stop carrying what isn’t yours)

• work with urgency physiology (so everything doesn’t feel like a fire)

• set boundaries you can hold (without the guilt hangover)

• communicate more clearly (especially when stakes are high)

• make decisions aligned with your values (not just survival mode)

• recover more effectively (so your days off aren’t only collapse)

The goal isn’t to care less. It’s to suffer less while you keep caring.

What changes can look like in real life

This work tends to show up in small ways that add up:

• You stop rewriting the same note six times because perfectionism is running the show.

• You say “no” without a three-paragraph justification.

• You feel steadier in conflict—less braced, more effective.

• You come home with enough nervous system bandwidth to be a person.

Sustainable medicine isn’t only about workload. It’s also about internal strain.

If you’re thinking, “I can’t keep doing it like this.”

That thought isn’t weakness. It’s information.

Coaching doesn’t require you to leave medicine. It supports you in practicing medicine in a healthier, more humane, more sustainable way—starting with how you relate to your own mind and body inside the job.

This is the kind of shift we explore in coaching.

Nothing shared in this blog is medical advice.