Gail Neeson, August 2004 - {This is part 1 in a 2-part article on achieving a balance of fulfilment in all areas of our life. Part 1 looks at getting the passion back in your work/business.}

Modern society has created in some ways an easier life (appliances that have freed us up in our domestic workload for example), only for this free time to be consumed by our professional workload.

Many dentists complain that they don’t have the work/life balance that they want. These are the lucky ones. Many more dentists are dissatisfied with their lives and don’t really understand why they lack fulfillment. This is a complaint often heard from financially successful dentists. At some level they expected that simply making more money would be the solution. When they get there they often find that more money has come at too high a cost. Finding a balance between a productive practice and a fulfilling home life can be a full time job in itself.

The good news is, for most dentists there is an answer, and the answer lies in having a business and a personal budget. The concept of ‘budget’ has two parts: money and time. If you can correctly set out an annual plan, a budget for business and pleasure you will find that both sides get fulfilled and that the line between business and pleasure often melds into business is pleasure!

Let’s start with your status quo. Where are you on the scale of balance? Are you having days of passion, enthusiasm about the day ahead, or are you in survival mode, celebrating that another day is over? We may know what we don’t want – another day like yesterday, running behind time, another patient squeezed in, no time to eat or go to the bathroom. But what would the ideal day, month, and year be for you. In looking at work/life balance we need to look at where we are right now:
• Our clinical skills
• Our managerial and leadership skills
• Our financial state
• Our family commitments
• Our Outside interests

All dentists need to plan to set aside time for updating their clinical skills. Having said that, there are many highly skilled clinicians who run practices poorly and who are struggling financially as a result of poor business decisions. So it follows that dentists should set aside time to both learn and to implement sound business strategies. Just as they need to have clinical training, dentists need to have management training.

Part of a good management plan is to create a business plan and a budget. This budget must include all your costs of doing business and all your costs of having a life. You need to look honestly at your family commitments and your outside interests and budget time and budget money. This process will lead you to how much money you really need, how much time away from work you really need and what is left are your days available for work for the next 12 months. Divide the dollar amount you need by the available workdays and presto-you have your daily financial goal. How does this goal compare to your current daily collections figure. If you know you can achieve that goal then you have created a plan that gives you what everyone else wants-real work/life balance.

If the daily goal is unrealistic, you can either learn how to increase your hourly rate (improve your verbal skills so that patients elect to have comprehensive long-term solutions), work more days or cut down on some spending. Will this bring you back to where you are? No, because it removes uncertainty. You know exactly how much you can afford to spend. There is no guilt and you will have less stress. The fact is, if most of us put as much effort into planning as we did in worrying, we’d have nothing to worry about!

Our managerial and leadership skills will play a pivotal role in creating the right approach to reaching a work-life balance not only for ourselves, but also for the whole practice team. A quick checklist of the following may highlight one or two areas that need attention in getting the balance:
• I feel satisfied at the end of most days, about my actions and outcomes.
• My staff often say ‘what a great day we’ve had.’
• I take time everyday to acknowledge individuals and my team as a whole for their enthusiasm and professionalism.
• Both I and my staff take lunch breaks and regularly lunch together outside the practice
• I am involved in regular ongoing development and training, both clinically and managerially.
• I encourage and provide a budget for ongoing staff training.

So where do you want to go? It’s exactly the same as when you are traveling. If you have the destination in mind you follow a certain route and when you get lost you first establish where you are and then look at your map. What many people do is accelerate and frenetically drive around hoping a solution will appear (sound familiar?) Taking an honest look at where you are in your business – and making a realistic plan you can stick with – will ensure you apply the right strategies best suited to your position. Dealing with facts and figures in creating your future is only the beginning. Sustaining a feeling of achievement and enjoyment on a daily basis is the essence of life and should be the key focus in creating a work/life balance.

In the second part of this article we will look at how to increase the level of your team’s involvement and passion, by examining the practice culture and your leadership skills.

[Published Australasian Dental Practice, August 2004]