The Myth Of Work-Life Balance | Ep3

Michael Hersh, MD: 

[00:00:00] What if the reason work-life balance always feels out of reach is because it was never designed for the life you actually live? If work-life balance feels impossible, maybe it's not you. Maybe it's the whole idea that's off. Stay tuned to this week's episode to find out more.

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Better Physician Life. I'm Dr. Michael Hersh, and I'm really glad you're here today. We're going to unpack something that I think every physician wrestles with at some point. Whether we talk about it out loud or not, it's this nagging sensation that no matter how hard we try, we're just not quite getting it right.

We're constantly adjusting, optimizing, recalibrating, and still ending most days feeling like we're completely out of sync. And the word we so often use to make sense of that feeling? Balance. We've been taught that [00:01:00] balance is the answer—that if we just manage our time better, set better boundaries, get more efficient, we’ll finally feel like we've got it all under control.

Unfortunately, more often than not, chasing balance just leaves us feeling like we're completely failing. If you're listening to this, I’m going to guess you care deeply about your work, your patients, your life, your spouse or partner, your kids, your family.

You want to be a good doctor. A great parent. A great partner. A great friend. And somewhere in the mix, you're always trying to stay connected to who you are beneath all these roles. But no matter how carefully you plan or how hard you try to be present, something always feels a little off. And over time, that quiet dissonance can become exhausting.

So today we're going to [00:02:00] take a closer look at the idea of balance—what it actually means, why it's so slippery, and how the pursuit of it might be keeping us from something even more meaningful.

Now, here's the thing. I am not here as an expert. I'm not somebody who has figured all of this out. I'm here as someone who has lived this—and continues to live this too. Someone who's still figuring it out. And my hope is that by sharing what's shifted for me, you might hear something that gives you permission to breathe a little deeper into your own questions.

Okay, let’s get into it.

For years, I thought I was doing something wrong. Work didn’t just take up time—it took up space. Mental space. Emotional space. It was the thing my life revolved around even when I was technically off. I remember telling myself [00:03:00] if I could just manage my calendar better, rearrange a few things, delegate some tasks, and just optimize my life, then I’d feel like I had balance.

But no matter what I did, something still felt off. I’d look around and think, why can’t I get this right? Why does everyone else seem to have a system that works, and I’m still just constantly spinning my wheels?

And then one day, a physician coach asked me a question that kind of broke something open. It was this: “What if balance doesn’t mean everything gets equal weighting all the time?”

That was a big moment. Because until then, I thought balance meant everything had to be equal. That idea was a game-changer.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized balance, as we’ve been taught to understand it, is a total setup for failure. It [00:04:00] implies that there’s some ideal configuration of your life that, once you find it, will unlock peace and flow, and everything will be easy forever.

And when you can’t figure out that elusive ideal balance, we use it against ourselves. We shame ourselves into believing there’s something wrong with us because we can’t figure it out.

But it turns out, there’s no simple solution for balance. That’s not real life. And it’s definitely not real life in medicine.

We don’t just do medicine—we build our lives around it. We literally gave our twenties to medical education and training. We learned to delay gratification. We made peace with being exhausted, overworked, and undersupported. We believed it was all temporary—an investment, a necessary sacrifice in service of the life we’d live later.

[00:05:00] That’s the silent promise we bought into: work hard now, and balance will come later. And then later shows up. And instead of balance, we find pressure. We find responsibility and new roles: a partner who needs us, kids who want our time, parents who are aging, teams that rely on us. And the workload? That never shrinks.

So balance—that thing we were promised as the payoff for all our hustle—starts to feel not just elusive, but impossible.

And when that happens, most of us don’t question the system. We blame ourselves. We think, if I had just tried harder, managed better, woke up earlier, or stuck to a better routine...

But the truth is—after living in that loop for far too long—I’ve come to understand that [00:06:00] balance isn’t something you find. It’s something you create. Intentionally. Imperfectly. And in real time.

And the first step to creating it is getting honest.

For me, that started with a few simple but powerful questions: Where is my time actually going? What’s taking up the most mental real estate right now?

Sometimes the answers are obvious: patient care, in-basket messages, meetings, clinical responsibilities. But other times, it's more subtle.

It’s my own expectations. My own inner critic. The voice that says, “You should be doing more. You should be doing better.” And that voice can get very loud.

When I’m not paying attention, it starts driving everything.

And here’s the thing—when we are in that mindset, it becomes almost impossible to make meaningful changes. Because instead of getting curious, we get critical. We judge ourselves. We assume failure.

But when we can step back from that judgment and just observe it, it becomes so much easier to see what’s really happening. To start asking, Is this working? Is this what I want? To see with clarity, kindness, and self-compassion: What’s missing? What’s ready to shift?

Only then can we ask the deeper question: How do I actually want my life to feel right now? Not in some future, “one day when things calm down” kind of way. But right now. This week. In this season.

[00:08:00] Most of us can’t drop everything and start fresh. We can’t walk away from our jobs, our responsibilities, our lives. But we can start making small, deliberate shifts.

Maybe it’s drawing a firmer line at the end of the day—even if it means leaving a few things unfinished. That’s a huge challenge for me.

Maybe it’s protecting one hour a week that’s just for you. To read. To write. To be creative or quiet or still.

Maybe it’s saying, I don’t need this to be productive. I just want it to feel like me.

The key isn’t how big the shift is. It’s that you make one. That you decide this matters.

I used to think I needed a full overhaul—a radical reinvention. But now I see it more like steering a ship. One degree of course correction over time takes you somewhere entirely different.

And yet, even when you know what you want, the doubts are still going to creep in.

[00:09:00] You’ll think, I’ve tried this before. It doesn’t stick. You’ll tell yourself, I don’t have time. I’ll get to it later.

That’s when I’ve learned to shrink the goal.

If I say, “I’m going to work out every morning at 6 a.m.” but I haven’t exercised in a year, I’m setting myself up to fail.

But if I say, “I’ll put on my shoes and stand outside for five minutes”—I can do that. That’s achievable. And when I do that, I rebuild something that matters more than any habit: I rebuild trust with myself.

There’s a metaphor I come back to often. It’s helped me make sense of why balance is such a struggle for physicians.

We dedicated our entire twenties to integrating medicine into our lives. Then we get to the other side of training, fully immersed in our careers, and spend the next 40 years trying to carve our lives out of our careers.

[00:10:00] It’s like trying to extract chocolate syrup from already mixed chocolate milk. It’s impossible.

Okay, maybe not impossible, but probably not the best use of our resources.

Our training isn’t just professional. It’s personal. It shapes our identity, our instincts, our patterns. Medicine doesn’t sit in a box—it seeps into all the other things.

By the time we finish training, we’re already steeped in it. Our habits, our decisions, our priorities—everything is flavored by the chocolate syrup.

So when someone says, “You just need better work-life balance,” what they’re really saying is, “Why don’t you go ahead and try to unmix that chocolate milk?”

We try. We read the books. We make the charts. We build the schedules. We set the boundaries. And still, something feels off. Because the chocolate milk is already mixed.

So what do we do?

We stop trying to separate, and we start embracing the blend.

We shift the question from How do I divide my time perfectly? to How do I want to feel in this moment? What needs more of me right now? And what needs less? And most importantly, What needs to be protected?

This is not about precision. It's about presence. Awareness. Intention.

That’s where the chocolate milk metaphor becomes more than just a clever image—it becomes a way of living.

And this brings us to boundaries. Because this is where the metaphor really takes root.

No, you can’t unmix the milk. But you can choose how much of it you pour, and where.

Boundaries aren’t about building walls or checking out. They’re about staying connected to yourself. They’re about saying, I’m not just a physician. I’m a person—with needs, with desires, with limits.

Boundaries protect what matters: our relationships, our rest, our presence. They keep the good in and the bad out.

[00:12:00] And yes, sometimes the lines blur. Sometimes you’re answering a patient message from the sidelines of a soccer game. But when that becomes the norm—when you’re always available, always responsible, always on—you lose something important.

You lose the space to reflect. To reset. To be.

Boundaries aren’t about perfection. They’re about being intentional.

Maybe it’s not checking email after 6 p.m.

Maybe it’s one weekend a month that’s just for you.

Maybe it’s bringing your laptop on vacation, but only opening it after the kids are asleep.

None of it is perfect. But it’s not supposed to be.

You’re not trying to create balance for the sake of some ideal. You’re creating space for a life that actually feels aligned with your values, your priorities, and your actual lived experience.

And that starts by accepting the mix—and pouring it very carefully.

All of this brings us to something deeper—the thread running underneath so many of our struggles with balance: identity.

For most of my life, “doctor” wasn’t just a job title. It was my core identity. It was my compass, my anchor, my introduction in every new room. And it made sense. I’d worked for it. Sacrificed for it. Built my entire life around it.

But over time, something started to feel off. My life kept growing—marriage, kids, new roles, new interests—but my identity stayed fixed. And when your life expands but your sense of self doesn’t, things start to crack.

For me, it showed up as frustration, irritability, and this quiet kind of numbness. I was doing all the right things, but something didn’t feel right anymore.

Eventually, I realized: I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I had simply evolved. I had changed. I was living inside a version of success that no longer matched who I was becoming.

[00:15:00] And that’s what reinvention really is. Not a failure. Not a breakdown. Just a shift. A quiet moment of truth where you look at your life and ask, What still fits? And what needs to change?

It doesn’t always require a dramatic move. Sometimes, reinvention is subtle. It’s internal. It’s simply acknowledging who you are now and having the courage to let that version of you take the lead.

Sometimes, balance is about recognizing the reinvention that is waiting to happen—or maybe already has—and allowing your life to catch up.

It’s giving yourself permission to evolve without needing permission from anyone else. To update the story you’ve been living. To release the roles that no longer serve you. And to step more fully into the ones that do.

Because the truth is, reinvention isn’t about starting over. It’s about finally living in alignment with who you’ve already become.

Now, let’s zoom out for a moment.

It’s important to recognize that balance isn’t fixed. It’s seasonal. It shifts monthly, weekly, even hourly. What feels right in one moment might feel completely off in the next—and that’s not a problem. That’s a signal.

There are seasons when work takes center stage. And there are seasons when you need to pull back—to invest more deeply in your relationships, your health, your creativity.

Maybe right now, balance looks like being fully present for bedtime stories, even if your in-basket is overflowing.

Maybe it looks like creating space to reflect on what’s next, not because you’re unhappy, but because you’re ready for something more.

Balance doesn’t mean equilibrium at all times. It means asking, What do I need right now? And then respecting and honoring that answer, even when it doesn’t fit your usual definition of success.

[00:17:00] And here’s where I think the conversation about balance needs a major shift, especially in medicine.

There’s a lot of talk these days about work-life integration—and I get the appeal. But frequently, what it really means is no boundaries at all.

It’s the dad on the soccer field answering a Zoom call while trying to watch his kid’s game. It’s the physician on vacation triaging messages between family dinners. And honestly, that kind of integration doesn’t feel like freedom—it feels like erosion. The erosion of rest. Of attention. Of presence.

As physicians, that’s been our default for a long time. We’ve been expected to be available, adaptable, endlessly accommodating. But just because we can work that way doesn’t mean we should.

So here’s the reframe: the goal isn’t total separation. And it isn’t complete fusion either.

The goal is alignment.

To let your work and your life be guided by your values—not just your obligations. To create some type of harmony, not by splitting your time evenly, but by honoring what matters most in each moment.

For me, that’s looked like setting boundaries that I can actually live with. Now, some of you might be horrified to learn that I still bring my work laptop on vacation. But here’s the thing: I don’t check the EMR until the kids are asleep, and I don’t do it every day.

That might not work for you, but it works for me. It helps me enjoy my vacation more, knowing that there aren’t two thousand in-basket messages waiting for me when I get home.

It’s not perfect. But it’s intentional. And that’s what makes the difference.

At the end of the day, this isn’t really about balance. Not in the way we were taught to think about it. It’s about clarity, intention, and permission—the kind you give yourself.

[00:19:00] It’s about recognizing that you’re allowed to change. And that your life can change with you. You’re allowed to evolve. To want different things in different seasons. To show up fully for your work and also make space for the parts of you that exist beyond it.

Because here’s the truth—you’re not just a physician. And you never were. You’re a whole person. With passions. With limits. With a life that deserves to feel like yours.

So let’s stop chasing balance like it’s a gold star we haven’t earned yet. And let’s start building lives that feel more like the people we’ve become.

Most of the time, when we’re talking about work-life balance, it’s from a place of lack. Of frustration. Of feeling like, I don’t have it, so let’s analyze it and fix it.

And that never feels good.

Underneath that impulse is the belief that if we were just better—more efficient, more disciplined, more organized—we’d have it figured out by now.

But what if the problem isn’t you? What if the standard itself is flawed?

Balance, as we’ve been taught to imagine it, is often just another impossible ideal. It asks us to be perfect at everything all at once. And when we inevitably fall short, it turns that failure inward.

That’s why I’ve let go of the myth of perfect balance and started focusing on what actually matters to me in this moment.

That shift has made a huge difference.

It’s why I’ve made peace with checking the EMR once or twice while I’m on vacation—but only when my kids are asleep. It’s not perfect. It’s sustainable. And it’s the boundary I can hold right now. And that’s enough.

And honestly? It’s more freeing than any idea of balance I’ve ever chased.

[00:21:00] Here’s something I wish I had learned years ago: so much of this comes down to self-forgiveness.

We talk about resilience, about boundaries, about optimization. But what we rarely talk about is grace.

The grace to miss a game and still call yourself a good parent.

The grace to leave work undone and still believe you’re a good physician.

The grace to show up messy, real, tired—and still know you’re worthy of rest, and joy, and connection.

When I catch myself slipping into guilt, thinking, I’m failing at all of this, I should be doing more, I try to shift the lens.

I remind myself: maybe I didn’t make it to the band concert this week, but I had breakfast with my kids on Wednesday. I watched them at ice skating. And my kids saw that. They see me working hard, showing up, caring deeply.

We can’t do it all. But we can do what matters. With presence. With intention. One imperfect choice at a time.

Five years into physician coaching, I can tell you this: I haven’t arrived at some magical place of perfect balance. But I have changed.

I no longer define my worth solely by my productivity. I don’t believe being busy is a badge of honor, though I still catch myself falling into that trap sometimes. And I’ve stopped trying to fix myself with someone else’s definition of success.

Some days I leave the office late. I miss dinner. But I show myself grace. I remind myself that I’m doing what I need to do to support my family.

Other days, I close the laptop early—even if the in-basket isn’t empty—because my kids need me more than my charts do.

It’s not about getting it right every time. It’s about recognizing that I’m not just one thing. And I never was. And somehow, I’m doing a pretty good job at being all of them.

And you are too.

[00:23:00] So, as you move through this week, I want to leave you with a few questions:

Where is your time actually going right now?

What’s missing that you wish you had more of?

What’s one small thing you could shift—not to fix your whole life, but just to feel a little more like yourself?

And maybe most important: Who are you becoming? And is your life designed to support that version of you?

If you’ve been chasing balance and feeling like you’re failing, you are not alone.

Maybe it’s time to stop chasing—and start redefining what balance means for you.

Not as perfection—but as presence.

Not as equal time—but as aligned living.

Not as a fixed destination—but as a practice. Gentle. Evolving. And your own.

[00:24:00] Thank you so much for being here today.

If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be honored if you shared it with a friend or left a quick review. That’s how more physicians find this space.

Until next time—keep going. You’re doing better than you think.

We all are.

Have a great week, and I’ll see you next time on Better Physician Life. Take care.