Manji’s Four-Step Program for Overcoming Professional Burnout

If you are a dentist-owner, I’m willing to bet that one of the reasons you went into this profession is because of the allure of developing a sustainable, independent practice—a practice where you can have professional autonomy and build a business that serves the needs of you, your team and your patients, while giving you time to enjoy life. That’s the dream, anyway, and it is an achievable one in this profession. It’s why more and more young adults with ambitions for a career in the health sciences are turning to dentistry over general medicine. They see the potential for fulfillment and freedom, for doing good while doing well.

The secret to achieving this dream is something that young dentists often ask me about, but it really applies to any dentist at any stage in their career. In fact, I maintain that there are really only four things you need to do to reach ultimate success in dentistry:

1. Master the clinical journey. You’ll notice I don’t say “master clinical excellence,” because there is no such thing as completing your mastery. The people who do great things in any profession are passionate about what they do and passionate about continual improvement. Look at clinical excellence as a lifelong journey, as a way of thinking, and keep that passion alive.
2. Master your time. I’ve written about this here before in a few places, but a fundamental part of seizing control of your life is taking control of your time. That means being realistic about all the things you need to do—in the practice, on the practice, and away from the practice—and being unconditional about designating the right time for each.
3. Master your value. Without a keen appreciation for how to communicate the value of quality dentistry, even the greatest clinician in the world would have trouble keeping a practice thriving.
4. Master the value of time. We all have the same number of hours but not all hours are created equal. You need to ensure that your schedule is strategically designed—not just the right number of cases but the right kind of cases—to achieve the economic goals that fuel success in all other areas of the practice.

Now of course, there are a lot of strategies behind each of these imperatives—more than I can communicate in the scope of a single blog post. But the point is, the dream is alive for anyone practicing dentistry and it should be inspiring to know that with the right commitment, and the right help, it’s only four steps away.