Therapists Wellbeing: Balancing Work, Life, and Professional Developments – Kelly Lynch

By Kelly Lynch – LCSW, Life Coach, Fitness Trainer, Nutrition Coach, Retired EMT
Founder of Turning Point Wellness and The GRIIT Project

I’ve said to my clients – both jokingly and not-so-jokingly – for years, that life is beautiful, but it’s also important to remember it’s a four letter word (if you catch my drift). As therapists, we’re taught to aspire to ascend to places of peace, become self-actualized, and be these ethereal  beings that people look up to and say ‘I wanna be like you.’

The Myth of Balance

Frankly… the idealism in pursuing that version of life feels utterly exhausting.

We all know that life can be great, but sometimes, life is gonna life. Working in a field that’s immersed in the dialectics of ‘both/and,’ it’s essential to remember that and offer grace to ourselves. After all, we all have the occasional seat reserved on the Struggle Bus, right?

In order to create consistent space to celebrate the upsides of life while also being able to manage the downsides, it’s important to remember a few things:

1. Balance isn’t ever going to be set in stone.
2. Ability and capacity are incredibly different.
3. Your goals, and the timeline for those goals, are your own… and they can change.

Let’s unpack this together, shall we? First up, let’s look at the idea of balance.

Balance isn’t set in stone.

We’re socialized to prioritize the idea of work/life balance, but tell me honestly – when was the last time you felt like you really had that nailed down? There’s a constant pressure we all can feel, and that pressure revolves around responsibilities, expectations, meeting the wants and needs of those around us, and more. If we’re really being honest – even though life looks different for all of us – that pressure can be suffocating at times.

We’re told to do more with less, be more perfect, word harder (but not always smarter), and oh yeah – make sure you’ve got that good old balance really – and consistently – nailed down. Totally realistic. Right? Riiiiight.

In 15 years of being a practicing psychotherapist, I’ll be honest with you – I have yet to meet a single person who’s truly mastered the application of this idea. Balance is a wonderful idea, but that’s all it is….an idea. I’ve watched too many wonderful, talented clinicians attempt to create balance in their lives and careers, and absolutely burn out on trying to keep it consistent. For some, it meant leaving the field entirely. For others, it meant resigning themselves to staying in dead end positions they have no desire to be in, but they became so burnt out it became impossible for them to muster the energy needed to make a move in literally any other direction.

In order to protect our field and the profoundly important work we all do, I propose an alternative – stop trying to force balance to be static.

Instead, we need to look more at how we experience both seasons of life and adjustments to life, and what the energy is that we need to manage those things. Balance wants to ebb and flow. When we lean into managing energy, balance becomes a normal and natural extension of how we manage those energetics.

Seasons of Life and Adjustments to Life

So, seasons of life are exactly what they sound like – seasons. They’re transient, impermanent, and can be so many variations of good and bad, easy and hard, and so much more. As I’m writing this, I’m in the beginning stages of a parenting season – my daughter is 11, and beginning the shift into her teen years. There’s moments of it being messy and chaotic (all you pre-teen and teen parents… I know you know what I mean), but there’s also moments of it being beautiful, full of connection for us as mother and daughter, and wholly rewarding to watch her grow into herself. There’s a particular level of energy this season will require of me as a mom, and that energy will be decidedly different from the energy that parenting required of me when my daughter was an infant, and a toddler, and a grade school child. And that’s just the thing about seasons – they’re all different, and they don’t ever stop coming at us. As life ebbs and flows, balance wants to ebb and flow right along with it.

Just the same as seasons of life are constantly happening, so are adjustments to life. Adjustments to life are the changes we make when something permanently shifts. This could be marriage, divorce, the death of a spouse or a parent, the birth of a child, buying a house, graduating college for the final time, a major medical diagnosis, and so much more. When the landscape of your life is forever altered by an event, there’s an adjustment that has to happen, because suddenly everything is different when we’re thrust into a ‘new normal.’ That ‘new’ will require a different quality of energy from us than the ‘old,’ and it’s important to both consider and keep that in perspective. Oh yeah – balance will change again too.

So before chasing balance – consider –

Am I in a season of life, or am I in an adjustment to life?

What does this space in my life require of me, and how can I care for the energy it’s asking for?

And remember – caring for the energy life is asking for from us, means considering what the gap is between your ability and your capacity in each season, and during every adjustment.

Understanding Ability vs. Capacity

Ability and capacity are incredibly different.

Ability is all about your skill set – it’s the literal knowledge you possess for how to complete a particular task. Capacity, on the other hand, is all about the energy you possess to actually complete said task.

Let’s use session notes as an example here. I think this one will be relatable for all of us!

We all, as knowledgeable, trained professionals, have the ability to write session notes. We know how to, we all know various formats for writing them (I’m solidly team SOAP), and many of us have been performing this task competently for years, if not decades. Why, then, do so many of us struggle with staying up to date on notes?

Capacity, friends. Capacity will be determined by how well you slept the night before, if you’re sick or if you’re healthy, how much the kids are demanding of you and from you, what your body feels like based on the weather, if your neurodivergent or neurotypical, if you’re dehydrated, if you’re well fed, and so much more. And this again is why, instead of chasing balance, we need to instead shift to focusing on how we manage our energy.

Think about it this way.

The more pressure that’s put on you to complete notes, while providing good clinical care, while also meeting all your other job expectations, doing your billing in a timely manner, getting case management things done, and then make sure you go home to your family, kids, fur-kids, friends, and partner with the energy stored up to also offer to them, the more chance you’ll run of falling flat on your face.

It’s unrealistic to think you, me, or anyone else, has all the capacity, all the time, to manage all the things. So let’s offer ourselves a bit of grace here.

A former mentor of mine once told me that all people ask some variation of three questions, all the time. The questions are:

1. Is ‘it’ possible?
2. Do I have permission?
3. Will you go with me?

When we look at capacity, offering grace means answering these questions something like this –

‘It’s not possible for me to have all the capacity, all the time, for all the things. Instead, I give myself permission that it’s acceptable and also healthy to choose what I’m willing to prioritize from one moment to the next. I also give myself permission that it’s ok to not accomplish everything on my to-do list every single day. Things will be there waiting for me tomorrow. And, it’s ok for me to ask for help when I’m struggling. Asking for help isn’t a reflection of my ability – it’s a reflection of my humanity. And that’s a-ok.’

By leaning into these ideas – that it’s possible to be a competent professional without also having to be a perfect professional, that’s it’s acceptable to choose what to prioritize (and that it’s ok to rearrange those priorities if need be), and that asking for help isn’t a failure but rather is just a reflection of that you’re a whole entire human being who’s a collection of a whole bunch of different things – it becomes so much easier to give grace to how much our capacity will ebb and flow.

And while your capacity will ebb and flow, so will your goals.

Embracing the Evolution of Goals

Your goals, and the timeline for those goals, are your own… and they can change.

Back in 2017, I was in the throes of collecting a whole bunch of different certifications. I’ve got a bunch of alphabet soup chasing after my name now – life coach, nutrition coach, and personal trainer (among a couple other things) got added to the collection I started with Emergency Medical Technician and LCSW. I had this big idea that I was going to start a holistic coaching practice and offer wellness coaching to single moms. I was tired of doing generalist clinical work, I didn’t really have a specialty to speak of anywhere in my professional life, and wanted something to hang my hat on that felt meaningful.

I got divorced in 2014, and while my divorce was quick, it was highly contentious and the darkest time of my adult life. My daughter was 1.5 years old, and all I could think about in those months and the year I spent getting back on my feet was her well-being. After that first year, though, I realized how much my health had suffered because of the stress I experienced, and that so many other single moms had similar stories. I wanted to help.

So, off I went, collecting certifications. I loved every bit of it, and paid close attention to how my life was changing for the better because of the things I studied. What I didn’t notice, though, until well after the certification process had finished up, was how much my goals had also changed in the process of studying.

I started a coaching practice in 2017 called The Unapology Project, and clung onto it until 2021 because I was trying to force it to be successful. Here’s the thing though… I had no idea how to market the practice, I had haphazard programs in it that I just threw together and called it good (it wasn’t), and I never got a single client. I didn’t put any effort into learning how to actually market, and blamed that on feeling burnt out. The honest answer, though, was that my goals had changed when I wasn’t looking. When I finally stopped being stubborn and admitted it to myself – I closed the business and shifted gears.

Today, I specialize in my therapy practice in working with first responders. I’m a retired EMT, and the clinical specialty just made sense after I finally opened myself up to it. Over the last decade of being in private practice, I’ve become a subject matter expert on matters related to EMS, I’ve provided testimony in Connecticut about PTSD bills for first responders, and have consulted with both national EMS organizations and clinicians looking to build a specialty in working with first responders. The work is fulfilling, it keeps me in touch with a community that – in many ways – raised me, and gives me a space to help the helpers.

In my coaching practice, I specialize in helping entrepreneurs rescue their personal lives by learning how to leverage their professional skills into personal successes, and I offer branding coaching to clinicians in private practice. I created two methods, called GRIIT and POWER, which I use to help teach my clients how to live well and in alignment, while solving problems effectively and efficiently. I speak nationally and internationally on matters related to mindset and problem solving, along with private practice development. And best of all, I published my first book in February (F*ck the Rules), which became an overnight bestseller on Amazon.

That’s not anywhere close to working with single moms!

There’s an evolution that wants to happen to all of us, both as professionals but also as people. Just as important as it is to manage our energy through the seasons and adjustments we experience in life, it’s also important to allow space for that evolution to happen. We all tell our clients that it’s ok for their goals to change as they change – don’t forget the same holds just as true for you and me.

Along with it being ok for goals to change, it’s also ok for the timeline of those goals to change. It’s important to remind ourselves that literally nothing has to be set in stone if we don’t want it to be.

The Importance of Flexibility in Goal Timelines

You may find you have a really specific idea of what working on a goal will be like, and how quickly you think you can accomplish it. What most of us don’t plan for, though, is all the things we realize and learn along the way. This is where timelines change. It’s important to allow space for that, just as it’s important to allow space for the ebb and flow of seasons and adjustments we’ll all experience in our lives.

When we create space for life to stretch its legs out, to move and to grow in the directions it wants to, and learn how to grow alongside it, there’s a beautiful partnership we start to be able to create between our dreams, our reality, and everything that exists in between.

Conclusion: Offering Yourself Grace

I think the simplest answer here is – make sure you take your own advice, and give yourself just as much grace and kindness as you tell your clients to give to themselves.

Remember that life is both beautiful, and it’s a four letter word. Dialectics are everywhere, and while a middle ground can exist and we can sometimes see it, we can’t always reach it. That’s not a failure – that’s just part of the human experience. It’s important to allow room for that to exist.

I invite you today to start with choosing to believe in possibility, that feeling cared for, considered, and ‘held’ is possible, no matter what your capacity is in any given moment. It’s possible, because it begins with you and the way you show up for yourself before all else.

And then, I invite you to lean hard into permission. This is your life, your career, your business. You don’t ‘have to’ do this. You ‘get to’ do this. You can do it your way, because your way is the right way… for you.

Personally, I can’t think of anything more incredible than that.

Go be great. <3

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