It’s a marathon, not a sprint

WELL-BEING

By Emi Radetich, PharmD

There are a lot of transitions a new practitioner can experience going from student to professional. New training program, new job, new leadership roles… But there is one transition no one talks about enough: learning how to have fun.

Ah, fun… I haven’t heard that name in years. If you told me even a year ago that I would be writing an article about wellness, I would have laughed. Looking back, I really was not a friend to myself, and I should have taken my wellness as seriously as my productivity. Now, I’ve gone from someone who almost never had a day off to someone who ran her first marathon—and no, I am not a former Division 1 athlete. Every achievement pales in comparison to the achievement of finding balance between work and wellness.

So why is wellness so important? And how is it possible to cultivate as a new practitioner? Here’s a guide on how to become a friend to yourself:

Let’s start with why wellness is so important

Before I was committed to a life of balance, I scoffed at wellness as a luxury only Pilates-going, Stanley-owning, Range-Rover-driving girlies could afford. Turns out, I could not be further from the truth. Introducing: burnout.

Burnout is far more than just being tired. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, defines burnout as emotional exhaustion. “Burnout as a sense of emotional exhaustion that’s both persistent and impairing, meaning it’s not just a blip— it sticks,” Grant reported at BetterUp’s Uplift conference in April 2024. Just like you should not go for days on end without sleep, you should not go for days on end without a break from work. Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is take a break and refresh your mind.

So how do you achieve a well-balanced worklife?

The easiest way I can describe my process is by example—let’s look at my journey into running. I started running more seriously in spring of 2024 to train for a marathon in the fall. As a simultaneous novice runner and pharmacy resident, I had to find a constructive way to tackle this goliath task, so I broke it down into the following steps.

1.    Plan your schedule out as far as you possibly can, including time for wellness. Do not schedule over wellness time blocks.
2.    Find people who share the same interests as you, such as recreational groups or coworkers.
3.    Say no to extra tasks that do not fulfill your priorities. 
4.    Stop procrastinating. (I know; it’s hard.)

Fortunately, the steps are as simple as that. You may have seen the phrase “you cannot pour from an empty cup” all too many times stitched into TJ Maxx pillows, but every cliché starts with a boulder of truth. Prioritize your wellness as much as you do your professional activities, and I can promise that you will see your life transform for the better. 

You may even see new heights you didn’t know were possible.

Emi Radetich, PharmD, is a PGY2 pharmacy informatics resident at University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City, UT, and a member of the 2024–2025 APhA New Practitioner Network Communications Standing Committee. She is passionate about the well-being of systems, both in health care infrastructure and people alike. When Emi is not analyzing data in spreadsheets, she enjoys spending time with her loved ones, skiing, and running.