Nurture your spark   

By Christina Harnett, PhD, Johns Hopkins University

Many healthcare professionals struggle with the tension between purpose and pressure, often to high-stakes decisions, moral distress, and the systemic pressures of medicine. When the operational tempo accelerates and resources shrink, meeting your own needs can feel like a luxury or a long-forgotten memory. Reconnecting with that sense of vibrancy and fulfillment you once held is essential for vitality, well-being, and providing excellent patient care. Reclaiming your spirit is the key to reigniting your spark.  

Your career can be a platform for living fully—not a cage that confines you. The potential costs of diminished spirit are both visible and invisible. Reduced career satisfaction, a robotic focus on daily tasks, and decreased vitality in creating and pursuing career/life goals are a few effects. You may feel you have to choose work over activities that refuel your spirit. Consider what could happen if you open the door to enjoying the passions that matter most to you—you may find you feel more balanced and energized. Reignite your spark for yourself, the patients you serve, and for those closest to you. 

“Spirit resilence”

During a recent CME session, I introduced my audience to the notion of “spirit resilience” as the spark that communicates vitality and passion in career and life engagements. This rarely discussed topic surprised the audience and prompted personal reflections on how their spirit might have dimmed across time. Given the many changes in practice that medicine has undergone in a very short time, participants had a solid context for generating insights through their reflections. The reality is that you know when your spirit is diminished, and others (colleagues, patients, and loved ones) sense it too, in your behaviors and communications. 

Spirit resilience isn’t simply moving forward day-to-day, keeping commitments to patients, colleagues, and family. It’s a practice-based perspective on living the good life, centered in a dynamic process facilitated by life animators—activities that you love and that evoke joy, fun, creativity, meaning, and connection to someone or something. Spirit resilience is the “spark” that brings you to life.

Life animators

Life animators are those activities that “give you life.” It involves intentional engagement in life-giving practices as a pathway to renewal. Life animators as the path vary—art, music, nature, laughter, sports, service, family engagement, religious practices—each person’s are unique. They can help you reclaim balance, energy, and passion.

We know from the literature in medicine that clinician burnout affects patient safety, quality of care, and career satisfaction. Focusing on life-giving practices in this high-stress profession where positivity may disappear under the weight of responsibility provides an antidote to a depleted emotional state—it supports resetting your disposition by prioritizing “you” as the vehicle for your work and serves to strengthen professional identity.

Positive psychology research is clear—focus on positivity and renewal carries direct benefits such as enhanced emotional states, increased empathy, greater access to cognitive resources, and enhanced decision-making. It may also improve authentic physician presence as experienced by patients.

Spirit resilience prioritizes renewal over endurance. Moreover, this reconnection to your authentic self, values, and passion restores your vitality. At the start of this new year, make a commitment to reignite your spark. Consider conducting a life animator audit. Ask yourself: 

1. What activities renew you? What activities do you enjoy?  

2. When was the last time you engaged in any of them? 

3. Get out your calendar and schedule time for them regularly (i.e. daily weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly). If they aren’t on your schedule, chances are they won’t happen.  

In closing, consider the below quotation that addresses the double-edged sword of ambition—the pursuit of an exceptional career may diminish living an extraordinary life: “The career that was pursued to facilitate an extraordinary life can dominate . . . leaving little room for anyone or anything else.” So, remember to boost your spirit resilience through intentional and continuous engagement with uplifting activities.

Finally here’s a fantastic resource: “Four tools for reducing burnout by finding work-life balance.”

Click here to learn more about the author.

This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.