Stepping Off the Hamster Wheel (Without Burning It All Down)

I was meeting with a lovely, brand-new faculty member the other day, and she was doing something truly brave: taking her time figuring out her academic path.  Now, I can “You need a buttoned-up elevator speech for your interviews” with the best of them.  After reading hundreds (thousands?) of medical learner applications, I know the risks of being labeled “pluripotent.”  “They have no direction!” potential colleagues will exclaim.  “How would we ever get them promoted?!” division heads will lament.  Heaven help the modern-day applicant who says earnestly, “I don’t know, I’m just so interested in everything!”  

When I started my faculty career, however, I wasn’t consciously a people-pleaser; I just told myself I wanted to be a good community member and a good colleague.  “You think I’d be good on that committee?” I’d ask, so proud to have been recognized and invited. “Of course I’d be happy to commit to a four-hour meeting every other month!”  After all, I was new, so I had nothing but time.  And I wanted to be liked.  I wanted to be wanted.  My evolutionarily honed negativity bias told me that if I didn’t accept every opportunity I was offered, I’d be branded “cold” and “not a team player.”  The invitations would dry up, I’d become dispensable, eventually be fired, and end up homeless under a bridge.  Because that’s where all my unexamined worst-case scenarios end up: me homeless under a bridge.  

This lovely, brand-new faculty member, on the other hand, was deliberately taking time to figure out what her academic niche would be.  She said he wanted to take a second to “get off the academic hamster wheel,” and figure out where her true interests lay, and whether those true interests were a practical way forward in academic medicine.

There’s something radical about pausing in academic medicine.  We are a culture that valorizes velocity with grant cycles, manuscript deadlines, promotion clocks, and relentless productivity metrics.  To deliberately slow down, to reflect instead of react, can feel downright rebellious.

But that’s what this faculty member was doing.  She wasn’t quitting.  She wasn’t disengaged.  She was being intentional.  She was stepping off the wheel long enough to decide whether the direction and speed of its spin made sense for her.

And that kind of courage?  It’s rare — and essential.

Because the hamster wheel of academic medicine is well-oiled by our collective fear.  Fear of disappointing others.  Fear of irrelevance.  Fear of wasting potential.  Fear of being the one person who opts out while everyone else keeps running.

But here’s the quiet truth: stepping off doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’ve finally looked up.

It’s not about abandoning ambition; it’s about aligning it.

If You’re Thinking About Stepping Off the Wheel

If your inner hamster is exhausted, here are some ways to pause without panic:

1. Call it a sabbatical, even if it isn’t.

You don’t need institutional approval to take an intentional pause.  A “mini-sabbatical” might mean declining new committees, pausing research enrollment, or even spending a few months focusing on the patients or projects that feel most meaningful.  Label it clearly — in your head and in your calendar — as a season of recalibration.

2. Audit your energy, not just your time.

You already know where your hours go.  But where does your energy go?  What tasks leave you energized, and which leave you hollowed out?  Try color-coding your calendar or journaling for a week. The patterns are often startlingly clear.

3. Revisit your values.

When you’re moving fast, you can accidentally live by someone else’s metrics.  Pause long enough to ask: What do I actually care about right now?  What would I be proud to have said yes (or no) to, ten years from now?

4. Find your pause people.

Find one or two colleagues who understand what you’re doing — people who won’t respond to your pause with, “But won’t that hurt your CV?” or “You’re so lucky you can slow down.”  These are the folks who will hold you accountable to your values, not your metrics.

5. Practice saying, “Not right now.”

You don’t have to say no forever.  Sometimes “not right now” is the bravest, most honest sentence in academic medicine.

The Courage to Take a Break

The truth is, the system won’t give you permission to slow down.  The hamster wheel keeps spinning because there’s always another grant deadline, another committee opening, another colleague who could use your help.

You have to grant yourself the pause.

And here’s the surprising thing: when you do, the world doesn’t fall apart.  One of my most senior colleagues reminds people, “This institution ran just fine before you got here, and it’s designed to function just fine after you leave.”  Take a pause to recalibrate.  You won’t lose your job.  You won’t become irrelevant.  You will remember who you are, why you started, and what kind of medicine — and life — you actually want to practice.

That’s not quitting.

That’s leading.