Most of us really value the importance of work life balance. Especially now, it seems to be more important than ever. My guest today is Andrew, a dentist in the UK. Andrew came to a crossroads in his career when he was forced to make a tough decision. He had to choose between continuing on in a very happy, successful dental practice or walking away from that to maintain the most important relationship in his life. See how it turned out for him…

Three years ago, I came to a junction in my life where I really struggled. It turned into the toughest few months that I have ever experienced but it did teach me a big lesson in perspective.

My girlfriend and I had been happily living together for a couple of years in Bristol, a city in the South West of England, when she was offered a place to train as an orthodontist in London. It was too good to turn down and within a few weeks she had moved to the capital to start her specialist training.

Unfortunately, this move turned both of our lives upside-down. Overnight, we went from spending all of our time together to only seeing each other for a few short hours at weekends. I know that Lydia struggled but for me particularly, it felt like a huge upheaval even though I hadn’t moved anywhere. Our once cosy, little flat now felt really lonely to me.

At work, everything was going brilliantly. I was well established in a great practice where I had a busy list of patients who trusted me. In return, I loved caring for them and I was working in a brilliant, little team. My boss trusted and supported me. I felt I had the perfect set up where I was learning new skills, working hard and being well rewarded for it.

Professionally, there was absolutely no reason for me to change a thing. But every night I came home to the same empty flat.

To view my new habits from the outside would have been comical. Previously, I had enjoyed cooking and was getting quite good at it. But it didn’t seem worth making the effort to cook for one. So every night, I did the same thing. On the way home from work, I popped into the local supermarket, bought a family size lasagna (these things are made to feed four people) and spent my evening slowly working my way through it. When I was done, I might toddle down to the corner shop for some sweets or just go to bed early. I had nothing to stay up for.

Internally, I felt completely torn. I was desperately trying to decide whether to put my relationship first or my career. It was really hard being away from Lydia but she was the one who had moved. My career was progressing exactly as I wanted and surely I should have the chance to put myself first as Lydia had? But we were both so low and it was clear that spending the three years of Lydia’s training apart was going to place a huge strain on our relationship.

I had one period of about three weeks where I literally would just come home every evening and cry. Sometimes I cried down the phone to someone but most of the time I just cried on my own.

The eureka moment came one evening when I was crying down the phone to some poor person, and I said that if I lost Lydia at the expense of my career, it wasn’t worth it. When I heard myself say that, it felt like everything fell into place.

It was at that point I realised that I had never really had a choice. I had to put Lydia and my personal happiness first.

That week, I handed in my notice and shortly afterwards I moved to London. Lydia and I sorted ourselves a flat in the East End and have lived there since. Wonderfully, we got married last July.

My crucial realisation was that my career existed to serve me, not the other way around. If my work had got to the point that it now required such personal sacrifices, it wasn’t worth it. Something needed to change.

We can get so bound up in ambitions of personal achievement and the drive towards a perfect career that we lose sight of why we go to work in the first place. You work to provide the life that you want. There’s no point in a super-duper career if it consumes everything else in your life. This is where work life balance comes in.

Of course, your career is important. It can provide for your family’s needs as well as providing you with meaningful work. But if it’s no longer compatible with the rest of your life, something needs to give.

At that point, you need to consider what is most important to you.

Dr. Andrew Wilson qualified as a dentist in 2011 from the University of Bristol. Since then he has worked in general practice. He loves the relationships he builds with patients in general practice and believes that this is the big perk of being a dentist. In 2017, he launched a website called The Online Dentist, a website aimed at empowering families to take control of their dental health. At the start of 2018 year, he created The Art of Dentistry. In the articles, he shares his views on how to understand your own value as a professional, convey that value to your patients through positive communication and balancing life and work to make your career serve you.