We conclude the Finding Joy in the Journey of Medicine series this week by looking at your well-being investment and why language matters.   I’ll break self-maintenance or your investment in your own well-being into - physical care, mental fitness, and emotional health  (including healthy coping strategies and boundaries) to name a few components. Neglecting self-care leads to poorer physical, mental, and emotional health. Putting time and attention toward it, on the other hand, goes a long way to improving how you experience life.   I won’t spend too long flushin ..read more

We are in a series on finding and cultivating joy in the journey of medicine and avoiding the arrival fallacy. This week are on to the next approach: Perspective. I lump several strategies under this category - gratefulness, practical positive cognitive psychology, growth mindset, and self-compassion.    I, along with many others, have written, taught, and coached on all these topics, so I suspect they are not new to you. However, let’s harness these approaches to find joy now rather than waiting for the trip across the proverbial other side of the fence to experience green ..read more

We are continuing to unpack ways in which to begin enjoying the joy in the journey of medicine as we work toward our goals. We have already discussed awareness and expectations & acceptance  -  this week we are focusing on intentionality - scheduling, mindful presence, and alignment. I implore you to look through a self-compassionate lens on this week's topic. Don't allow your inner critic to beat you up. Look for one or two small tweaks you can make and build consistency in. This is a process to build up over time.    So many of us have been deceived by the arriva ..read more

We are on the quest to uncover your personalized way to best enjoy the journey of medicine. Last week, I introduced the concept of a multi-pronged approach and covered the initial step – awareness. That leaves expectations, intentionality, maintenance, perspective, and language. Today, we start with expectations (and acceptance).    Expectations can be tricky.   I used to joke as my husband completely renovated two houses over 8-11 years each: "low expectations equals high satisfaction.” In reality, what worked for me as I cooked on a butane camping burner for three years, was n ..read more

We are on a blog journey about finding and creating joy along our paths in medicine. Last week, we defined joy for the purposes of this blog. This week, I want to turn our attention to awareness - where wonderful things start to find their way under our agency. Awareness of the trap, the current joys, the gap, and possibility of finding joy in the journey.    First a recap. We, as physicians, are, for the most part, goal-oriented, task-driven individuals. This can be a wonderful thing. However, we often delay gratification and tolerate many difficult circumstances to make i ..read more

For my new blog series, I am tackling how to enjoy the journey of medicine. Many greater philosophers, leaders, and authors than me have taken on the expansive subject. So, I find myself questioning my ambitious quest to assist readers in this manner, especially divorced from personal coaching. However, the one thing I have learned after over 3 years of weekly blogs is I need to write about what weighs on my mind.     And currently, that is how to shift to finding pleasure along our paths to our destination instead of when we get there. This seems timely, as we just went through ..read more

For my new blog series, I thought I would tackle how to enjoy the journey of medicine.  Many greater philosophers, leaders, and authors than myself have taken on the expansive subject. So, I find myself questioning my ambitious quest to assist readers in this manner, especially divorced from personal coaching. However, the one thing I have learned after over 3 years of weekly blogs is I do my best writing whatever is on my mind. And currently, that’s learning to take pleasure in the steps we take to get to where we are going. And it's timely as we just went through Match week and some wen ..read more

Confidence is a beautiful thing. Over the past few weeks, we reviewed the typical way one gains confidence - growing competence over time by gaining experience. We also covered common saboteurs – perfectionism, the inner critic, impostor phenomenon, comparison, external validation, and projected judgment along with steps to combat them. And now, we are looking at ways to improve confidence further.      The growth mindset is the basis of overcoming those previous sappers of your confidence and growing more. Carol Dweck has been the leading researcher and publisher on the topic ..read more

We are in week 3 of a 4-week series on confidence. The first week we reviewed the normal development of confidence and last week, we reviewed a trio of issues that interfere with gaining confidence and actually often unjustly decrease confidence. This week we look at three more common interrupters – comparison, external validation, and projected judgment.   “Comparison is the thief of joy” has been attributed to a few famous leaders. Regardless of who said it, it is so true. Although it’s a normal human action that our brains use to make sense of the world, comparing ourselves to others o ..read more

We all have areas we are more confident in than other areas of our lives. It's natural. Overcoming insecurities is a powerful thing that takes dedication and trust. In the coming weeks, we will uncover the issues that get in the way of this process and open a dialogue about having self-confidence when doing something new. Today we dig into the typical process of growing in confidence.   Merriam-Webster gives the essential definition of confidence as "a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something." It's a "belief in yourself and in your abilities and power ..read more