In previous articles I shared the 3 Steps for Women In Medicine to Have a Stress-Free Day and how to Wrap Up Your Day In A Powerful Way. These articles established the book ends for your day. Now it’s time to make the moments in the middle matter.
As a medical professional it is essential to have practices in your day that support your professional and personal growth. This is particularly important when you are invested in having a thriving medical career or practice, want to create a sustainable work environment, and have a life you desire.
To have a successful day you have to plan. As the saying goes “if you fail to plan then you plan to fail.” No one wakes up in the morning with a plan to fail. But lacking strategies to combat the stressful, unpredictable events that you may encounter while seeing patients and interacting with your team can easily derail your best intentions.
Here are the steps for making the moments in the middle of your day matter most. It is during these moments that you renew your commitment to your morning intention, so that you stay in your power and allow yourself to have a stress-free, productive, and purposeful day.
1. Identify your triggers.
You head to the hospital with the expectation of a productive, stress-free day. Then it happens. Maybe your first two patients for the morning arrive late for their appointment. Maybe a key team member or office staff takes a sick day. Whatever the scenario, you are triggered. From this new place you have shifted away from your morning intention and are now focused on what is going wrong. This opens the door to replaying similar events when your day went awry.
Learning what triggers you is the first step to make the moments in your day matter most because now you have uncovered the problem and can doing something differently.
2. Accept your reaction.
You are triggered. What do you do? Do you allow your day to be thrown off course? Or do you know how to easily get back on track and into alignment with the intentions you set in the morning. It’s completely natural to let your day get derailed. From time to time it happens to most of us in medicine. There is the human factor of working with people with different skill sets and knowledge base. There is the emotional aspect of caring for patients who are at their most vulnerable and are looking to the doctors, nurse practitioners, and nurses for information and reassurance. The stakes are high in medicine and the pressure matches it.
When things seem beyond your control it is natural to focus on the problem. When you are problem focused, the solutions are often slow to reveal themselves. Accept your reaction without judgment. Then ask yourself, “Is it helping you? What is another way to be in this moment?”
3. Create a new positive response.
This step is about shifting back into alignment with your intention so that your solutions can be revealed. Now that you have identified your trigger and are aware of your reaction, take a break. Take 5 deep breaths. With each breath, welcome the shift. Energetically move away from the trigger and the usual reaction. Realign with your intention and create a new positive and empowering response. What do you want instead? How do you want to feel?
Remember that as a medical professional you are exchanging energy with everyone you interact with: the doctors, nurses, practitioners, patients, families, administrative staff, ancillary staff, and interdisciplinary team. You impact them with your positive or negative energy just as they impact you. When you choose a positive response, you own your value and power.
The moments of your day matter. They add up. They shape your life. Awareness of your reactions to the issues of healthcare and deciding to shift your focus on solutions creates an empowered professional.
If reacting to the triggers in healthcare are leaving you exhausted, stressed out, and out of balance, we should talk. Schedule you free Discovery Session today at www.NurturingMDs.com
