Most dental and medical professionals begin their career with a very noble intention to serve others.
Doctors, dentists, hygienists, nurses, etc., want to make a difference in the health care industry and help people live a healthy life.
Once you graduate dental school and begin work in the real world as a dentist, life, for many professionals, starts to feel overwhelming.
Shortly into your dental career, you decide to buy a dental practice. Now you find yourself overseeing your practice marketing, looking at your P & L, dealing with HR issues, managing people and so much more!
And on top of all this, as if this were not enough, you must keep up with all the changes in our dental industry, rising costs of supplies, equipment, technology; updates and repairs.
I can totally relate because I have experienced this in my life personally as a business owner.
The days, weeks and months, move so quickly that we lose sight of ourselves and our own needs. We forget to put self-care on our list of priorities.
Our families and loved ones suffer because of this overwhelm. We arrive to the office irritable and out of focus. We leave the office and return to our family, our loved ones, worn out. We are physically in our home but mentally we are absent. As a result, our loved ones cannot connect with us. We miss out on a lot of relational cues that our family is giving us and there is a big disconnect that happens.
This happens because usually IQ (Intelligence Quotient) doesn’t match the EQ (Emotional Quotient). A growing our IQ is great for many reasons however, growing our EQ is equally just as important. We are learning that EQ is more important than IQ when dealing with people and living your best life.
If we leave our emotional quotient behind there is usually an imbalance that happens and we think the more we do, the more we achieve. The truth is that more equals less; less efficient.
We become more diluted and we are spread too thin. We are not able to recharge as much as we need. When we allow this to happen we become consumed with too much negativity. Eventually burn out gets the best of us. Next, we notice physical, mental and emotional symptoms. We get fatigued, heart attacks, anxiety attacks and depression take over our life. Truth be told, dentists have one of the highest suicide rates today.
So how do we change all this?
We can’t very well expect things to magically change if we do the same things over and over again, right?
So, we have to rewire our brains.
- We have to allow ourselves to get out of our comfort zone.
- We need to shift the way we deal with our challenges our perspective, increased resilience and delve into the zone of being aware of who we are as humans.
- We have to forgive ourselves more
- We have to break out that pattern of imposing self-inflictive pain; take a step back and acknowledge that our emotions have a purpose.
- We gain back our kindness and compassion by indulging in self-care.
This is a must. If we can just take 5-10 minutes a day to reflect, journal, listen to music or work out, etc.
- We must take a step back to see what we’re letting ourselves get drained with and what we should be thankful for. When you do this, you will feel recharged.
- You become more productive and stresses that seem so big before, will now appear smaller.
It’s important to reconnect with your roots.
Ask yourself, “What are my non-negotiables? “
We must reset, enjoy our home with family. We must be able to enjoy the office with our team members. We must figure out what our emotions mean and how to reconnect with ourselves. Ask yourself, “What is this trying to tell me?”
We can train our brain to wind down. One example where we can do this is to remove our self from the social media vortex. It can be a difficult habit to kick and that’s why it’s even more important to do this. In doing so, we can focus on what our day really looked like and just what happened that our day did not go well.
They say that if you place a dot on a white sheet of paper, people naturally notice the black dot first when in truth, 99% of that paper is white.
We have to bear in mind that when you start doing something that feels uncomfortable, this actually has the potential to make your life happier. When you think about it, leaning into the discomfort is where the growth starts. It’s like trying something new that leads us to a new level we’ve never been before.
I hope you are able to get the gist of this truth that I am trying to relay to you.
If this article has spoken to you and you would like to know more, feel free to get in touch with us and we’ll help you achieve the change you need and desire.
We are only a call away or email away. You can reach us here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debbie Seidel-Bittke, RDH, BS, is the founder and CEO of Dental Practice Solutions. She is a dental consultant, coach, speaker and author. Debbie is a world-class leader in creating profitable hygiene departments and does this by taking an integrative approach with the entire team. Debbie is well-known as a former clinical assistant professor at USC in Los Angeles and a former hygiene department program director. Dentistry Today recognizes Debbie as a Leader in Dental Consulting.
Check out the Dental Practice University to participate in one of her trainings. The training is at our leisure, from your computer, can be used for team meetings (Your personalized trainings in office), it’s intended for doctor and the entire team plus, it includes 16 AGD CE Credits.