The World Needs You, Vet Med

Way too many veterinary professionals are suffering from⁣⁣⁣
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➤ career regret⁣⁣⁣
➤ feelings of inadequacy⁣⁣⁣
➤ feelings of incompetence⁣⁣⁣
➤ lack of confidence⁣⁣⁣
➤ generalized anxiety⁣⁣⁣
➤ compassion fatigue⁣⁣⁣
➤ financial concerns⁣⁣⁣
➤ mood swings⁣⁣⁣
➤ self-loathing⁣⁣⁣
➤ over-eating⁣⁣⁣
➤ over-drinking⁣⁣⁣
➤ over-spending⁣⁣⁣
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The shame that results is crushing. 😔⁣⁣⁣
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The belief it will never get better is overwhelming. 😩⁣⁣⁣
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The result:⁣⁣⁣
We hold on to the top of that Terrible Top 10 list. 😢⁣⁣⁣
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🤔 But there’s something most of us don’t know…⁣⁣⁣
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⭐️I𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐲!🌟⁣⁣⁣
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𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘷𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘦! ⁣⁣⁣
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How it is right now, is not how it has to stay!⁣⁣⁣
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The truth is, you already have everything you need to create a career you enjoy and a life you love, you just don’t know how to tap into it.⁣⁣⁣
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You don’t believe it is possible.⁣⁣⁣
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(I Promise, It Is!)⁣⁣⁣
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We CAN get off the top ten list, and it starts by proving false what we’ve been taught to believe about what is possible for us in this profession, and in our lives as veterinary professionals. ⁣⁣⁣
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We create the lives we want one decision at a time. ⁣⁣⁣
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Curious? Check out my Free Webinar.
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The world needs what only you can provide to the veterinary profession.

What If You Are Normal

I have a question for you this week….

What if you’re normal?

What if patients not getting better don’t mean you’re bad at your job?
What if angry clients don’t mean that you’re doing it all wrong?
What if all that student loan debt doesn’t mean you’ve chosen the wrong career?
What if your anxiety, and the nights you’ve spent worrying about your cases doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you?

What if you’re just normal?

Here’s the truth…

Most of us think we are the only broken ones… the ones doing it all wrong… the ones who never should have gone to vet school in the first place.

From there we can spiral downward very quickly….

We start believing we are total imposters, a waste of space, a burden to those around us, and then we make decisions we can’t take back.

But, what if we are all just normal?

What if feeling insecure, inadequate, anxious and afraid are all just part of how this works?

Then what?

Now don’t be tempted to conclude you’re screwed… many of us would go there.

Instead, just recognize it for what it really is… just part of a journey you are meant to take.

This is just the part where it’s time to grow again… where the discomfort  of where you are is unbearable long-term, so you find yourself reconsidering everything.  

I like to think about this time as what a caterpillar would feel like just before it breaks out of the cocoon. Tight, cramped, thinking this cocoon building thing was a terrible idea… something has gone terribly wrong… worst. decision. ever.

Right now as YOU reconsider all aspects of your life, you’re drawing the same conclusion: worst. decision. ever.

But what if you’re normal?

What if, like the caterpillar, this is all just part of the process, and the real magic starts when you grow out of where you are right now?

That caterpillar didn’t even know it would become a butterfly, let alone how to fly, when it was in the cocoon, it had no idea what was coming next… but it knew staying put wasn’t an option.

What if not knowing what is coming next is an intentional part of the journey?

When you allow yourself to consider this, you can let go of the belief that everything is going wrong. When you let go of that, it becomes a whole lot easer to believe you are normal.

Just start there.

What if you are normal? What becomes possible then?

Why you don’t believe in yourself in Vet Med

There is a bit of an epidemic spreading through the veterinary profession.

It’s so embedded into who we are, that we don’t even know it’s there… let alone realize how it is influencing every single thing in our lives.

The epidemic > lack of belief in ourselves.

There is a lot of responsibility that comes with the careers we’ve chosen, and a lot of heartache. As the medical professionals, we want all of our patients to get better… and we mistakenly believe that when we do our jobs the right way, our patients improve.

That’s not the way this works, my friend. Medical outcomes are not something we control.

Unfortunately, many of us judge ourselves harshly when the outcomes are not as expected.

We begin to believe we aren’t cut out for this job, we aren’t good enough, we’re imposters.

And when clients say nasty things to us… we start to believe that too.

What’s worse, this growing lack of belief in ourselves is quiet. It’s sneaky. It infiltrates our entire lives and most of us have no idea the extent to which it is influencing our decisions and actions every day.

I talked about this in a  Joyful DVM Facebook Live were I shared three stories many of us tell, and believe. These types of stories area the warning signals that your belief in yourself is waning… so you definitely need to be able to recognize them when they pop up.  To listen to the replay, CLICK HERE.

Know This: I believe in you! I know you are not a member of this profession by accident. I remember all you’ve already achieved to even be able to call yourself a veterinary professional. And I know there are amazing things in store for you in the future once you start believing in you, too.

Are You A Perfectionist?

Do you describe yourself as a perfectionist?

Many of us do… and we wear it like a badge of honor.  

But here’s the thing… it’s killing us, literally.

The need to be perfect, to have perfect outcomes for each case, to have perfect relationships with clients so they never get upset (or worse, so they don’t think we are incompetent) is an exhausting and impossible task.

We were never meant to be perfect… and certainly not in this profession where we practice veterinary medicine. 🤔

The thing is, when we hold ourselves to an impossible standard of perfection, we then begin to expect the same from everyone around us. It’s a lose/lose situation.

It leaves no room for anybody to just be human and make mistakes… and it results in a cesspool of drama in our lives.

Here’s the truth: We are human and we will make mistakes!

Sometimes those mistakes will involve our patients… and that is why liability insurance exists… to protect us and provide for the client when our humanism shows.

If perfection were the expectation, and the overwhelming standard, we wouldn’t need liability insurance at all.

(See how silly this sounds when we look at it this way?).

In a Facebook Live Event, I talked about the dangers of Perfectionism… you can check it out HERE.

Where do you see perfectionism showing up in your life? 

Drop me a comment and let me know.

Remember, it’s veterinary practice, not veterinary perfection, my friends!