One Person, One Percent: My Why

For as long as I can remember, my life was all about the “grit, grind and suck it up willpower” to achieve my goals.  I kept a positive attitude and knew how to “keep on keeping on” because let’s face it- as a student in medicine, life was regimented during the schooling days.  The steps were laid out and I just needed to do whatever it took to keep progressing towards the one big goal of becoming a doctor.  I’ve always seen myself as someone who needed to study harder or work harder than others in order to achieve the same results.  So pushing myself and using willpower became my superpowers.  I would pride myself on being able to pull off “all-nighters” and 30 hour calls during residency as a rite of passage to achieving my dream of becoming a doctor. 

As a new attending after residency, I felt as though the sidewalk just abruptly ended and there was no longer a cleared path for me to walk.  The learning curve was high and I had difficulty figuring out my own identity, especially without the positive reinforcements I received in residency.  I still felt like I had to work harder than my colleagues so I continued to push myself by staying late after shifts, doing charts at home in order to keep up and prove my worthiness.  This worked for me in my early years, but as life progressed, I struggled to find a balance.  I would spend off days recovering from my shift and finishing notes rather than living life.  I felt lost.

Everyone else seemed to be thriving and I felt like a failure.  On the outside, things seemed fine.  There was no rock-bottom moment.  I was a positive, energetic person, but on the inside, I was in constant survival mode and spinning in a web of negativity.  I was a cheerleader for others, this came naturally to me.  But I spoke to myself in a different way.  It was more of a tough love, berating myself and constantly “trying to be better.”  It felt safe to be on this self-improvement journey because then I didn’t have to accept what I thought was the “real me” in that moment.  I just didn’t feel like I was good enough.   I was living life, but I wasn’t LIVING life.  I wasn’t present.  I felt dissatisfied.  I would ask myself “is this what I signed up for?”  I felt guilty for feeling this way because my life was really not that terrible.  I felt a lot of shame for not “having it together” at this stage in my life.  It felt like an endless cycle.  I felt stuck.

I remember reading a book at bedtime with my son and he stopped me mid sentence to ask a question about one of the characters.  I couldn’t give him an answer because I had no clue what I had just read and had to re-read the page so I could bring myself back to reality and answer his question.  I wasn’t paying attention.  I was there, but I wasn’t THERE.  In the moment.   My mind was off somewhere in La La Land thinking about my “to do list” or shift at work.  I didn’t like how I was showing up and I knew I had to do something about it. 

This is when I started on a different self-improvement journey.  I came across concepts about habit change, neuroplasticity and mindset work. I became inspired by the teachings of Brooke Castillo and I joined her program called “Self-Coaching Scholars.”   I learned how to become aware of my thoughts and thought errors (trust me there were plenty of them), manage my mind and learn tools to live an intentional, purpose-filled life which by definition is a life of ups and downs, successes and failures. 

The things I’ve learned along my journey have been a game changer.  It can be applied to so many things that we, especially physicians, try to work on all the time. It’s something that I wish I learned a long time ago.  I thought to myself- I have to get out there and talk about it.  I have to increase awareness of the fact that these concepts are available to us any time and any day but we have to know that it exists in order to reap the benefits.

I felt a strong desire to share my story and teach the concepts I’ve learned because let’s face it- there’s a mass exodus of physicians, especially in Emergency Medicine.  This is alarming.  People are getting frustrated and burning out.  I’m not ready to throw in the towel but I completely understand those who are.  We are losing good docs who are passionate about practicing medicine.  If we continue along this trajectory, who is going to take care of our loved ones? 

I was taking care of someone who asked me how it was possible for me to smile so much.  I asked him how he could tell I was smiling since I was wearing a mask.  He said he could see it through my eyes.  And for the first time in a really long time, I could honestly say that the smile that I wore on the outside matched how I felt on the inside.  Amidst the chaos of the ER, there was a sense of peace within me. 

I often think about my “one person, one percent” rule.  If I can share my story with one person who is struggling right now… someone who may feel, even just one percent of how I felt before I started on my journey, it is all worth it. 

That is my why. 

Priya