Over the past month, we went through some foundational steps to optimize your experience even when you couldn’t control the situation by up-leveling our mindset. We then looked at a couple of advanced options to grow our perspective in a way that serves us better.  This week, I want to give you a couple of helpful hints. 

Improving your mindset is a skill set. And, like any skill, it takes practice, patience, and continued learning.

It’s common to get to...

This week we continue the series for optimizing our mindsets as physicians. Last week, I introduced a framework for those of us not trained as behavioral scientists to use called the Thought Model developed by Brooke Castillo, Master Certified Coach.  In it, we put our automatic thoughts that we just accept as true.

This week we are looking at another advanced option that involves intentional thoughts.  Before I get there, I want to clarify that you do NOT have to move on to...

Over the last two weeks, I’ve laid out two fundamental steps to optimize your frame of mind. If you do nothing else, that alone is beneficial.  This week, I’m ratcheting it up a notch to a more advanced step. This is the Thought Model Framework, developed from positive cognitive psychology by Brooke Castillo, master certified coach.

It’s essentially a framework for those of us who are not behavioral science experts to up-level our mindset.

The model is...

A powerful tool to use in improving your day-to-day experience is your own mind. Last week we discussed the first step of optimization - writing and reflecting on your thoughts. This week we will use that download to move on to step 2.

By default, we believe our thoughts to be true. However, physicians, like most humans, have imperfect brains. Our thoughts, the sentences in our heads that our minds automatically produce, are colored by our experiences, the beliefs we grew up with, our...

It's the beginning of the new academic year in medicine. So, I thought this was the perfect time to write a blog series about a fundamental strategy of coaching – optimizing the mindset. Over the next few weeks, I will walk you through one method I use with those I coach.

Mindset is a mental inclination, a way of thinking. It's essentially the lens through which you view things, a frame of mind. It's also one of the best places to focus effort as it can improve how you...

This week we are rounding out the Action Needed for the Wellbeing of Medicine Series regarding physician wellness by addressing our colleagues' well-being. We first addressed organization and structural actions, then self-actions, and now we move on to our colleagues. 

I will open with a quote from Dr. Mukta Panda, MD, MACP, FRCP, the Assistant Dean for Well-being and Medical Student Education and Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine.

“We cannot...

We are in a three-week series called Action Needed for the Wellbeing of Medicine. Last week we covered well-being from an organizational standpoint because we know that 80% of the contributors toward burnout are related to the systems.  Today we are shifting our focus to the 20% that we have some control over to prevent and treat burnout and improve our own wellbeing.

First, let me start by saying I know you are already resilient. The rigorous process of premed, MCAT, medical...

I am starting a three-week series called Action Needed for the Wellbeing of Medicine. You would think since I've read, researched, written about, and coached around burnout for long enough, that I wouldn't continue to listen, read, and learn. I mean – I experienced it firsthand as a mid-career physician before I had words to describe it. I healed from it. I learned tools to prevent and treat it. And yet, I am still learning – for myself, my patients, my physician clients, and...

This week, we are continuing to focus on common tendencies that hinder our ability to best navigate the demands on our time, energy, and attention. Last week we covered people-pleasing and exaggerated reputation management. This week we will unpack self-judgment and the procrastination habit.

Most of us have such unrealistic expectations for ourselves, that we regularly subconsciously wallow in self-judgment. When asked to take on a project or task we’d prefer to decline, some of...