"If you don't recognize your self-imposed limitations,
you will have no opportunity to unleash them."
When you know both your potential and your limitations, you will have the highly regarded insight necessary to expand on your potential and unlock your limitations before you instinctively will develop a fixed mindset regarding your medical professional career.
The limitations you place on yourself are often unrecognized. Very often they result from your misinterpretation, judging yourself too quickly, fear of stepping out into no man's land, and your inability to trust yourself enough. All of these reasons are the culmination of years of external negative influences by those such as parents, teachers, peers, among others telling you lies you assume are true. This process hinders every decision you make in your life. It tears apart your
self-esteem.
A good example is the number of college students starting out in a premed curriculum, finding out it's too hard or too long of a time in the education process, and then changed their focus.
In my college class of about three hundred, about 60 started out in premed and by the last year in college dwindled to 19. I'd wager that almost all dropped out of premed for one of the reasons above. Those "I can't do it" feelings persist, but to a lesser degree in medical school and on into medical practice, at least until you learn how to trust yourself and your capabilities... and
disregard naysayers.
The truth is you have the intelligence, desire for self-improvement, passion and power already built into yourself to become far more productive, considerably more valuable to everyone, and certainly more satisfied as a physician... but you just don't use it to its maximum advantage. It's a real kick in the ass trying to force yourself into believing you are far more capable than you give yourself credit for. So, why is it so hard to believe?
In college, you are still testing yourself out--not yet creating permanent limitations. The tragedy is that by the time you are finishing medical school these self-imposed limitations increase drastically. You've increased your self-esteem but now are shielding it with fixed rules on how to avoid losing the self-esteem you've gained. Fear of failure is a profound reason for doing this, consciously
or unconsciously.
General George Patton, in WWII. was the most impressive advocate of being able to unleash his own self limitations of leadership and surpass and accomplish missions that no one else in the US Army thought he could do. Tolerating all of the criticism thrown at him and the resentment from other Allied Generals over his combet exploits is a lesson and example of what a renegade can accomplish with an open-minded approach to success, even for physicians.
How to open your mind and dump your personal self-imposed limitations...
When you reach medical school, you've eliminated one set of personal limitations. Like those you felt in college, wondering if you would be accepted to medical school or even to the medical school you wanted to attend. So you know they aren't written in stone and can be overcome.
Never tell yourself you can't do something!
Because you need high self-esteem, continuous self-confidence, and a grasp of the idea that you have no limitations, you must find a personal means of creating these attributes. There are no best answers about how to do this, but there are several alternatives that work for most physicians.
"Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude
toward it, for that determines our success or failure.
Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities!
Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your
own powers, you cannot be successful or happy."
----Norman V. Peale
These are a few ideas to consider...
1. Create a support system for yourself: Your options begin with your family, those who are interested in guiding you and are capable of doing it. In college or medical school find a mentor or colleague who can listen to you and offer good advice, preferably older and
experienced individuals.
In medical practice you can do the same, even start a mastermind group process. You can't think
of everything so hearing new ideas, thoughts, feedback, and advice from your peers is an excellent way to keep yourself on track. In our world of medicine there are daily new medications, treatments, and knowledge about upcoming inventions, ideas, procedures, strategies that pertain to healthcare and medical treatment that any doctor can't keep up with by themself. Even married doctors can do this effectively.
So, if you plug your brain into physicians groups of like minded individuals, you will be able to
keep up with the latest issues and cutting-edge peer advice that everyone contributes to during that hour. Everyone learns something they can use more effectively each meeting and you help some of them as well. And it's free education and inspiration ta-boot.
2. Acknowledge your own capabilities: You may already know what your talents and skills are,
but most doctors discover many more hidden ones as they continue in their medical practice
and career.
You may have forgotten many examples of events, problems, difficulties, and situations where
you actually made a huge difference in the outcomes. Give yourself credit for those times you
were responsible for providing solutions to other people's problems, and may have never been recognized for doing it.
3. Keep an open mind: There are innumerable opportunities passing bye you every day that
you don't recognize. Be alert for those at all times. They happen inside and outside the
medical environment. They are visual, heard, suggested, or felt processes.
Experienced older people all have regrets about missed opportunities... because they weren't looking. Make it a rule to consider all forms of advice, ideas, opinions, and afterthoughts while they are fresh in your mind. Take advantage of those who see with fresh eyes what you are doing that you don't see yourself... happens often.
A few thoughts about overcoming your self-imposed limitations for
your consideration...
1. Remember, you are entirely responsible for everything that happens to you in life and in medical practice. Your decisions are the source of every problem in your medical practice and the source of every advancement and success. It's a fact that you can accomplish anything if you are determined enough, proven so often by thousands of medical practice and career professionals. Failures are nothing more than an inspiration to start again.
Thomas Edison said that he didn't fail, he just discovered 10,000 ways that his project didn't work.
2. There is no commonality in the backgrounds of successful people to account for their successes. This includes childhood, education levels, age, ethnicity, nationality, gender, religion, conservatives, liberals, profession, or IQ. The secret is determination and persistence.
3. No small business in the world, including medical practice, can survive without some form of marketing and business system. Don't get the idea you can survive in medical practice based on reputation and word-of-mouth. Always assume that business, medicine, and life are in constant motion... and change often.
Expect and be prepared for trends that precede changes and make the adaptations necessary in
your practice early in the changing process.
Comments...
Self-limitations are best exemplified by medical doctors today in private medical practice, who refuse to acknowledge, learn, or use the small business knowledge available, including marketing knowledge that is readily available.
The greatest neglect today among physicians is that of underestimating their capabilities and what they can accomplish in their profession and life. By not learning to use marketing and a business system for their medical office, physicians leave an estimated one million dollars on the table during their medical careers, without ever recognizing it was there all along.
Fear keeps us bound in our own little bubble of comfort zone created by ourselves. It prevents growth. It diverts real satisfaction and self-fulfillment. It destroys our creativity. It accounts for mediocrity and increasing struggle.
With self-imposed limitations most physicians today are in financial trouble with their practices to one degree or another, all because of self-limitations and a fixed mindset about not needing to learn and use business principles. Any doctor who learns and applies those to his practice will rarely experience a medical practice financial disaster.
Start your disengagement from self-imposed restrictions by a specific focus on each of the following golden nuggets. Start with one and keep adding others when you sense the need.
Requirements for maximizing your medical practice income
1. Good knowledge of medical practice management
2. Having the energy for continuous medical practice marketing
3. Medical practice business planning is important.
4. Marketing for physicians and their office staff is a winning set up.
5. Learn what makes a medical practice business successful.
6. Your medical practice business system is essential.
7. Bothe practice marketing and physician marketing is rewarding.
8. Business success is the objective of all physicians in private medical practice.
9. My business website—www.marketingamedicalpractice.com
----Professional Probe----
"When science catches up, some physicians
have many regrets. This is one of them."
Younger doctors have not experienced how much healthcare has changed over the last 100 years or so, even among doctors themselves. In 1958 we had about three antibiotics to use--Penicillin, Tetracycline, and Sulfa drugs. One of my medical school classmates died from a staff infection that no antibiotics could reduce the effects of or cure this infection.
We had no computers, internet, educational DVDs, credit cards, or present day technology to speed up our efforts, increase our educational training, or confirm our diagnoses quickly.
We did have the advantage of having time to adapt to the changes that came rather slowly in comparison to today. Old and new physicians are now being forced to implement changes overnight while being severely hamstrung by outside forces that are reducing the incomes of medical professionals, hospitals, and associated supportive health industries.
Your entrepreneurial attitudes, creativeness, and increasing use of business and marketing strategies are the only things that will maintain the integrity of your medical practice no matter what practice style you work in.
Continuous learning, prompt application of technology, a strong work ethic, and accepting the fact that you do not have any self-imposed limitations to stretching your capabilities far beyond what you ever imagined, all should be your perpetual passion for success.
Articles © 2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #41, 3-16-22
