Is Your Past Experience Holding You Back At Work?

Meet Dr. Jenny. She has been an attending physician for over ten years. As a full-time clinical physician, she sees over twenty patients a day. One of her biggest challenges was to leave work on time. She tried to work faster. She tried to focus. She tried “everything”, and even on the days when she had less patients, she ended up finishing the day at about the same time.

Dr. Jenny was at the point of feeling hopeless. For years, she tried to do things differently at work, in hopes of finishing faster without comprising the quality of patient care. She did not achieve her goal. She started to believe that the only way to finish work on time was to decrease the number of patients she saw per day and work part-time. That seemed to be an easy solution, but she was not ready to sacrifice her financial compensation.

She was accepting her “reality” of having to work extra hours to finish her clinical day, only because she did not think that there was any other way. Other physicians leaving on time was for them only – either because they were writing sub-optimal notes or they somehow had the secret of leaving work on time that she could never grasp.

That forced acceptance of Dr. Jenny’s situation lasted for several years. She did not want to move away or change her job. She thought that was the way it had to be, because she saw no other way. She believed she tried “everything”.

Does Dr. Jenny’s situation sound familiar to you? Are you accepting a situation only because you cannot see it work any other way? Maybe there is no other way on your own. What if you ask for help?

As much as Dr. Jenny did not see any other way, she did have the courage to ask for help. I am glad that she did.

The first thing we discussed was that her belief was holding her back. The belief that she had tried everything and nothing had worked. This, to Dr. Jenny, implied that nothing she tried in the future would work. How many different ways did Dr. Jenny try to leave work on time? She tried writing somewhat shorter notes, moving faster from exam room to exam room, doing her best not be distracted, etc. She estimated about close to ten different ways.

What if there were twenty or more ways to conduct her clinical day to be more efficient? What if there were hundreds of ways? In other words, her belief that she tried everything was not true. It took Thomas Edison more than a thousand experiments to invent the light bulb. If he stopped at three hundred, or even at nine hundred and ninety-nine, he would not have invented it.

Dr. Jenny learned the different ways which did not work for her to go home on time. She ran out of ideas on her own. The next best step was to be curious and be open-minded to believe that there could be other ways to achieve her goal. There are physicians who have a full schedule and leave work on time – they are proof that it is possible for Dr. Jenny to achieve it too.

You do not have to do this by yourself. Just like Dr. Jenny, you can ask for help. Having someone as your guide which can point you to the right direction can allow you to achieve your goal faster. Dr. Jenny did just that. Several months later, she learned to be more efficient and since then, she has been consistently leaving work on time. She has not taken work home since then. She shared with me how she wished she asked for help sooner.

The biggest thing that is holding many people back is their past experiences. They see the past as the evidence of failure and use that to define their future. It is essential for us to embrace our past because that was who we were and we cannot change the past. We can use our past as our teacher to remind us what worked and what did not work. Let us all be curious, be open-minded for possibilities. Let us all be open to ask for help, especially when we are stuck. When someone has achieved something, such as physicians who have succeeded in leaving work on time, it is an indication that it is possible for you too – you just have not found the way yet. Some people may succeed after twenty different attempts. Some may succeed after more than forty attempts. If you are persistent and try different ways, you will eventually achieve your goal.