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If you’re a Vet Vault listener, you’ll know that I’m all in on spreading the wellness message. And I’m far from alone – the overwhelming message of the last decade is clear: learn to say no, set boundaries, prioritise rest, put on your oxygen mask first. Which is a good thing, right? We’ve seen enough burnout and attrition and worse in our profession for it NOT to be a good thing.
I worry that when the world tells us or when I tell you to take care of yourself, the message becomes: avoid discomfort. And that is NOT a good thing. Because discomfort is essential for growth. You’re limiting your potential by avoiding everything that sucks. Seth Godin says it beautifully: “Discomfort is the feeling you get just before change happens.”
So how do we find the sweet spot? What’s the right amount of suck? Well, it depends… I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and here’s my theory:
Full disclosure – I’m not a big fan of suffering just for the sake of. Maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s upbringing, but some people seem to thrive in a shit storm, while some of us can only handle a limited number of challenging things at a time.
I do some weight training as part of my fitness routine. I’m pretty happy with my health, so my goal is maintenance. I lift weights that are just heavy enough to put moderate stress on my muscles to keep them from disappearing, but I don’t inherently love ‘the deep burn.’
A friend does competitive jiu-jitsu. His goal is growth. He needs to get stronger, otherwise someone will choke him out in the next fight. So when he works out, he has to make sure that he gets really uncomfortable: more stress means more growth.
Neither approach is wrong – we just have different things that motivate us. (Although, he’s probably reading this and thinking: ‘Your approach is wrong Hubert!’)
Temperament might set the thermostat of your tolerance for discomfort, but you can increase your capacity for doing hard things.
How? By doing hard things.
A week after I started writing this I happened to listen to this podcast with the godfather of doing hard things, David Goggins, which discusses the neurology of willpower. It turns out that my weightlifting metaphor is pretty spot-on: new research has revealed that there is a tiny part of your brain called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex that physically enlarges through repeated exposure to doing things that you don’t like doing. And the bigger it gets the easier it is to do hard things. Just like a muscle.
There’s a flip side: just like a muscle, when you DON’T regularly challenge your anterior mid-cingulate cortex, it atrophies. (Dare I say it…you become ‘soft’.)
All of this begs the question: if repeated exposure to hard things increases your capacity for doing more hard things, then why do we get burnt out? I don’t think it’s a simple answer, but I suspect that the ability to choose your suffering plays a role.
When David Goggins runs a hundred kilometres in the desert, he does it because he wants to. If he was a prisoner of war and the guards made him run a hundred kilometres in the desert, it would be torture. If you do an 18-hour work shift as part of your residency because you’re trying to become the best in your field, you’re growing. But an 18-hour shift because the clinic is short staffed or the management team are incompetent does damage.
I can sit at my computer and edit podcasts and make show notes for 3 hours straight and feel tired but fulfilled, but 10 seconds of the spinning wheel of death when I’m trying to write a patient history kills my soul. Perhaps it’s possible, when facing something difficult, to convince yourselves or remind yourselves that you chose this path and to recall what motivated that choice. Or, even if it wasn’t a choice, to reframe it as ‘training’.
So, choose your suck. Choose it mindfully, but understand that self-care does not mean always choosing the path of no resistance.
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