Feeling overworked, underappreciated, unseen, tired of the job, weary, resilience worn down……wondering where the way out is? Yet, persistently - or stubbornly - doing the same things and not getting new results? Hmmm, alright, somewhere here there is a key to open the door.
According to the Resilience research, that key may well be reaching out. The skill of reaching out has been identified to be the single most important resilience skill. And it makes sense. After all, connectedness breeds hope, which in turn nurtures resilience.
This is the moment you get to ask yourself “how good am I at reaching out? Particularly, when you’re (secretly) feeling out of control, down, stressed, vulnerable, and maybe not quite as resilient as you believe you are (could be)?” This is a moment to go under your competent, rational, and rationalizing mind, and check in with the “underbelly” side of you that you may rarely, if ever, show others.
So what gets in the way of reaching out? I know that sometimes I might as well be in a straitjacket, it seems so challenging to reach out. Why is it so hard to ask for help? How did this come to pass?
1. During training, we’re often too exhausted to reach out and sleeping seems like a better option. This is called conditioning.
2. Healthcare workers are notoriously bad at taking care of themselves.
3. As physicians, we value autonomy, independence, and competence.
4. We’re not comfortable showing and sharing our personal sense of vulnerability (and maybe not even feeling it in the first place)
5. We think we like the problem of a great challenge.
6. You have an overactive gene for Puritan Still Upper Lip Syndrome, and you were raised to not let your hair down
7. You’re a private person (and/or an introvert)
8. Pride, pure and simple
This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list (though it does strike me that the first five could be a Five Deadly Sins of Professionalism list), but I hope it serves as a jumping off point for you to be curious about if and how you allow yourself, or not, to reach out, get support and help.
Whatever the etiology is for you, the remedy can be simple, though not necessarily easy. Here are a few places to start:
- The first step, which is probably the hardest, is to let go of your pride and acknowledge “I need help”….first to yourself and then to someone else.
- Pick up the phone and call the someone(s) you trust
- Set an intention and then take action to get more connected - whether that’s going to networking meetings, staying involved in your personal community, spending time with your family
- Start reaching out into cyberspace - there’s lots of great blogs (tons of med-blogs too) and social networking is becoming a major phenomenon for making new connections, developing personal and professional relationships, and sharing resources
While a widespread problem, perhaps even epidemic (most of us could use more support), I think the difficulty with reaching out is a particular occupational hazard for medical professionals. This is only to say, beware, be aware, be curious about needing or wanting support, asking for it, and how you allow yourself, or not, to actually receive it.
A straitjacket provides both a literal and metaphorical image for lacking the ability or habit to reach out. Sometimes the norms and values that have been passed down to us as professionalism can leave us feeling isolated, trapped or without choices and in that sense, they can cause us to feel as if we are in a straitjacket.
However, if you find yourself in this situation, it’s one that you can undo yourself, unlike the classic straitjacket where we need someone else to untie us. So let 2009 mark yet another new era, this one of increasing resilience and well-being - personally, societally, globally.