Doctors and Goals
A couple of years ago, I went through burnout. It crept up on me, and I didn’t realise what was happening until I took some time off to think about the way my life was.
I realised that I did not have goals in life, apart from the intention of doing my job to the best of my abilities, which was not a goal, but a dream. This dream was not measurable or achievable, as I could always do “a better job”. Earning lots of money was not a goal either, as money on its own didn’t make me happy.
Somewhere along the way, I lost enjoyment in my work and to a lesser extent, life.
After realising this, I had to take time and look at myself to change things. It was scary, but I had to do it, as avoiding thinking about it and going as I was, did not work.
Doctors and Goals
Us, doctors have a goal associated with medicine for most of our lives. Some of us don’t have life goals outside of medicine. When we start medical school, we have a goal of finishing it. When we finish medical school, we choose what speciality of medicine we’re going to do. Then we get onto a specialty training program and strive to finish it. After completing it, some go onto the next step of sub-specialisation. Then we get our consultant/specialist position and think “Yay, I’ve made it. I have become a specialist. This is what I have worked for the last 15 years of my life.”
Being a consultant is stressful, and it takes most of us around two years to get settled into a job, and I was no different. Once I realised that I didn’t have any goals beyond medicine, my struggles began.
Some doctors are used to a busy lifestyle. They run around with no time to think about what they want to do beyond their job. Focusing on work and being busy seems like a more natural and comfortable option for many doctors to take on. Most of us are “Type A” personalities and prefer working. We love helping others and always feel we can do more. Doctors are usually high achievers who don’t like admitting that they aren’t doing something well or that they aren’t dealing with something in the best possible way. Feelings of not being enough or failing at something are not in our DNA.
We often choose other medicine-related goals like developing a private practice or getting into medical management or both. We get immersed in our medical work and forget about what makes us happy beyond it. At home, we keep being busy with the family. We start eating unhealthily, drinking too much alcohol, avoiding exercise (or sometimes exercising too much) and not getting enough sleep. Eventually, we burn out.
Our medical work goals shouldn’t come before our personal goals, as it’s important to have both. We still need to take care of our patients and enjoy doing so as well as enjoy life outside of work. In my opinion, to prevent burnout, we need to stop leading a hectic lifestyle. Also getting enough sleep is essential. When we are not tired and overwhelmed with a busy life, we can clearly think about how we would like to live our life, what we’d like to do more and less of. Each person has a different set of goals.
What goals should look like
After reading numerous books on goals, I learnt that there are three types of goals in life:
• Short-term goals, which are to be accomplished within one year (for example, writing a paper, blog, exercising 30 min a day/5 days per week, etc.);
• Medium-term goals which are to be accomplished between 1-5 years;
• Long-term goals which take more than five years to accomplish. These goals have subtasks within them which need to be ticked off during the process of achieving the primary goal.
Goals also need to be SMART as per below. If goals are not SMART, then they are dreams.
• S – specific
• M – measurable
• A – achievable
• R – relevant
• T – time-related (we need to achieve these goals within the allocated time)