# DTD 196
[00:00:00] Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amanda. I'm Laura. And I'm Kendra. And we may have mentioned before, or maybe we haven't, but we did go to Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within Conference in October in Anaheim, and there were so many incredible things that we learned that we want to share, even just a little bit of it with you.
Kendra's gonna introduce our topic for today. Yeah. So we had a great time. It was the first time we had ever experienced anything like this. And I'll tell you if you don't know who Tony Robbins is, he is a full immersion kind of guy. When he decides something, he is all in and he is full immersion. So this [00:01:00] experience was full immersion. I mean, we were there from sun up to way past sundown full immersion all the time. So it was definitely a new experience for me. But hopefully if you're listening to this between patients or commuting home or just working on charts, I hope that you can really grab this and apply it even to a small step, because that's where you start. One small step.
So we're going to dive into something that Tony mentioned in one of the days of the conference, and he talked about the science of momentum and there were five steps that he outlined that really complete that circle of momentum. But we're gonna focus on the third step. The first one is just about showing up your best self. So doing whatever you have to do. He calls it peak state, which just means getting in the right mindset, making sure that your body's rested, your mind is clear, just getting you into the state where you can really make some best next steps.
And then the second part of that is finding your passion or what is your why? And we talk about that a lot. So this is what's gonna fuel or get this momentum circle going. And Tony Robbins says, "The moment you decide is when your destiny changes." And that's powerful because [00:02:00] he not only taps into this momentum factor, but he really did a lot of work that first day to understand why not only we don't follow through or maybe not sealed the deal on stuff that we promise either to ourselves or like to our families or anything. But he really went into the physiology. So like even getting your body physiology right, it's not all about mindset. And he talked about limiting beliefs, but he talked about like, what are some physical barriers?
I mean, he covered it all. He laid the framework in that first day, and this was kind of in, into the second day. I also wanna bring in Mel Robbins here, because she also gets into a lot of thisâdecide, commit, resolve is what we're gonna talk about, and she reminds us that when we are waiting to feel ready, that's what really keeps us stuck. We can't trust in how we feel, because that is the whole part about it. And those were those first steps that Tony explained. You're not gonna ever feel ready. You're not ever gonna feel equipped. You're not ever gonna feel like, "Oh yeah, I'm a hundred percent, I have got [00:03:00] everything I need and I'm ready."
There's something powerful between the idea of taking full ownership and choosing to move forward. When you really align your life or whatever you're deciding or whatever your next steps are with those ideals, Tony says you become unstoppable. So we're gonna start with the first thing, and that's decide, and this is really where the power of clarity comes in. It's more than just choosing, it's actually cutting off other options, which is a new way to kind of conceptualize this. The word decide actually comes from a Latin word, meaning to cut off. So where you decide is, you get clear. "This is what I'm deciding because it aligns with this, my why, my passion, where I wanna allocate energy." And you cut off everything else. You don't even entertain any what ifs. You don'tâwe talk about woulda shoulda in my house. Like, we can go to woulda shoulda all day, but you decide like, "Okay, this is it. This is [00:04:00] what is aligned with me. I've prepared myself mentally, physically, emotionally." And then you cut off everything else.
We are scientists and we love data, right? So we can research something as much as we want. We can spend days, we can look up article after article, book after book. We can seek out consultants, we can do all these things. Does it add to the decision we need to make? That's the part where I see my colleagues struggle sometimes and sometimes our clients, the inability to make a decision. You can collect data all day, but it can create more uncertainty. I mean, honestly, you could find evidence to support just about any point of view. But what about that created any more certainty or what about that allowed you to finally make the decision? So [00:05:00] considering that of course, we wanna practice evidence-based medicine, and of course we wanna stay on the standard of care that is continually evolving because of course we're finding out new information. But at some point we have to decideâthere's not a perfect time, there's not a perfect situation, case, patient, whatever it is. You have to understand that, okay, at some point I have to make a decision. I have to move forward.
Another example might be deciding to leave charting at the clinic or at work at the hospital instead of taking it home. That's another thing. We talk about boundaries all the time, but it's actually getting to a point where you decide, "Okay, this is what I wanna do, this is how I'm moving forward," and then you do it. And deciding creates momentum. And actually that leads to mental relief. That unloads that huge energy and anxiety and worry and indecision creates chaos. And it may not look like it in the physical realm, but it is going on in your brain. You are constantly weighing options back and forth. It does create a focus of [00:06:00] chaos and really what we're trying to encourage you to do today is really create clarity. You stop being in limbo when you decide, and it's amazing how when we meet with our clients in a session and we talk about this and they're anxious or they're feeling scared about something, about making a decision about anything. When we peel it back to the very best next step, even deciding what is your best next step, you can physically see the relief on their face and their body. I mean, their whole physiology changes.
So usually when we're trying to weigh all of our options, it's not a bad thing, but once we've decided, the next step is this commitment. So Amanda's gonna take us away and talk about the commitment, but this is where we can really lose steam. And so it's so important in this first step to just actually decide.
So yes, let's talk about the energy shift that needs to happen. We all get super excited whenever we come up with a New Year's resolution, or we decide "I'm gonna change my life today." But the [00:07:00] mistake that most of us make is we rely on motivation to keep going after we decide we commit to the thing. And it's because it aligns with our actions and our energy. All of that in alignment help us keep going towards the thing, even when it's hard.
Mel Robbins says, "You're never gonna feel like it, so you have to decide you're going to do it anyway." And I'll give you a secret is that is the core of coaching is deciding ahead of time and being intentional with your time and your actions. Because if you're waiting for the motivation in the moment, that is a massive mistake. What does that play in the moment is your more primitive brain, which is motivated by three things: go towards pleasure, avoid pain, and be as efficient as possible, even to the point of laziness. Not necessarily lazy, but like it makes sense a million years ago to conserve your energy. And so changing habits, going towards a new decision that you've committed to [00:08:00] takes effort. And so sometimes this commitment will feel uncomfortable at first, especially in medicine when we're trained to stay safe and avoid risk. But you just have to decide, "I'm doing it anyway. I don't feel motivation. Great, but I'm doing it anyway."
Do you really wanna take out the trash? No. Do you really wanna brush your teeth? I mean, it does feel better after, but like when you're training your kids to do this, it's not that fun at first. Any new habit like that, there's a reason why you weren't doing it in the first place. But you're thinking from the best part of your brain about the long-term benefits. So it doesn't always feel good in the moment, and you do it anyway. Every successful business owner, there's stuff that you have to do in a business that just is not that fun. It's tedious. It's annoying. They do it anyway. And that distinguishes them from a successful business owner and somebody who's not as successful because they were waiting for the motivation. And that's a mistake.
So, for instance, it's [00:09:00] coming up on New Year's resolutions. You get real excited about starting your workout routine. You get real excited about overhauling, you know how you're eating. You get real excited about, "This is the year I'm gonna completely overhaul my finances." That's exciting. And then you get into the day to day, this is where the rubber hits the road. But the thing is, as physicians, you never tell yourself that you don't have the willpower to do it. That is a lie. You have done harder things than most people on this planet. And the other thing is like, you know, you see things all the time that you would like to haveâmaybe a fancy car, maybe some sort of technology, some sort of clothing. I mean, whatever it is, you don't go steal it. You have willpower. There's all sorts of good looking people. You don't just go run up and start heavy petting, right? You have willpower.
This whole thing of like, "I just don't have control over whatever it is." That's a lie. That is so much garbage. But we believe it because most of the time, until you become aware of metacognition, you do not challenge your [00:10:00] thoughts. So if you need some help, we have free sessions, so we call 'em Physician Wellness Triage Sessions. Just let us show you what your brain is lying to you about. If you don't believe us, we can get you on the road for a better future.
What happens psychologically when you commit is your brain starts finding ways to support your goal instead of sabotaging it, knowing that the lower part of your brain wants to have pleasure, avoid pain, and be as efficient as possible. "Ah, I see. I see who's in charge." Now, the beautiful thing is that the prefrontal cortex, the executive planning part of your brain has to give permission. And so when you realize that you got a little toddler that's like that, that's when you can almost parent yourself like, "I know you don't want to, but we're going to do it anyway because we committed to this. This will get us to where we wanna go. What got us here isn't gonna get us there to that next stage." And so that's why we are doing this thing.
So, once you decide and it's like, "But we're gonna do this anyway" and you shut [00:11:00] the door on all of the excuses and all of the reasons why, "But I don't want to," then your brain literally does, it's like you change the channel. Like, "Well, we might as well have fun doing this," or like, "Well, I guess we're gonna go anyway." Do you ever get up and not want to go to work? Probably. Do you do it anyway? Yeah. It's the same sort of thing with any sort of changing behaviors and committing to doing something new.
So even commitment won't carry you through the toughest days, and that's where resolve comes in. So, Laura, I'm gonna hand it off to you.
Yeah. I love all that that you said, and I also wanna just bring awareness. I've seen in some of my clients that the burnout was so deep and visceral and they just were in such a state of exhaustion, they're in that dorsal vagal state that we talked about on a recent podcast that [00:12:00] you have to look a little deeper and see why. Why are you redoing this thing that you said you didn't wanna do? Why do you keep doing that? You say it's part of your identity to not do it. Why do you keep doing it? So occasionally it's not just like, "Hey, I'm doing it anyway." Occasionally it's like, "What is in me that is an obstacle, that is crying out for a little more understanding before I can move forward?"
So if the sense that just making yourself do stuff feels hard, you're not alone, that happens with some regularity. What you can do is tie something to your identity. I'll give you an example for me. I identify as a good, kind, compassionate doctor, and I realized that you know, if I worked my butt off during my shift and saw a bajillion patients and saved all my charting till the end, I turned into not as good of a doctor. I was trying to remember [00:13:00] the patients from two hours ago so I could still chart on them, and it made me less present with the ones in front of me and it made me tired that I had to stay later to do my charting. And so when I tied my need to chart contemporaneously with my identity as a good, compassionate doctor who's present with her patients, it helped me to be more on top of it. And so I leave on time now. I can't remember the last time I had to stay late and chart because I realized what it was doing to me. So just tying it with your identity can really help.
And so with resolve, this is your no matter what mindset. It is the unshakeable decision that you will follow through no matter what obstacles arise. Sometimes it's helpful to think ahead when we make a goal or decide to make a change, to think about what could keep us from doing that and going ahead and planning how we're gonna push through that anyway. What Tony Robbins says is that resolve is this emotional fuel. It's the deep why that keeps you going when motivation fades. So like [00:14:00] for me, that is, I have this deep why that I am a compassionate and present doctor. And so I might come out of a room and I might have something else I could go do immediatelyâI will try to always go at least chart the HPI on my patients so that I can continue that habit charting as I go and staying present with my patients.
When we have that resolve, that deep why, it will keep us going even when motivation fades. So say I have a workout routine and I identify as an exerciserâthat tells me like I'm someone who cares about their body. I'm someone who cares about my future, my brain health, my heart health. I'm going to do this even when I don't feel like doing it. Because let's face it, nobody ever, I mean, I guess some people feel like exercising. Most of us don't. Most of us we're like, "Ugh." But [00:15:00] afterwards, we're almost universally glad that we did it. We feel better, because it aligns with our identity of who we are. When we have that resolve, we really become unstoppable.
So resolve is built by reconnecting to values and purpose, kind of like I described with the charting. It's not pushing harder, it's not shaming ourselves into doing something that we really don't believe is aligned with our values. There's occasionally some campaign to get us to do something that I just, I'm like, "That just doesn't make sense to me. I don't feel the need." I can't think of an example right now. I don't feel the need to do that thing that you're telling me to do, because that's not who I am. Like if they told me to, you know, go shake hands with every single person in every patient room, I can't do that. Like my germophobia will not permit. So I'm not going to push myself through that. Will I be warm to them? Will I give [00:16:00] great care and listening and eye contact? Yes, but I'm not gonna go shake Grandpa Joe's hand everywhere in myâ
You just saw him dig in it, right? Exactly. Or he just pulled it out of his pants. Oh my gosh. No, you, no, I can't unsee that. Okay. Stop it. Right.
So it has to align with who we are. We have to believe that it's important. So like resolving to practice medicine in a way that feels sustainable, choosing to be authenticâand for me, shaking Grandpa Sam's hand would not be authenticâand having boundaries over trying to be perfect. It's something that either we grew up with or we developed as a coping mechanism. This trying to be perfect and it just doesn't work.
So where do you think you might need more resolve now? Is it in protecting your time? I have one client who has this insane, insane schedule and they keep giving her stuff to [00:17:00] do because she's the one who does stuff. She's the one who gets things done, and it's just not sustainable. We need to look at our lives, our schedules, our commitments, and ask which ones actually are in alignment with what we wanna be doing and who we wanna be, and which ones are just baloney and we need to get them off our plate immediately.
Do you need resolve in protecting that time and speaking up, learning how to speak up in a way that is received that is respectful and authentic, and also not fawning, and not just taking the status quo just because we wanna be good people. We wanna be liked, we want to be the good employee or the good doctor that doesn't complain.
Do you need help creating resolve about health habits? We all know what we need to be doing to take care of ourselves. Or what do we need to do to resolve, to make changes we know need to happen? [00:18:00] So that's just some food for thought. And remember that tying it to our identities is one of the big keys to helping make this happen for us.
Yeah, this is good stuff guys. 'Cause I know everybody's thinking about the next few months and has great ideas with goals, so hopefully the main theme of this podcast for you or what we'd like for you to leave with is when you decide you create clarity, so you cut off chaos or entertaining anything else. When you commit, you build that momentum, and when you resolve, you become unstoppable. And that is the point where your life changes, where the outlook on your life or your work or whatever you're trying to do really shifts out of the stuckness, out of the "my feet are in cement" kind of feeling. "I can't go anywhere. I'm stuck." It's really about asking yourself, "Okay, what would change if I just decided, if I made one small decision [00:19:00] today, what would change?"
So hopefully this resonated with you. We are so glad that you joined us today for our episode friends. And if you found this conversation helpful, the best way to support us is to leave a review. And we love those five stars 'cause it helps physicians find us and it moves us up on the list. We'd also love to hear from you. So if you want more information, if you had an experience with this that you became unstoppable because you decided, you committed, and then you resolved, email us at [email protected] and don't forget to follow us on the socials. We're always creating new and exciting content, so go to @TheWholePhysician. We love connecting with you there.
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