Shifting Focus From Victim to Surviving and Thriving
GB is a 67-year-old primary care physician who came to coaching feeling disconnected to the passion that practice used to provide. He felt as though he had found his way to a hamster wheel that he was unable to get off. Organizational medicine created an environment of mal-aligned ownership and accountability of staff and below grade tasks and administrative burdens he felt overwhelmed by. He also used the metaphor of singlehandedly trying to push a supertanker in a different direction. As a result, he felt powerless and assimilated the role of a victim.
Through coaching, he was able to identify what was still able to fill his bucket and how he could shift his mind set to that which he could control. Discussing the default amygdala filter through which everything flowed, he was able to create a purposeful pause to calm the cortisol and adrenergic triggers by pulling in his pre-frontal cortex to control and eliminate the negativity bias that had become his norm. He was able to reconnect to the simple joys of patient interactions that had been lost in the noise that he was focusing on. Through a values-mining exercise, he identified what he valued and aligned the joy of being a physician so he could choose to live in the moment and appreciate his self-worth and contribution.
In the end, he developed a sense of peace, identified greater job satisfaction, and more emotional reserve.