The real reason noise-cancelling headphones might not help you focus...

Are you a stressed-out physician?

Are you feeling stressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, and trapped in your job, and feeling betrayed by the system?

Do you dread going to work in the morning, knowing what awaits you?

Do you fantasize about quitting, or even about leaving medicine and finding a new career entirely?

Are you tired of the usual advice from the productivity gurus what about you need to do to focus?

"Close your office door."
"Turn off your phone."
"Close any browser window you are not using right now."
"Check your email only once or twice a day, and close the app in between."
"Turn off notifications."
"Remove Facebook, games, or other apps from your phone."
"Block out time in your calendar for your tasks."
"Tell your family you are busy and cannot be disturbed."
"Take breaks."
"Use the Pomodoro technique (set a timer for how long you will work and take a short break after that time)"
"Wear noise-cancelling headphones while you work."

All of the above productivity tips are great. I personally use many or most of them and encourage you to do the same.

But all of these ignore one big problem that is likely getting in your way more than any external distraction, perhaps even more than the fact that you are overworked.

The problem is that noise-cancelling headphones only help with the noises outside your head.

The real problem is the internal noise, the unconscious thoughts that derail you and hijack your brain, keep you from doing what you want to do, and even prevent you from finding solutions to the overwork and overwhelm.

And this applies not only to the smaller tasks you want to do but to the bigger projects and even to the bigger picture of who you want to be and what big goals you want to achieve.

Our thoughts can sabotage us, and can make us miserable and yes, keep us from taking action or reaching our goals.

Sometimes we endlessly second-guess ourselves and doubt ourselves, rather than taking action.

Other times we make assumptions that don’t always hold up to scrutiny.

And sometimes we just get so upset, angry, and frustrated that we can't find or implement solutions to the overwork, or even enjoy doing the things we use to love, like taking care of our patients.

The takeaway is that it’s important to be aware of your sneaky thoughts and take steps to curb them if they’re getting in the way of your success.

However, just being aware of the sneaky thoughts that sabotage you may not be quite enough to actually clear them.

The thing is, these thoughts (and their resultant behaviors) are usually due to old brain programming that was conditioned into you when you were very young, without your even realizing it.

They operate in the background as an unconscious operating system in your brain - you generally aren't even aware of them, so they are even more insidious than the conscious thoughts you are aware of.

And it turns out that what you don't know CAN hurt you.

Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of these thoughts that you can bring to the surface yourself and overcome that way.

But others are buried deeper and just knowing that you think the thought isn't enough to help you clear the emotions or the behavior.

Here are some examples:

This one is probably kind of obvious to you. For some people trying to lose weight, simply knowing that the reason they feel compelled to clean their plate is that their parents told them to do so when they were little, will be enough to get them to stop doing it. But most people wanting to lose weight will need something more than just using willpower to change a behavior like that.

And as a physician, you can probably probably think of some change that you could make at work that would get you some relief in your workload, such as having your MA do some of the patient education. For some of you, realizing that delegating this would save you time is enough to get you to do it. But most of you would find that your brain offers up all sorts of excuses:

"The MAs don't have time either"
"Admin will never allow it"
"They won't do as good a job as I do"
"It will take too much time to teach them how to do it."
"The MAs won't want to do it."
"The patients expect me to do it"
"What if the patient asks a question the MA can't answer after I've left the room?"

Another example might be that you have some part of your job that you just hate and feel is just plain wrong. Something you feel you shouldn't have to do, but can't get rid of, like filling out prior authorization forms. But what if you took that task you hate, did whatever you could to delegate and streamline it to the bare minimum, and then got to the point where the rest of it no longer bothered you?

You may be saying, "but Jill, I can't possibly do that. Only people with 4 MAs or nurses can do that."

And in a way, you 'd be right. It might indeed be physically easier in a setting where you had more staff.

But the fact remains that if you aren't ready to let your MA do the patient education, it really won't matter how many MAs you have.

And if you hate what you are doing, how can you fix that? How do you actually stop something from bothering you?

Just telling yourself you "could" or even "should" do something won't work for most people.

Because understanding something intellectually usually isn't enough to create permanent change.

You have to clear the barriers at a deeper unconscious level and rewrite the old programming so that your unconscious brain will let your conscious brain and your physical body take action.

In other words, you need to turn down the internal voice in your head that is telling you that you "can't" or "shouldn't" do something, or that someone else or some rule is telling you that you can't or shouldn't do it.

The problem isn't that you need noise-cancelling headphones.

The problem is you need to cancel some of the noise.

I can pretty much guarantee that there is some internal noise or thought in your head that is holding you back from something, AND that you can let go of that unconscious message a lot more easily than you think.

You just have to know how.

So I'm opening up some complimentary spots in my schedule for people who really want to make something happen in their life.

So if you are a physician who is feeling overwhelmed or stressed and would like to clear that and love your life and your work again, please reach out to me.

I would love to chat with you and hear what you are wanting to do that isn't quite happening the way you want it to, and help you figure out why and what you can do about that.

Click here to book your complimentary appointment and we'll get you started on the road to your dreams.