An email header grabbed my attention recently “there’s busy and there’s doctor busy”.
It was for a home loan and they made clear that they understood that there is an exceptional
demand on my time and to ease the burden on me, they would be offering me a home
mortgage exclusive for medical professionals like myself.
This got me thinking….
Doctor busy or any other (insert mom, lawyer, tailor …) busy is a myth.
Doctors are not any more busy than “other” people.
Take for example a hermit who prefers to be alone and live a simple life
A day where she has to run errands may be an exceptionally busy day
If you had to do the same errands, you may not consider her day busy at all.
What if you had to attend as many meetings as a CEO of a fortune 500 company
you may think her day is pretty busy but to her it may just be a normal day.
Being busy is all relative and so it is not determined by the number of things on your calendar.
Being busy is not a fact, it’s a thought and a mental state.
Being in a busy state is problem because….
First, when you think you are busy, you feel stressed and overwhelmed
When you are stressed and overwhelmed, you lack focus and are easily distracted which usually
causes you to multitask, procrastinate and avoid
which always results in low productivity.
Second, you may use being busy to feel important.
A clue that you are doing this is if you feel the need to tell people how busy you are
or you find yourself comparing notes with your colleagues and friends on who is the busiest.
Busy as a gauge of self-worth is especially true for physicians.
And it is perpetuated in our culture by the messages that we are sent like the email I received making sure that I understood that because I am a doctor, my busyness makes me special and makes me more important than anyone else’s busyness.
Those messages are further from the truth
and when we believe those messages
we remain stuck in a vicious cycle of always having to prove our self-worth
by putting things on our calendar to feel better about our selves
and we wear our busyness so proudly
as a badge of honor
because the busier we are, the more important we must be.
And it works, we do feel important but only temporarily
But quickly cycle through feelings of stress and overwhelm
as we continue to load our calendars with things that are not enjoyable
we don’t schedule time for relaxation or for concentration
This is a problem because our goals are no longer aligned with our purpose
We are no longer creative, we lack strategy, we are no longer productive.
And we continue to blame our feelings of stress and overwhelm on our calendars
without realizing that we are using our calendars against us
we are thinking that a full calendar makes us important
But it does not my friend
It’s a lie.
Are you ready to give up give up the myth of busyness? Book your FREE Mini Session.
First, I when you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, practice saying “busy is just a thought”.
Second, you ask yourself these questions:
- Where are you overloading your calendar to make you feel better about yourself?
- Where are you overloading your calendar to control what other people think of you?
- What enjoyment in life are you sacrificing by doing 1. And 2.?
- Where can you create your own self-worth?
