Getting Unstuck

Today, I was “coached” by my husband.  Yep - I was complaining about feeling stuck in the cold wet Michigan weather with a huge pile of things to do, and he turned my “coach” words back on me.   He said, “Why are you choosing to think about it in that way?”  then, “I was outside yesterday working, and I was thinking how beautiful the plants and trees looked with some rain on the leaves and the changing colors.”  Thanks Scott; those are beautiful thoughts!  Thank you for pulling me out of my pity party and showing me how my mind is working against me.    That negative “Chihuahua brain” of mine is always trying to bring me down.  

Why is it that we often feel stuck in the negative?  Why can’t we be more optimistic and take action towards what we really want? 

We look at our feelings about our job, our relationships, our weight, or our money and we feel like they are not under our control.  We feel at the mercy of the things that happen “to us” in the world.  The truth is that we cannot control any of the things.  Not the weather, not our past, even the things that others say to us or about us -   none of this is anything that we can control.

The only thing that is totally in our control is the way we think about all of the things that happen.  We are in control of our thoughts, and we are in control of our actions.  This is great news, because we all have power to get ourselves unstuck.

We don’t always want to take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and actions because it seems easier to hide within the victim narrative that our brain creates for us.  If feels safer than doing the hard work that it takes to create our better life.  We spin in confusion and think, “I don’t know how to do it.”

Getting unstuck requires some motivation to feel better.  Why is it that you want to change and what are some solid reasons that you need to change?  Your reasons will provide you with the motivation to do something – to take action.  Having a compelling reason to manage your mind and then funnel those thoughts into actions, is the first step to get moving forward.

When you take your first step towards getting unstuck, you will probably feel some negative emotion.  Your brain will resist and fear failing.  Understand that this is normal and is the way getting unstuck feels.  It is often terrifying, but negative emotion is the pathway to change.  If you can feel the negative feelings and persevere anyway, you will begin to break down the walls that are keeping you stuck.

When you feel stuck, like I was today, tell your husband.  No, I am kidding - unless your husband will school you like mine did. 

When you are feeling stuck in anything, first look at your thoughts about it.  Realize that your thinking is a choice, and in order to feel better you are going to have to work to think better.  Try to come up with a solid reason that you want to change to provide yourself with some motivation.  Once you have a reason to change, take one action towards the thing that you want to change.  Prepare for some negative feelings and perhaps a few failures.  Resolve to move through the negative feelings and continue to push towards your goal.

That is how you will begin to become unstuck.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“Being unstuck is not only about having momentum and moving along with minimum friction. It also has to include the ability to endure difficulties and even hard slogs” - Matt Perman

Client expectations: Are we losing our patience?

In a service business like ours there are many opportunities for failure of expectations and client disappointment.  When people call into a veterinary hospital and they are unaware of the inner workings and complexity of the profession, they may think that having a doctor call them back is as simple as us sitting at our desk just waiting to return phone calls. In reality there are days when I never even see my desk or sit in any chair. 

Expectation is defined as, “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future” and “a belief that someone will or should achieve something.”

I think the second definition is what gets veterinarians into trouble.  Client’s belief that something should happen the way they think it should happen.

Veterinary receptionists spend their day answering calls from concerned pet parents while they try to decipher the emergent from the ordinary.  They ask questions designed to read the minds of the clients on the other end of the phone, and without seeing the pet, decide how soon they need to squeeze them into an already packed schedule.  The doctors, working 10-12 hour days, are required to see patients that are ill, provide vaccinations, perform surgery, interpret radiographs, record everything -in detail - into computer charts, approve and write prescriptions, prescribe and dispense drugs, perform blood and urine tests, and then analyze and report those tests results to the clients.  These working doctors also have families and homes that they need to attend to.  At our hospital, we currently have two nursing mothers, who have to pump and store breast milk several times a day while keeping up with everything else.

Veterinarians and their technicians do what in human medicine would be done by a small army of people, and we do it all while the client waits.  When was the last time your human doctor called you back the same day, or reported your blood test results the next day?  

Our clients are most often very appreciative of our caring kindness, but sometimes there is a disconnect between what the client expects will happen, and what actually happens.  Then they may become angry either posting an ugly online review or hit us up with a frustrated phone call.  We hate that!  We are really trying to do our very best to make everyone happy, and an angry client is not our goal.

So, what can we do to help meet our client’s expectations?

We must improve our communication about the workings of the hospital and set boundaries.  Clients may get angry when we don’t do everything exactly the way they want us to, but if we communicate our boundaries, we let them know going in, what we can handle.  Clients don’t know that we have 8 other people to call, have a big surgery waiting, or have to run and pick up our kids from school in 20 minutes.  It is our job to communicate by saying, “Ms. Richards, I have only 5 minutes tonight to give you your pet’s results, but if we need longer than 5 minutes, I would be happy to call you again tomorrow so we can discuss further.”  Clients are thrilled to hear from us and love to spend time talking about their pet, so it is up to us to communicate our boundaries, and then have the mental strength to enforce them.  If clients get angry, we can calmly tell them that we are sorry that we have not met their expectations, however we are doing our very best for their pet.   Being honest with clients is the key to protecting yourself.  We need to take a lesson from our human doctor colleagues and train our clients to respect our free time so they understand what expectations should be.

It starts with honest communication by every member of the veterinary team to set the proper expectations.  Clients expect us to provide quality care for their pets while being kind and honest.  When they have unreasonable expectations about how we should schedule our time, it is up to use to set our boundaries and then let them decide whether they want to continue to work with us or move on to another caregiver.

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”―Henry Winkler

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”―Bill Gates

Dr. Julie Cappel

Join me on The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730