Letting go of expectations – Tear up your script.

If you want to have disappointment and stress in your life, all you have to do is hang on to your script of expectations for the people around you.  We all have narratives in our heads that expect people to think, speak, act and behave in a way that we think they “should” behave.  The script that you have for others is based on your past experience, values and beliefs about how life should be lived and experienced.  

You will have more stress and pain if you expect your clients, family or veterinary team to act exactly the way you plan.  So much of the stress that you experience each day when dealing with clients is your expectations that they are going to act in a certain way.  You expect them to keep their appointment, show up on time, listen and agree to your diagnostic recommendations, follow your go home instructions to a tee, and then return for their recheck appointment on schedule.  This will almost never happen, so why do you expect it?  With our scripts of expectation, we are certainly setting ourselves up for disappointment - if not stress and burn-out.

Recently I experienced a client that challenged my script for them.  A mother and daughter that adopted a young kitten that was battling some diarrhea issues.  They had made multiple visits to the hospital with this kitten and had done all the diagnostics that I had asked them to do.  During the most recent visit we agreed to try the kitten on a bland prescription diet for a short time to see if we could remedy the problem.  We sent home some dry and canned prescription food, and they were instructed to feed only this diet for 1 week, then return for a recheck.  My “script” assumed that they would follow my recommendations.  One week later when they returned saying the kitten was no better, I questioned them about the diet.  They said, “Oh, we haven’t started him on that food yet.”  I am thinking, “What?  Why?”  

So Fascinating, right?

Human beings all have their own set of beliefs, values and needs.  This is not something that you can dictate.  They will behave as they behave, and you have no control over them.  The sooner you accept and embrace this fact, the sooner you can alleviate much of the stress in your job and life.  

How do you alleviate the stress of expectation?

You need to let go of your internal script for people and allow them to be who they are.  When they are acting in a manner that does not adhere to your script, it is almost never about you.  It is about them and their internal beliefs, past experiences and values.  You cannot force them into your way of thinking. Expectations that are unfulfilled always result in disappointment.  So why expect at all?

Trust that people are doing the best that they can with their resources, time and energy.  When you experience someone doing something upsetting to you, remember that they are responding to their own primitive brain and are being driven by their autopilot.  They are probably feeling stressed by their own thoughts of inadequacy or their own past experiences.  They have a different set of past experiences than you do, so of course they will react differently than you would to the same situation.  Assume that they are doing their very best.  

Try to be fascinated by human behavior and enjoy the element of surprise. Fascination and appreciation are the emotions that you want to embrace with every encounter.  Appreciate the unique value of every human that you encounter. Embrace and enjoy the element of surprise.  If you expect to be fascinated and appreciative of human behavior it will go a long way to helping you overcome your need to control people and the situation. 

If you can let go of your expectations and tear up your script, your life will open up like never before.

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.” -  Michael J. Fox

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

The negative review – Why all the hate?

Veterinarians and veterinary technicians work in a business that requires extreme levels of compassion and tolerance each day.  We deal with emotional swings ranging from the joy of a litter of healthy puppies to the devastating sorrow of sudden loss of a pet - sometimes within the same hour.   These emotional gymnastics are done while dealing with clients that are in a rush, questioning charges, acting rude, or just highly emotional about their ill pet.  No wonder we are struggling to love our profession.

This week I was reminded of one of the primary reasons that we veterinarians feel so stressed and burned out much of the time.   It is the threat of the negative online review.

I work in a 5-doctor practice that has been in business for over 50 years.  We are AAHA accredited and have a stellar reputation in the community.  Our veterinarians and veterinary technicians are extremely experienced and competent.  All of them!    We have hundreds of positive, five-star reviews on Google, Facebook, Yelp and other platforms.  We have very few negative reviews, probably less than five.  So, why does one negative review trouble us so much?

We go into every exam room with the intention of doing our best work for every client and pet.  We have control over what we do and say, but we have no control over how the client thinks and feels about the experience. It is often an emotionally charged experience for the client when their beloved pet is ill.  It is no wonder that we have an occasional miscommunication, but that is no reason for a hate filled review.

When a client leaves a negative review without addressing the problem with the veterinarian or the hospital manager, it leaves us unable to remedy the situation.  When a veterinarian reads a negative review about one of their cases, it leaves them feeling embarrassed, helpless and incompetent.  Those feeling follow us into our future and can have long term negative effects on our confidence.  

Studies show that we focus on the negative review because of their scarcity.  Scarcity implies value in normal everyday life, so the fact that we have hundreds of positive and only a few negatives causes us to focus our attention on the negative.

So how do we handle negative online review?  How do we read the negative thoughts of angry people and go about confidently continuing to do the difficult job that we do?

The first thing that we need to do is to remain calm. Understanding that a negative review is more about the client than about you, is key.  The client had a different experience than you expected and that is all it means.  Responding in anger or berating yourself will not help anyone and will only make matters worse.  The client experience is their experience.

If possible, address them by phone or in person immediately to try to resolve the perceived issue.  Some clients will not talk to you and will not want to solve it.  That is entirely up to them; as long as you made an attempt at reconciliation, then you have done your job and can let it go.

If the issue cannot be addressed in person, you can reply online to the review in a polite and professional manner.  Future clients will see the written response and will use your professionalism to judge your hospital.   I always try to personally respond with my name and phone number just in case the client changes their mind and wants to talk it out. 

Once you have taken these steps, the difficult mental work of letting it go is crucial. Letting one bad review experience ruin all of your future work is not necessary or productive. When you get a negative review, remember that it is not really about you.  It is about the client’s experience on that day and nothing else.   Think of it as a neutral experience.  Carrying around shame and embarrassment does not serve you and will prevent you from living your best life.

Dr. Julie Cappel

 “No matter how good you are, someone is always going to be against you. But never let them be the limit of your success.” -  Terry Mark

“Be who you want to be and not care about what others think.”   - Andrew Biersack 

Join me on the Podcast - The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730?mt=2

Financial Guilt – Caring comes with a cost.

This week and almost every week, I see a client that brings me a pet that has more disease than their finances can cover.  This time it was a family and their beloved cat that is severely anemic and has been that way for weeks. They have visited other veterinary hospitals and have come away with no answers, mostly because they declined all treatment and diagnostic recommendations.  They just don’t have the resources.

It breaks my heart as a veterinarian not to be able to treat each patient the way I have been trained to treat all pets - with excellent medicine and top-notch care.  As veterinary medicine gets more sophisticated there are more and more expensive options for clients to consider.  The more options that we offer, the more we find ourselves in the business of creating treatment plans designed for the client’s bank account ceiling and not for the pet’s medical condition.

It is easy for us to judge our clients when they cannot spend money on an ill pet, but have you ever been in a situation where you wanted something that you could not afford?  Did you judge yourself for that?  Probably not.  It was just a fact.  Too little money in the account for the thing that you desperately wanted.   So why do we judge our clients or become frustrated when they make a financial decision to refuse our best care?  

Most clients do not blame us for their predicament, but there are some that try to unload their guilt on us.   “You must not really love animals, because you will not work for free” is my favorite.  (Yes, I spent 8 years in college to get paid 1/3 of my human medical colleagues, just to refuse service to you and your pet).  Not really fair, but those negative comments are more about their frustration with life than about me, the veterinarian.

In my client’s case, the family was heart-broken about their limited finances and their severely ill cat.  It was now my job to come up with a plan that fits into their budget, but also improves the cat’s quality of life.  If I can do that for the cat, then I can feel as if I have done my job with caring and success.

It is a veterinarian’s job to support our clients through the entirety of their pet’s life.  We do not have the obligation to offer our services for free, but we do have an obligation to care for our clients and patients. During the difficult times we need to reassure them that they are doing “their” best for their pet and we are going to work with them to make sure that we offer them our best.  It is not our place to be judgmental.  Everyone has a financial ceiling. 

If we work within our client’s budget and treat each pet with dignity, we can avoid frustration and guilt to get back to our real business - caring.

“I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.”
Pablo Casals

Dr. Julie Cappel



Join me on the Podcast - The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730?mt=2