How to stop hating your job.

As I have been coaching people involved in the veterinary profession, I have noticed a common theme in many of their communications with me.  I hear things like, my job is too busy, the hours are too long, I can’t make enough money, and even the phrase - I hate my job.  I have also heard, “I feel trapped in this profession and don’t know how to feel better about my choice to go into veterinary medicine.”

Choice is the most interesting word when used in this context.  Many of us longed and worked for years just to gain a chance participate in this profession.  I begged my way into my first veterinary job with my now friend Dr. Morris.  I worked as a high schooler, cleaning kennels, walking dogs and assisting her and her technicians with their veterinary work.  I was in heaven.

You were probably once there too.  You chose to pursue your profession. I doubt that anyone forced you into it.  You were so focused on the fact that you wanted to do this work that you attended and paid for an expensive college degree.  You achieved your dream of becoming what you always wanted to be. 

What changed between the longing to work in this field and daily reality?

Thoughts. 

All the things that we say about the job being just too hard are merely thoughts that we have. If you tell yourself things like – I am not doing well, I am unhappy, clients don’t like me, and clients don’t care - you will create negative feelings about your life. 

Being a veterinarian is not my entire life.  I have a family, children, hobbies, and responsibilities outside of my work but being a veterinarian is a significant and wonderful part of my life. The challenges that I face daily, involving a variety of species and interesting scenarios, creates a challenging and fascinating career for me. I am grateful for the variety and newness of each day.

Is it easy to change your thoughts when you have so many that are negative?  Ah, No!  It is one of the most difficult things that you will ever do.  The work that you do to study and develop your mind is the most powerful and valuable work that you will do in your entire life.  If you examine your thoughts well, you will start to develop some sense of how your story has changed from one of loving your profession to being over it. 

Ask yourself some questions. What do you want? What are you looking for and why?  Once you have this list, just remember that they are all just thoughts that you have about your job.

It's about looking at how you interpret your thoughts about your job, and all of those things that have happened that you are using to define yourself.

I know that your journey may be extremely difficult because we all have many difficulties.  At the end of the day I am proud to be a veterinarian and I would rather be leading my veterinary life than any other life on earth.   

Work towards loving thoughts about your job and you will be truly proud of all of the amazing things that you do for your patients, clients and team.

Dr. Julie Cappel

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”  -   Steve Jobs

Episode #32 - Let's Talk About Money

On this episode of the podcast Julie talks about money and how it affects many of our decisions in veterinary medicine.  Our money attitudes will affect the way we feel when dealing with our clients and their budget constraints.   How we handle our thoughts about money will create compassion, and allow us to open our mind to all possibilities and reduce worry about our daily decisions. 

Check out this episode!

Everything comes down to poo….

I was sitting drinking my coffee this morning, talking to my family, and trying to come up with an idea for the blog.  Both of my adult children were home and we were chatting about ideas concerning leadership, positivity, and self-improvement.  As we batted around these ideas, my younger dog Parker pooped right in front of us on my living room carpet.  He has been house trained for at least eight months now and never pulls this kind of stunt, but I recently changed his yard routine - I fertilized his backyard and have been taking him out in the front yard.   I guess he is thinking, you change my routine I poop on your carpet. 

As I cleaned up the odiferous mess, my daughter jokingly said, “Life be like that some time.” Then I added, “Everything comes down to poo.”  Referring of course to the “Scrubs – My Musical” episode that aired in 2007 featuring a song about poo.    If you have not seen the episode, look it up and listen to it on YouTube.  It is funny and so relatable to veterinary medicine.

The talk and laughter that ensued as we listened to that song again, got me thinking about how a veterinarian’s and veterinary team’s life involves a lot of poo - both literally and metaphorically.   If we can retain the correct attitude about it, we can remember to laugh and enjoy our job in spite of the fact that much of our job revolves around poop.   

Veterinary life is like puppy poop on your carpet.  A blog is born…

There are so many opportunities to deal with literal “poo” in our profession and we actually make some money as we deal with it.  We have the fecal smear, the fecal flotation, fecal gram stain, and fecal culture. We deal with dog poo, cat poo, rabbit poo, lizard poo and the ever so frequent bird poo on my white lab coat. 

Everything does indeed come down to poo. We also deal with a lot of other negative stuff (poo) daily.

Poo is inherently negative right?  Wrong!  Our thoughts about it can be negative.  Sorry, I keep using the “poo” as a metaphor and you are probably tired of reading that word.  What I really mean is, the negative thoughts that you choose about your day cause your feelings of stress and negativity.

You can choose to think about anything differently in order to experience better feelings.

When something happens, it is a fact.  It happened and you can’t change it.  You get to choose how you want think about it.  If you think the fact is sad or negative in some way, you will create sad, negative feelings in your body.  If you find a different way of looking at it, thinking a more positive thought, you will feel more positive about it. 

For example, a client’s dog is severely ill, and you don’t think you can save it.  That is a sad fact. You can either choose to feel helpless and sad, or you can change your focus to one of helping the client navigate the decisions that need to be made.  Focus on your talent for working with clients, not saving the patient.  If you can focus on the conversation and counsel the client and your abilities therewith, you will feel useful, not useless.  If you focus on what you can’t do, you will feel helpless. If you focus on what you can do for the client, you will feel helpful.

Remember that every veterinarian and veterinary technician has insecurities.  It is totally normal to feel negative emotion.  Just realize that the negative emotions come from your thoughts about any given situation.  You get to choose those thoughts.  Your brain is powerful! 

This is your life and you are in charge of your satisfaction.  If you are not happy, work to change your mind.  You may not be able to change your situation, but you can change your thoughts about your situation.

If you are experiencing difficulty seeing the humor in the “poo” in your life reach out for help. We all get stuck and need someone to help us out of our negative emotions. There are plenty of great therapists and life coaches (like me) that would love to help you get through it.  Taking care of yourself is always your first priority.

So, thank you to Bridget, Tristan, Scott and of course Parker for interrupting our blog brainstorming session to poop on the carpet.  You saved me some time by giving me a great example for creating positive thoughts. 

Stay positive this week!

“I enjoy life when things are happening. I don't care if it's good things or bad things. That means you're alive.”  -  Joan Rivers

Dr. Julie Cappel

Join me on the Podcast!  The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast. 

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