How often have you been told about the importance of looking after yourself?
I’m sure you’ve lost count just from the times your mother has said it to you!
We all know it matters, so many people stressed and so many experiencing burnout right now?
Either we aren’t prioritising it, or we aren’t sure how to achieve it.
From my research it commonly starts with being unsure what to do, so we choose to ignore it.
Because I run Australasia’s largest medical recruitment company I am privileged to speak with many doctors. Two years ago I conducted research into what makes doctors thrive, and what makes them struggle.
I think doctors and business people are very similar; high performers who are hungry for more.
To be honest, I was looking for the magic bullet, the one thing that made all the difference.
I didn’t find it.
Instead I found eight core patterns of behaviour that are statistically more likely to be present in doctors who are thriving.
But there are only eight that are well correlated.
So while there’s no magic bullet, there are just eight behaviours to master. To give you an overview, here they are:
Purpose
People who thrive remember why they started their work in the first place, so many who are struggling have forgotten.
Presence
A huge number of people who are thriving are practicing mindfulness or meditation to increase their presence.
Physiology
To thrive we need to master how we move, what we eat, and how we sleep. There are some great ways to shortcut this and get real results.
Mindset
Results come from Actions, which are driven by Habits, which are driven by our Mindset. Mindset underpins it all. Thriving people are much more skilled at directing their mindsets to stay in empowering states.
Momentum
You might be surprised to find that people who are thriving at work are generally thriving in the other areas of their life that matter; family, health, wealth. The really fulfilled ones have a method to ensure momentum in each of these areas.
Leverage
Struggling people feel like they need to do it all, at work and at home. Thriving people build a team around them, at work and at home, so they can do what they love and have other people take care of the other stuff. That’s the basis of my wealth management company for doctors, MedCapital that writes doctors financial plans and executes the entire plan.
The Shift
Being a doctor is a tough job, so thriving doctors develop a way to refill throughout the day. I think this is the same for those of us in business.
Fun
Fun is important for our sense of wellbeing. Thriving people have more fun at work, and they make time for the things they love outside of work.
So that’s it, whether you’re a business person or a doctor, there are just eight things to master. Which is pretty good really isn’t it?
Let me know how you go.