DR. ACE GOERIG
OWNER & CO-FOUNDER
Last year, we had a new client come to Endo Mastery who is a good example of a stressed doctor feeling trapped by their practice. Here’s what he told us:
- He’s been practicing for over 15 years as a practice owner.
- The last ten years have been stagnant without much growth.
- He’s working 5 days per week and in the office 10+ hours per day.
- He often has charts, reports and management tasks for evenings and weekends.
- He doesn’t have flexibility in his time to attend school events for his kids.
- He’s missing out on his family’s life by always being preoccupied by work.
- He and his wife rarely have time together anymore to enjoy their relationship.
- He limits vacations because he feels competitive pressure in his referral base.
- His energy and enthusiasm in the practice has dropped significantly.
- He is unhappy and stressed daily.
This doctor doesn’t feel like his practice is working for him anymore. It’s taking all his time, attention and focus away from his family and other interests outside the practice that he enjoys.
From worn out to burnt out
It is a familiar pattern for business owners of all kinds to expect that they need to make sacrifices to establish their business. But, when sacrifices persist and stretch from years to a decade or more, the emotional cost can be very high. It can lead to frustration, anger or even just boredom and dissatisfaction.
The tricky part is that it sneaks up on you. You can wake up one morning and realize that for a while now you’ve been feeling de-energized about work, or even resentful of the ongoing work demands that you are experiencing. You would think that would be the trigger point for most doctors to do something about it. But most doctors will linger in this discomfort zone for far longer than they should. Sometimes, for years.
That’s because they are also influenced by the fear of change in their business. After spending years getting things set up and stable, making changes feels like a risk. What if it doesn’t work? What if it causes even more stress or takes even more time? What if it causes team issues?
When you’re in a de-energized state, any effort— even one with guaranteed positive results—can seem overwhelming and unapproachable. To me, that’s more than a discomfort zone; it’s a danger zone! When you look at everything you’ve accomplished from dental school to your residency to starting your practice, if you still feel unprepared or incapable of taking on the next incremental challenge that builds on your existing success, something is breaking inside you. You’re on track for burnout, and that’s a red flag that requires immediate corrective action.
When pain exceeds fear
For many doctors, they wait until they feel so much pain that it finally exceeds their fear of change. You see that pattern in patients all the time too: they ignore the first signs of an endo concern when it is easiest to do something, and they wait until the pain becomes too much to ignore or delay any longer. That motivates them to push past their fears of treatment, costs or time, and they end up as an emergency patient in your practice.
For the doctor that I started this article about, that was his situation. He was at his limit of stress and emotional pain with an intense desire to restore balance and feel energized and happy at work again. And of course, we have helped him to achieve that by reducing stress in his office, freeing up his time, reducing his work schedule while creating economic growth, and giving him the flexibility to transform his life and strengthen his family dynamics.
Don’t wait for your pain
Almost every doctor who gets into that situation goes through a period of a few years when there are progressively more signs that they should be taking action. Sometimes it starts with a life event like marriage, or buying a house, or having a child. Sometimes it’s just a nagging feeling that something is missing in your practice or life. As these signs add up, you transition from comfort to stress to discomfort to pain.
It’s best not to wait for your pain to kick in before doing something. It’s so much better when you recognize new goals early on, even before you have fully fleshed out what those goals are. That’s the easiest way to approach change: as a personal vision you discover for yourself, your practice and your life that can be planned and executed with minimal or no added stress.
It’s always best to be curious about your next phase or level and to explore your options and make well-considered choices … rather than waiting until you feel cornered and reactive. A great way to begin that process is at my seminar, “Mastering the Effortless Endodontic Practice”. It’s coming up in September in Orlando, which means that right now is the best time to plan for it. I’d love to meet with you and help you start your journey of growth and change without the pain!