Isn’t this the buzz word of the decade (maybe forever) – BALANCE! Last week, I debunked the myth of the whole thing and explained that balance is a relative term based on what someone wants to achieve. Balance is weighted in any Doctor’s life tied directly to the goals they want to achieve. As it should be.
When you get excited or intrigued by a new clinical breakthrough or procedure, you go out of your way to read articles, study cases, go to courses, buy equipment and purchase resources all to make it possible. Often, that leads to you getting way out of balance (that is assuming you were “in balance” to begin with).
However, are you really out of balance? Not when weighted against and compared to the objectives and goals you have of the new procedure.
You are perfectly justified. Especially if you made the decision deliberately and are fully aware of what and why you are taking yourself out of your ‘typical’ balance.
You’d think that everyone would want to “work less, make more, and have more balance.” The problem with that generality is that everyone defines balance differently and some people love what they do more than the alternative.
This is why I use the term “rebalance” – which is what it is – and it is something that must be done quite often depending on the state and stage of life you are in and just how ambitious your goals are.
In any real entrepreneurial doctor’s life there is always the need to adjust, adapt and evolve; otherwise you live one long groundhogs day in your dental practice for however many decades you last.
This is the Successful Doctor’s reality and whether it is resisted or embraced determines just how happy you can be with your chosen state of balance in your life and your practice.
The other thing that is very interesting, that you won’t hear anywhere else, is that if you have exactly the same structure in your life and you are so set in your ways (including your routine, attitude and approach), without never-ending improvement, then you are going to hit a plateau which is what leads to burnout and frustration.
On the other hand, you also have doctors that are all over the place with no set plan or process for managing their practice, team, life, health, CE, schedule or money. This results in limited productivity with no tangible progress.
That is why the key to balance is a customized and uniquely individualized modus operandi for you for each of the areas of your life and the roles you play.
Last week, I told you I would outline a few tools, strategies and resources to help you achieve your desired balance and to do so without compromising insomuch as you are making intentional decisions about what you want.
The first thing (if you haven’t already), is to ask yourself…
BALANCE AT WHAT?
Implying that you must decide first what you want to have balance at, in, with related to the areas of your life you are mingling altogether.
This isn’t limited to but is a good starting point to consider the following:
What does “balance” look like for your
Days in the practice
Dentistry in the schedule
Money in the bank
Activities in the calendar
People in your life
All very self explanatory and yet often not thoroughly looked at, let alone defined as to what success looks like for you.
This is why days in the practice are not always productive. In both clinical dentistry and business progress. And why work is often taken home, whether that’s books or charts or bills or emotions or thoughts or physical exhaustion.
The same goes for making your goals happen by using the Value Based Schedule structure; which allows you to create balanced achievement as long as all other parts (creating, diagnosing, getting yeses and collecting money) are balanced as well.
Certainly, lack of money balance is a big one plaguing most every Doctor because there is no deliberate plan or system for it.
Then there are activities and people that you want to have time for and give attention to. These are probably your biggest ‘reasons why’ you even do what you do and yet it is seldom there is any real balance with any of these at all.
It doesn’t matter how successful a Doctor is, how big of cases, large of team, millions of dollars of collections or how high net worth… When I sit down during the dinner before my Private (famously secretive and proprietary) Lifestyle and Practice Blueprint Days, it happens without fail that I ALWAYS hear right away that…
1 – There are hobbies that are listed but not touched. Interests outside of dentistry that haven’t been experienced for a long time – and yet no time, effort, energy, planning has been allocated to it.
Because they – and probably you – are out of balance with what they say they want and what they are actually doing.
2 – There are people in the doctor’s life, usually the one sitting right beside, that feel neglected, often ignored and put last (if not literally physically, emotionally) because of the draining of energy, motivation, drive, desire, etc that the practice causes.
Even though the point was for the practice to provide for more of all of these things. Again, out of balance. Life is short. Do it all. That’s my saying.
…you can read more about “doing it all” and follow the specific steps outlined in my newest book: Lifestyle Dental Practice
Here’s the point to this: no matter how successful you think you are, if you really ask yourself and are honest, you are in this very moment out of balance in at least one area and probably all areas of your life. That is because you have not rebalanced based on who you are and what you want – right now.
It can be fixed and it must be if you want to live long and prosper with your sanity, health, mental capacities and physical energy, not to mention enough money, wealth and real freedom to enjoy all that you have sacrificed to achieve.
That’s what BALANCE without COMPROMISE is really all about. Let’s pick up right here next week with 5 specific and tactical ways to make this reality for you.
In the meantime, I implore you to ruthlessly challenge yourself on where you are out of balance with what you say you want and even how this has changed over time and how you perceive it to change in the future.
The one thing you should be certain of and fully embrace is Zig’s old adage that you can’t hit a target you do not have. The more well defined, organized, and structured (not to mention motivating, compelling and exciting), the more apt and probable they are to become reality.
