How did I get here?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between an intentional career and an unintentional career.

Most of us build our career in a relatively subconscious and unintentional way; the forces that drive the decisions we make, the way we build our practices or the way we treat patients largely come from our conditioning, our underlying belief systems and what we see others doing.

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We dress and behave a certain way in our practices because that's what we've been taught is "professional", even though it sucks our soul and keeps us disconnected from our patients.

We overextend and overwork to please our patients and bosses. We disappoint ourselves because we learned that that's better than disappointing others.

We pick our career path because we think it's prestigious and will earn us love & respect, but find ourselves bored & unfulfilled, counting down the hours before we get to go home.

We see as many patients as possible and keep our weekends and vacations short, but find ourselves awake at 3am wondering what it's all really FOR.

We do all the things we were "supposed" to do to be happy and successful, ending up with lives that look good on the outside but feel awful on the inside.

If this is you, please know that nothing has gone wrong.

This is a common experience when we've built our lives and careers on belief systems we've inherited rather than created.

You haven't wasted time or made a mistake, and you don't need to spend time regretting your decisions, judging or blaming.

You're a human having a normal human experience.

And now that you know why it's happening, you can use this discomfort as a signal that something needs to change. You can use this as an opportunity to start building your intentional career. Your self-authored career.

One that is authentic and aligned to who you are, the clinician you're becoming and the impact you want to make in the world.

Even if - or especially when - it makes no sense to anyone else.

So here's what I'd love to know: what would you create if you didn't have to please, prove or pretend?