I am not talking exactly about screaming or talking with a loud voice, neither doing doing something taking the lead like at Speaker’s corner in Hyde park!
It’s about our attitude towards goals, any kind of goals we do in our life.
It may be improving our technique, it maybe losing weight, or start doing some different activities.
The main problem we do is how do we approach to them.
The first seed of these action is just in our mind, it’s just an idea in the backyard of your brain.
The problem is that too many times we are not fully in that idea, we are just wandering about doing that thing, already acknowledge that the idea is a good one …but we are not really believing we will do it properly …so what we do ?
we start with a shy approach.
We start in an almost invisible way doing this new plan, probably when we have time, probably when we are in the right mood, probably when we are inspired.
Think to writing, how many people love the idea of writing something but they never start waiting for the “ inspiration “.?
The writer Stephen King once said that the most important feature for a writer is: put down their ass on that chair even when their brain is empty and start writing 2000 characters, every single day.
How many people stop their diet during the weekend thinking to start again the following week ?
The same applies to dentistry …how many courses you ve followed about a procedure and, going back to your office, you got a busy day and thought: I will try this procedure tomorrow.
Tomorrow becoming the following week, the following week becoming the following month.
I‘ve managed several courses in restorative and prosthetic procedures and what I realized doing some follow up of these colleagues was that the majority was NOT doing the technique, but not cause they were thinking it was wrong, not because of the learning curve we have also to face, but, very simply, cause they never started trying a first time.
Some, instead, start thanks to the enthusiasm of the course but get lost during the typical mistakes of learning a new work, going back to their usual routine.
We never start something, or we start weakly something in the solitude of our dental offices in most of the cases. We fail in our willings without anybody acknowledging this.
That’s what I mean about the importance of “screaming”…not to scream in the literal term..but to say to the bigger group of people possible that you’re committing yourself to do something.
I find very useful doing this, and writing a plan of how you will make this possible, to develop a detailed plan and, if possible, to take a diary, a journal to all the steps you reading ahead.
We live in the era of TouchScreen and smart devices, Yet I find a huge power in using a pen.
Journaling is sort of writing meditation. Our mind easily goes in the past or in the future losing the clarity of the plan. That small time you dedicate to writing is the best time to meditate and make detailed plan for your goals, to set some milestone, to see the progression, to reach the goal. I will make you a short example..it was a while I had the desire to learn a new language and I was looking at french, I started a couple of times but stopped after few lessons. During the spring of 2022 I received an invitation to lecture in France in Bordeaux. I knew almost zero about French and I also had the possibility to have a translator but, a back voice in my head, said: NOW or NEVER.
Despite my zero knowledge of french language I said no to a translator, I took with the french guys the duty to lecture a full day in their language. I said to my friends and colleagues that I was going to lecture in French. I did my PUBLIC PROMISE. I took back my old french manual, there were 25 chapters, I took a paper and started writing my plan, a detailed one. 9 months available. 36 weeks available. I took my lecture, it was almost 700 slides. I planned to translate all the slides in french and write all the speech. I put the goal of doing this work by 20 weeks in order to be able to train myself several times before lecturing. I divided the 700 slides in 20 weeks, just 35 slides each week, just 5 slides each day. I usually talk around 1 min on a slide so it was a realistic effort. I hired a tutor on an educational platform and I payed immediately all the lessons till January and I immediately booked all the lessons. Each thursday, one a week, from 10 to 11 pm. Doing so I had not to think to book each lesson (easier to skip ) but I had to contact the tutor in advance to move the lesson or I had to pay in case of no show. I followed my plan. Of course I had some impossible days, it’s part of daily life, sometimes I did more on Sunday to get back on the program. I always tracked my advancement. In August I completed the manual, the french grammar and to translate the lecture and I started exercising myself in order to be more relaxed.
Finally January came and I went to Bordeaux. The place was an amazing chateau and had a small group of french doctors under the organization of Dr. Jonathan Murcia. I was quite relaxed ,useless to be anxious and I had also the awareness to have done properly my duty.
I asked them to use english for some questions cause listening spoken french is still my weak area, I put bigger effort in speaking on my lecture. And I did …I did a full day of lecturing on dentistry from 9 to 5 pm. I did my pubic promise, I did my plan, I followed the plan and i got my goal.
And what’s your goal now ? not next week, not next month …right now.
Do you really want it? If yes start mixing all the ingredients you deserve for your goals.
Failure may be a part of the game, it happens. But Inaction is way more worse than trying and fail. Failing is losing a battle, and you learn at least how to improve your planning, your scheduling and your goals ,you gain experience but the real “war” is your whole life and you can just succeed in a way …starting NOW.
