Life Archives | Okay Doctor

Your parents are not the enemy

Your parents are not the enemy.

Instead, they’re just pawns in the bigger game that’s playing all around you.

It’s the game of the broken “Healthcare Factory System”. And the goal of the game is to recruit as many replaceable cogs (see: Doctors) to keep the system going.

Your parents are unwitting pawns in this game. They’ve been tricked into believing that the best thing they can do for their children’s future is to set them on the path to becoming a Doctor.

And that’s what they did with you.

Not because they hate you or even because they despise the dreams you’ve shared with them.

All they’re thinking about is the idea they were sold:

If my child becomes a Doctor, everything will be okay.

You already know that everything will not be okay.

But they don’t know that, and trying to convince them that they were wrong is an exercise in futility.

In other words: it’s never going to work.

What you need to do, instead, is give them a different story to tell themselves about you…a story in which you get to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing.

And the way you craft such a story, is by understanding one crucial thing:

Your parents are not the enemy…they’re just pawns in the bigger game that’s being played around you.

This is a taster from Escape Velocity: a personalised email course that guides medics step-by-step in how to successfully make the transition from being stuck in medical school…to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment. Admission is by invitation-only. Click here to apply for your FREE invite.

Happily ever after

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

That’s all your parents want for you, and they’re driving you towards the best path (that they know) to achieving that outcome.

Your dreams, ambitions and interests are seen as saboteurs of your success and hooligans who want to divert you towards a life of aimless drifting in mediocrity.

And that’s because you present them with no plan, no conviction and a poor track record of following things through.

(They remember all the other plans you convinced them you were interested in, and yet didn’t follow through on).

All they want is for you to live happily ever after. That’s all.

Understanding this is the first step to letting go of the bitterness, frustration and negative emotions that are inhibiting your ability to transform your dreams into reality.

You all want the same thing…you just have different ways of pursuing the same goal.

Own where you are

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

Right now you’re caught in a vice between two extremes.

Doing what your parents want…and being true to who you are.

The problem is that who you is currently dependent on your parents for financial support, approval, acceptance and affirmation.

Worse, you love them and don’t want to hurt them.

But at the same time, loving them is killing you, and causing so much pain that even the thought of suicide provides an immediate breath of fresh air…an end to an impossible struggle.

If that’s you, then this section and the Escape Velocity course on Parents is for you.

The good news: there’s a way out that doesn’t involve committing suicide or subscribing to a life of addiction to manage the pain.

The bad news: the way out is messy…like crawling through a sewerage pipe to get to freedom.

And it starts with a particularly stinky word…Honesty.

The fact is, you don’t have the power or resources or mental/emotional fortitude to make the change that you desperately need to make.

You know that and your parents know that.

So rather than fighting this or feeling guilty about this, the first step is to simply acknowledge this.

Accept it and take ownership of this.

“This is where I am right now.”

Once you’re honest about how things actually are, then you can go to work on making them better.

But you need to own where you are, regardless of whose fault it is. This isn’t about condemnation or assigning blame…because none of that empowers you to change your situation.

Instead, you’re going to take back control of the situation by owning where you are, and owning the responsibility to make things better.

It is no longer your parents’ job or anyone else”s responsibility to make you happy or help you fulfill your life’s potential.

It’s your job. Period.

Once you’ve owned this, then we can get to work on making things better.

Ready? Good. Let’s get to work.

If Success is a numbers game…what are your numbers?

General Medicine, How To Drop Out Of Medicine

“Success is a numbers game. And you’ve got to check your numbers.” — Jim Rohn

That’s the punchline of this article, and the number one thing you need to check going into this new year.

What are your numbers in the 7 key areas of your life?

From Zig Ziglar:

Spiritual
Family
Finance
Health and Fitness
Work and Career
Intellectual
Personal and Social

In each area, you need to ask questions where the answer can be a specific number.

For example:

Spirit: how much time do you spend each day in prayer/meditation? How many chapters of Scripture do you read each day?

Family: How much time do you spend uninterrupted with your Spouse each day? How many weekends do you spend simply doing something fun? How many times did you “do it” this week? How many minutes a week/day do you spend in focused time with each of your children?

Finance: How much money have you got saved in the bank? How much do you get paid per hour? What is your net monthly cash flow? What assets do you own and how much money do they each generate for you? How much money do you owe? If you stopped working today, how long would you and your family be able to survive for?

Health and Fitness: How many pushup do you do each morning? How many minutes of aerobic exercise do you do each day? How many pieces of fruit do you eat each day? What is your cholesterol level? What is your potassium level? What is your blood pressure? How much water do you drink each day?

Work and Career: How much time do you spend developing your career? How much time do you spend creating and publishing content around your area of expertise? How many engaged subscribers do you have on your email list? How many testimonials do you have in your Testimonial Book? How much is an hour of your time worth? How many words of fiction do you write each day?

Intellectual: How many books have you read in the last 90 days? How many new things have you learned this week? How much money have you set aside for courses in personal development?

Personal and Social: How many hours of sleep do get each night? How much time do you spend each day/week doing something fun? How many close personal friends do you have whom you could confide in? How many cities around the world have people who would happily put you up for the night? How many people would show up to your funeral if you died tomorrow? How much time are you spending each day working on and reviewing your personal goals?

What gets measured gets done…and also, the numbers don’t lie.

The great news is that if your answers to all of these questions are “zero”, then success in each area is simply a matter of improving the numbers by even a tiny bit.

Get 4 hours of sleep each night? Set a goal of going to bed 10-minutes earlier each month. By the end of a year you’ll be up to 6 hours of sleep.

Get paid $20/hour? Set a goal of increasing this to $30/hour…and you’d have just increased your gross income by $20,000.

Spent “zero minutes” with your kids each week? Set a goal of spending just 20 minutes of focused time with each child per week. That’s 80 minutes a month, or 17+ hours by the end of the year.

And so on.

The beauty of having numbers for each of the 7 areas, is that simply focusing on making the numbers go up will make your whole life rise as well.

Success is a numbers game. Check your numbers.