"I'm so stressed out" - Part 2

There are days when I walk into the hospital upbeat and ready to go.

And then there are days when I feel like I am dragging myself in. When it’s a struggle to get out of the car and go in, not knowing what I will face that day. And dreading it.

What I have found is that the days that I walk in to work in positive frame of mind tend to go a lot smoother. 

Fortunately for me, I have trained my mental muscles to have more of a ratio of positive days than negative days.

Why is it that our frame of mind makes such a difference to all the challenges we face during the day?

In this episode, I talk about the basics of mental fitness training and how it has helped me shift my mind into that higher ratio of positive to negative days.

f you would like to explore this in a little more detail, I have two options for you:

You can book a spot on my calendar for a Free 45 minute session where we can explore your specific saboteurs or you can sign up for my upcoming webinar on how these mental muscles can help you in crucial skills that you need to reduce your stress.

Link for webinar: https://leadershiprxcoaching.ck.page/0f761adc6e

Book a Free 45 minute no pressure call with me here
https://calendly.com/ashapadmanabhan/exploratory-session-with-asha

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Transcript

0:15

There are days when I walk into the hospital, upbeat and ready to go. And then there are days when I feel like I'm dragging myself in when it's a struggle to get out of the car and go in, not knowing what I will face that day. And dreading what I'm gonna face. It could very well be a smooth day with all the patients ready to go. All the labs done the surgeon's in a good mood, everything running smoothly, but more likely than not something is gonna go wrong. Some patient is not gonna have the appropriate labs. Some surgeon is not gonna like it. When I say that his case is gonna be delayed, some surgeon is gonna show up in a bad mood. Some of the nursing staff may not be happy and may show it in little ways. Did I say I hate that kind of conflict? Having to justify the decisions that I make for the patient's clinical care. Have you ever felt like that, that you're constantly fighting a battle with your team, with your peers, with your staff, with the tech, with administration, trying to do the things that you want to do, how you wanna do it. So you know what I'm talking about and I wonder why I continue to do what I do. Fortunately for me over the last couple of years, the second kind of day is far less than the first. So I don't mean that all those challenges have gone away. Those are still very much present. What I mean is the percentage of days that I walk in upbeat has far outweighed the days when I walk in dreading what I'm gonna face that day. And like I said, it's not because anything has changed in my circumstances at work, there has been no miraculous occurring, which has led to all patients having everything ready, all surgeons having a miraculous change of heart and showing up pleasant, ready to work and not getting upset when there are delays. What really has changed is the way I face and handle my day has undergone a radical change. And that has led to me feeling more positive and spending more of my days in a positive mindset rather than a negative. This is the Leadership Prescription Podcast for Women Physicians. And I'm your host, Dr. Asha. Padmanabhan, I'm a Board Certified anesthesiologist who works full time clinically and in a leadership position. I also hold several other leadership positions. I'm also a master Certified physician coach and I coach women Physicians to find fulfillment and happiness that they need in their career by teaching them the skills and the tools that they need for professional and personal fulfillment and for work life balance. So back to spending more of my days with a positive mindset. What does that mean? And let me be honest. It's not a superficial, I'm gonna try to find the very best thing in everything by ignoring what's wrong. And I'm going to try to put a positive spin, that kind of thing. No. Spending my days in a positive mindset just means that I have been able to exercise my mind and work on it in my mental fitness gym, to be able to be more fit and more able to handle the challenges that life throws at me. Last week, I talked to you about the concept of mental fitness and why we need to build those muscles to feel professionally and personally fulfilled and happy. And we talked about the reasons why we need to feel professionally fulfilled as well, and what leadership has to do with it and what staving off burnout has to do with it. And if you haven't heard that episode, please go back and listen to that. Start from what is actually mental fitness and why you need to be building those mental fitness muscle. so today I want to focus on those muscles and how you can start exercising them. So before I delve into that, this is from groundbreaking work on positive intelligence by Shirzad Chamine.. And you can check out his work on his website of the same name. The core of this work is based on the premise that our minds are simultaneously our best friends and also our worst enemies. Have you ever felt that? I know I have with sometimes the thoughts that run through my head. it's the instances that when our minds are being our worst enemies, that we feel all the negative emotions of stress, anger, shame, guilt, fear, and a whole host of other negative emotions To make it easier to understand and work on these times that our minds are acting like our enemies Shirzad gave it a name, the saboteurs of our mind. Or the self sabotaging thoughts in our mind, we've all heard of different ways of describing them. Some of them are imposter thoughts. Some of them call the negative voices in your head. Or like I said, self sabotaging thoughts, or I led a recent term, which also really resonates with me. And that's self-gaslighting where we've all heard of the term gas lighting. But self gas lighting is where your inner voice is your own torment and makes you feel like your reactions are invalid. Your emotions are unimportant and your talents are real. Again, several imposter thoughts in there. And the other times that our minds are working for us, we are calm. We have clear headed focus, and it helps us achieve what we want. And this part of our mind is called the Sage part of our mind. Now research has also shown that these parts of our minds are actually residing in different parts of the brain. And you can look up this research on the website and what it's shown is the saboteurs. Those self-sabotaging thoughts really predominantly exist in the left brain and the brain stem and the limbic system. Whereas the Sage part of a brain resides in the right brain and the middle prefrontal cortex. For those of you who want to go check that. So the percentage that our mind is in positive rather than negative mindset is called your positive intelligence or your PQ quotient. And you'll hear this term PQ that I'll be referring to. So research has shown that the higher your PQ quotient, the happier you are. By the way, this work is a synthesis of research in neuroscience, positive psychology, cognitive behavioral, PI psychology, and performance psychology. so it's backed by research and it's been tested on over 500,000 people in the world, including several, many CEOs, Stanford students and athletes. So back to your PQ or your positive intelligence cautioned. So how can you improve your PQ quotient? In other words, how can you spend your time more of it in a positive mindset rather than a negative? Because we all know that in a positive frame of mind, we tend to be more productive than when we are in a negative frame of. So just as increasing your physical fitness level happens by exercising different muscle groups. You can also build certain mental muscles that will help increase your PQ. So what are these mental muscles that you need to build? Now you would love to hear. There are only three root cause analysis factor analysis on these have shown that there are only three mental muscles that are at the root of your happiness and your performance, also your relationships and everything to do with them. So I mentioned the saboteurs that are in our mind. So the first muscle we need to develop and build and strengthen is to counteract or weaken those saboteurs. And we do that by building our saboteur interceptor muscle. So counteract that the second muscle that we need to build is strengthening the positive aspect or the Sage muscle. And the third muscle is a self command muscle, which is the muscle you need to build that will help you quiet in the saboteur parts and amplify the Sage part of your brain. That's it. Three muscles that you need to build. Sounds easy. Doesn't it? But you and I both know, it's not that simple. I'm sure you have, as I have try different methods to train your mind and your brain. But this is one of the ones I have been able to work on consistently. And that has shown me consistent long lasting efforts. I've tried many different things. And what happens is for the couple of weeks or months that I'm doing it, I get the insight and I start doing it, but really consistent building of that muscle takes a very different kind of level of effort. So next week I will tell you a little bit more. these, each of these muscles in details and how you can work on them. Meanwhile, if you're impatient and would like to explore this in a little bit more detail, I have two options for you. You can book a spot on my calendar for a free 45 minute session where we can explore your specific saboteurs, or you can sign up for my upcoming webinar on how these mental muscles can help you build some crucial skills that you. And the links for these are posted in the show notes. Thanks for listening and continue to be the leader that you already are.