Breaking the High Achiever’s Loop in Vet Med | Episode 94 | Reviving Vet Med

As veterinary professionals, we are conditioned to believe that the next surgery, the next certification, or the next "thank you" from a client will finally make us feel successful. But for many of us, that feeling of "enoughness" never arrives. Instead, we find ourselves stuck in the High Achiever’s Loop—a cycle of perfectionism and overworking that leads straight to burnout.

In this episode, DVM and leadership coach Dr. Jennifer Edwards joins us to deconstruct why our drive for excellence so often turns into a pattern of self-sacrifice. Jennifer draws on 25 years of practice ownership and her expertise in energy work to explain how our early identity patterns shape our current leadership styles. We explore why achievement only provides temporary relief from anxiety, the difference between "fixing" yourself and shifting your patterns, and how to reclaim your clarity and ease without losing your professional edge.

Watch the Video Version of this Episode
https://youtu.be/3xTZVxTpNgU

Resources
Follow Dr. Jennifer Edwards on social media: www.linkedin.com/in/drjenniferedwards, https://www.instagram.com/drjenniferedwards/, https://www.facebook.com/drjenniferedwards/ 
Visit Dr. Jennifer Edwards’ website: www.drjenniferedwards.com

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Veterinary Leadership Collective
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Transcript

Dr. Marie Holowaychuk - Founded more than 75 years ago with an unwavering commitment to science led pet nutrition, Hill’s Pet Nutrition is on a mission to help enrich and lengthen the special relationships between people and their pets. Hill’s is dedicated to pioneering research for dogs and cats using a scientific understanding of their specific needs as a leading veterinarian. Recommended Pet food brand knowledge is the first ingredient with nearly 200 veterinarians, PhD nutritionists and food scientists working to develop breakthrough innovations in pet health. Hill's Prescription Diet, Therapeutic nutrition, plus our everyday wellness product line, Hill's Science Diet are sold at vet clinics and pet specialty retailers worldwide. For more information about Hill's products and nutritional philosophy, visit their website at hillspet.com or hillspet.ca for Canadian listeners. Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Reviving Vet Med. 

Dr. Marie -  We often talk about the external pressures of our profession, the long hours, the difficult clients, and the staffing shortages. But today we're looking at the pressure that comes from within. We're exploring the subconscious patterns that drive us to overwork, overperform, and ultimately lose ourselves in the process. My guest today is Dr. Jennifer Edwards. Jennifer is a DVM, a former practice owner and now an ICF credentialed leadership and energy coach. She spent 25 years in the trenches of veterinary medicine before shifting her focus to helping high achieving professionals break free from what she calls the High Achievers Loop. In this episode we dive into why achievement never quite feels like enough, how our early identity patterns shape our professional lives, and how we can pursue excellence in our clinics without sacrificing our wellbeing. So let's dive into my conversation with Dr. Jennifer Edwards. 

Dr. Marie -  This is the Reviving Vet Med Podcast and I'm your host, Dr. Marie Holowaychuk. My mission is to improve the mental health and wellbeing of veterinary professionals around the world. 

Dr. Marie - Hi Jennifer, thank you so much for being here today. 

Dr. Jennifer - Hi Marie, thank you for having me. I'm very excited about this conversation. 

Dr. Marie - Yeah, me too. We've been talking about this for a while and I am so happy to have you here and to hear your story. You spent over 25 years in this profession as a practice owner before you moved into leadership and energy coaching. And I'm wondering what was that moment of clarity that made you realize we need to look deeper than just better time management when it comes to fixing burnout in veterinary medicine? 

Dr. Jennifer - Yeah, well that's a really great question. I wouldn't say there was one particular moment. It was more of an evolution of perspective, I guess. I would say both from being in it as an associate vet, then a practice owner and a leader, watching how the profession was changing over time, the people in it, the structure of it, as well as what I was studying my entire life. I've been very passionate about transformation, self-development, leadership, and started really studying that in depth in about 2007. So there was this kind of, like, parallel paths of experience and study at the same time that was all shaping how I viewed things. And it's such a great question because the concept of burnout, obviously a lot of people have a lot of different definitions and what that means for them personally. 

Dr. Jennifer - But the way I see it, busy does not cause burnout. Busy causes busy. Busy causes. Maybe tired or overwhelmed, but I wouldn't necessarily say for most people that being busy alone causes burnout. And I see it more often. Oftentimes people are busy when they burn out. But it's also about the depletion of energy, emotionally, spiritually, physically, from many different factors that are all interplaying together to almost create that perfect bad storm, so to speak. 

Dr. Marie - Yeah, that's such a great way to put it. I never thought about it that way, that it's not just the busyness. Like you can have that busyness concurrently, but it's so much more layered and deep than that. And I think this segues nicely into a topic that you're very passionate about, which is the High Achievers Loop. And I can certainly identify this. I have had times in my career and in my life where I feel like I am a hamster on a wheel that I cannot get off of, and it feels like I'm going in a loop. And for somebody listening in their car on their lunch break, how do they know if they are stuck in that High Achievers loop? What are those subtle signs that we often mistake with just being a good veterinary professional? 

Dr. Jennifer - Yeah. And again, such a great question. So whether or not someone is stuck is a personal experience, right? Like, you could have two people side by side and they're both in this. 

Dr. Marie - Like, go, go. 

Dr. Jennifer - They're doing the exact same things, the exact same schedule. One person is feeling stuck, feeling disempowered, feeling exhausted, depleted, and the other person's like, bring it on. I love this. Right? So the circumstances alone, the achievements alone, to me, don't necessarily identify whether somebody is stuck in this, quote, High Achievers loop in a bad way. Put that in air quotes, because it's really more of a judgment. So for each person listening, I guess I would encourage them to look at their own experiences inside of their life. Right. Now, if you're a veterinarian, and I would even say, you know, veterinary technician, you're most likely by definition some level of a high achiever. Right. We don't get through these educational programs by, you know, sitting on the couch all day. 

Dr. Jennifer - So given that's probably a characteristic of most of us, what starts to happen is this feeling of never enoughness or this feeling of like, more, I've got to do more, I've got to prove myself. I got to know more, I got to do more, I got to be good at this, I got to be good at that. I got to know every ology under the sun for every species, and not only every species, but every breed of every species and every age variation. And it just can start to become this not saying not knowing how to set parameters for what works for one's life, I. E. Boundaries. Just this almost feeling like we're going and doing and doing, but not really having a say in the matter. 

Dr. Jennifer - When we don't have a say, when we don't have the experience of choice, is when we start to feel stuck. So I think that's what I would tell people listening is how empowered do you feel? How much agency are you experiencing right now that you're choosing and designing the way things are for you right now versus you're just swept up in it all, going around in a circle along for the ride and not really enjoying it very much. 

Dr. Marie - That's so interesting. I mean, what it sounds like to me is it's really the intentionality behind it. 

Dr. Marie - Does this feel out of your control and that you're just, like you said, going along with it, along for the ride, you don't have any other choice or do you have the capacity to recognize this is enough? 

Dr. Marie - Right. I'm choosing to be in this busy learning, striving state of life versus I'm choosing to slow down, I'm choosing to set these boundaries or whatever it might be. And I think that's a really important distinction. And I know for me, when I'm feeling swept up in it, so to speak, I'm feeling like I don't have that agency. Like this is what I have to do. This is what's expected of me. It's all coming from external factors, not internally, from within. So that. That's really very helpful. 

Dr. Jennifer - One real quick thought I would add to that too, is it's not always necessarily about whether or not we see that we're choosing or whether or not we see that we have a Choice. Right. Because sometimes when we experience that we have a choice, we may choose the busy, the crazy, because it's a means to an end. Right? Like when somebody graduates from veterinary school, they choose to do an internship and a residency, which is very crazy and busy and hard work, but they're choosing to do that. So even though it's hard, even though it's depleting, it's a very different experience than when, say, they feel like they had to do it because somebody expected it of them or they were told they have to do it. 

Dr. Jennifer - And so even when we are choosing the hard, the busy, the depleting, knowing that we had a choice in the matter still makes it more tolerable. I don't know if that makes sense. 

Dr. Marie - It makes perfect sense. Yeah. It's that want to versus have to perspective. 

Dr. Marie - I love that. Such an important distinction. Jennifer, you often talk about the relationship between achievement and anxiety, and I think we've all felt that rush after a successful procedure or a glowing client review, but it seems to then, just, poof, evaporate. Why is that hit of dopamine so addictive and yet so fleeting? And why does it never actually translate into a lasting sense of enoughness? 

Dr. Jennifer - Yeah, there's multiple answers to that question, so I will choose one kind of main thread. So that dopamine hit is real, right? From. From a nervous system perspective, we do get something out of that. We get that reward, the. Well, there's maybe two main thoughts that come up. One is, I think part of it is because very often we're experiencing that moment of success not as a moment of fulfillment, but as a moment of relief, right? So if we're living inside of an overall context of not enoughness, either I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, I'm not likable. Name a million versions of that, right? Then that moment that I experience that success, I'm getting a momentary relief from the experience of that context, but I'm not actually shifting the context. 

Dr. Jennifer - So it's not about getting fulfilled, it's about momentarily feeling better from the. The, you know, not true truth that I'm living inside of that I'm not enough. The other part of it is that it's a reliance on external validation versus internal validation, right? So if I again, deep down believe that I am not good enough in some way, and you know, spoiler alert, if you're human, there is some version of that, most likely within you, then I look to others for that validation. But in the moment, I'm like, oh, yay. But I don't really subconsciously believe it because it's not consistent with the truth that I'm living inside of. 

Dr. Jennifer - So until we can start to shift the underlying context, to start letting go of some of these disempowering stories that we might have about ourselves, then these moments are fleeting because we don't really believe them. They're like, yeah, I know she or he thinks that about me. Yeah, the family was appreciative. But, you know, I know the truth about me. And so the real work starts with not little hits of validation, but starting to really do the underlying work to let go and start to really embrace the amazingness that each one of us is. Because everyone is listening right now. You are amazing in so many ways. It's just a matter of learning how to believe that. 

Dr. Marie - Yeah, I mean, you're really hitting home, certainly for me. And I think about my journey through perfectionism and overworking and all of these strategies that I used to help myself to feel like I was enough because I have that underlying belief system around not doing enough, being wrong, flawed, invisible, like just not enough in some way. Like you said, there's so many different ways to talk about it, and so trying to get those hits consistently and constantly to avoid feeling that way. And I know that you look at patterns quite a bit or you've identified these patterns among veterinary professionals in terms of overworking, perfectionism, people pleasing, which is another one we haven't discussed, and how they connect to our identities that are formed early in life. 

Dr. Marie - And I would love for us to talk about the vet school admissions process and how the profession itself unintentionally almost weaponizes these childhood survival patterns and then leads so many of us in veterinary medicine to have this experience. Can you talk about that? 

Dr. Jennifer - Yeah. So this very much ties in with the last thing we're just talking about, each one of us. What's interesting is while we may be striving for that perfectionism, it can be driven by a very different experience. Right, so you just shared your experience. Another person might have an underlying belief that they're stupid. They may have decided literally when they were 6 years old that they're stupid and they spend the rest of their life subconsciously trying to prove that wrong. And another person might believe they're a failure. And for me, my thing that I. And when I discovered this, it was just this massive, like, oh my goodness, like, eye opening moment was for me, it was about being liked. Right. So you can have the same behavior. 

Dr. Jennifer - Driving for getting good grades, driving for perfection, can't mess up a surgery, got to know every diagnosis, blah, blah, blah. But the underlying driver of it can be a different version for each person. Which is why when one person shares their version and what's there for them, another person may completely not resonate with it at all and think, oh, I don't have that because they have their own version. And so how that ties into the veterinary admissions process and I guess one thing I might push back on a little is that word unintentionally because I'm not convinced it's always unintentional. Taking advantage of these characteristics that we as a culture tend to embody. 

Dr. Jennifer - The culture of vet med, we have selected for a population of people that as we are talking are high achieving but that are also very loving and giving and altruistic. Right. And willing to have a bit of martyrdom. Right. You know, not going to make the money in vet med as you would. I mean even somebody who's a board certified neurologist, probably making more money than a gp, I'm almost certain not making as much money as they could be in human medicine as a neurologist. Right. So there is already this element of self-sacrifice for the greater cause, the greater purpose. And what happens is the selection process of this. You've got to be almost perfect to get into vet school, especially these days. 

Dr. Jennifer - You have to be willing to sacrifice yourself, you have to be willing to take on an incredible amount of debt or you're not going unless you're independently wealthy, which I think for most people that does not apply. And then you take people who have done nothing but be perfect their whole life and put them into a situation where there's guaranteed failure. Like there's no way to be perfect in vet meditation. Like it's just impossible. With everything we need to know, everything we need to do and the fact that things just happen, patients die, you know, behavioral situations can't always be remedied and maybe that really aggressive dog has to be euthanized at 2. We can't fix everything, right? The money isn't there. Like we can go on and on about the dilemmas that occurred. 

Dr. Jennifer - And now we have a population of people that aren't equipped mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or physically to handle that, but they need to, so they are going to be perfect even about that part of it. So they grit their teeth and they carry on. And we are not being cultivated and taught how to self-renew, how to be able to stand up and say, that's enough. And there's environments where it's just not okay. When I hear from some of my coaching clients, some of the situations they're in, it's not even doable. Like, I sit here listening and I'm like, I've been a veterinarian for over 25 years. I could never do what they're doing at the rate that they're doing it and the capacity they're doing it. 

Dr. Jennifer - So at some point, I do believe that we need to start selecting for a level of resilience that isn't necessarily tied to a 4.4 GPA. We need to be teaching some of these skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills, self-care skills, self-advocacy skills, all of that. And I could go into my philosophies of economics and business and I won't go into that, but it's just not working. And I think it is starting at some level of the admissions process. And again, no offense to anybody, I'm not trying to say, well, you were selected wrong. I mean, heck, I was selected, you were selected. It's not about that. It's just a bigger picture, selecting for more resilience. 

Dr. Marie - Yeah, I think we can do better. It's like anything, when we have the information, new information, now we know better and we can do better. And so we're looking at some of the trends we're seeing in vet medicine and asking ourselves, how can we do better for the profession by selecting folks that do have the skills and tools to be able to sustain themselves long term. And like you said, some of that is innate and some of that is learned. And you mentioned as well, when you were talking about folks in the profession also gritting their teeth and just moving through their challenges. 

Dr. Marie - And I think that is a culture that we have created as well, that we are going to perfect burnout and mental health and everything else just the same and not ever falter and be that person that needs support or needs to reach out to a coach or a mental health professional. And you talk a lot about the culture of sacrifice in veterinary medicine. And I'm wondering, you know, with your experience as a practice owner, you know, how leadership influences team culture, how does a leader who is stuck in their own high achievers loop inadvertently teach their staff that self-sacrifice is the only way to be excellent. 

Dr. Jennifer - Well, I think there's a lot of ways that can happen. Sometimes intentionally, a lot of times unintentionally. Part of it is modeling, right? So sometimes leaders' model behavior can start to set an expectation. It doesn't always have to though, right? Because maybe there's a leader that being that high achiever works for them like they love it. They want to work through lunch and leave early and they're perfectly happy doing that. But they don't set that as an expectation of others. Then great. Having that happen though takes a level of intentionality and awareness. So modeling the behavior, setting expectations, creating a culture of safety, right? Where people can speak up and advocate for what they need, what works and what doesn't work. When leaders bring awareness, you know, people call conscious leadership, that's my passion in this world is conscious leadership, right? 

Dr. Jennifer - It's bringing transformation, self-awareness to the application of leadership. And so when a leader is bringing that type of intentionality, they can behave how they want because they're aware of it. They're not stuck in a loop. They may be intentionally in that loop. They can allow others to express what's there for them, to have work situations that work for them. Not every minute of every day, right? I'm talking big picture. You know, we all have to deal with it. This is a challenging profession. We can start to create more of a win, win situation, right? There are four wins to me that are possible and that's winning. 

Dr. Jennifer - So that what works for the team with their quality of life, with their schedules, with their pay, with their training, with the respect, what works for the clients so they get the care that they need, the education, the respect as well. It goes both ways. What works for the patients, really, that's why we're all there. They get the care they need, they get treated with love. They're not being handed off to frustrated employees who are maybe rough with them because they're just having a bad day. And those are three of the four wins. And the fourth win, that is also the business, right? So there are many possibilities of ways that we can have a four way win here. 

Dr. Jennifer - And unfortunately I think that there is a narrow viewpoint by a lot of people out there, whether they're owners or corporate, whoever, that the business winning means that the team can't win, right? And sometimes the clients can't win or the patients can't win, and I don't personally subscribe to that. I think that when we cultivate a higher level of awareness and we can start to think outside the box, we see possibilities, creativity and solutions that might have been elusive before so that we create. Guess what, there are practices out there like that and they're doing great financially and the people are happy and the clients are happy and the patients are getting braid cheese and kisses along with great medical care. Right. So it's all part of that. 

Dr. Jennifer - But I guess it's a roundabout answer to that's all part of intentional leadership when a leader is stuck, when a leader's floundering, they're not modeling healthy behavior and quite honestly, they're focused on themselves. Because when we're in that energy, when we're feeling stuck and disempowered and exhausted and maybe on the verge of burnout, we're focused here into self and that is going to trickle down. 

Dr. Marie - I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about psychological safety and the impact that leaders have on that and just how much that permeates through the practice and really impacts the wellbeing of the team on so many different levels. And in this context I really see it as needing to have that awareness to be able to say to the team, I need to hear from you, I need to know what you need. I need to know what your ideal is and what works for you and recognize themselves that I don't have it all figured out and you are going to see me fail and try and fail and try again and I want us all to be able to do that together. And I do think that is not something that comes naturally to a lot of leaders in vet med. 

Dr. Marie - As you know, many leaders just find themselves in leadership roles. They're a vet that decided to buy a practice or they're a technician that has now moved into a practice management role or an ownership role. And that's really important work that has to be done for the wellbeing of the entire team. So I love that you talk about conscious leadership and it really does start with awareness. 

Dr. Jennifer - I believe it does because it's a multi-leveled awareness. Right. So one is a leader being aware of what do they actually want or they want a better culture, they want psychological safety for their team and all these nice words, what does that actually mean for them then having the awareness of what's standing in the way of them getting there. Right. And it's often not as complicated as they think. But when they are able to create that space of safety, that space of like you just talked about, that collaboration that the shared creation of what will be the default for again, high achieving veterinarians who, or veterinary technicians who need to quote, know everything. It's almost though in, at first the threat like, but in reality it's a relief. Like, oh, you mean it's not all on me? 

Dr. Jennifer - You mean I don't have to have all the answers. The whole team can actually help create this. Wow. So the biggest obstacle to creating that is often a fear. And when people can get down to what are you actually afraid of? And start to let that go, so much becomes available and possible. And again, it seems like this insurmountable task of finding all of that out and it's really a lot more simple than most people realize. Like in one hour with somebody, a lot of times I see this moment like this, aha, eyes open. Oh my goodness, I can't believe I never noticed that. And now it's. They can't unsee it and everything's different. So I guess I would just, yeah, just try to really emphasize to people what is available and oftentimes they need help getting there. Right. 

Dr. Jennifer - Where our minds are not designed to see these things for ourselves. It's just the way the human mind is created usually. 

Dr. Marie - Absolutely. I mean, it's one of the reasons why I love coaching. I think coaching and mental health support because you have that unbiased other perspective, that outer perspective that can often shine a light on blind spots or ask the questions that get you to have that moment of aha and awareness. So I love that. 

Dr. Marie - Leadership can feel isolating even when you're doing everything right. That's why I'm launching the Veterinary Leadership Collective, a facilitated peer coaching space for practice owners, managers, medical directors, and team leads. This isn't another webinar. It's a monthly opportunity to connect with peers, work through real leadership challenges, and get support from people who truly understand. Founding member registration opens this summer and space is limited. Learn more at revivingvetmed.com/collective. 

Dr. Marie - Jennifer, I want to talk about one of your philosophies that I really love, which is about shifting patterns without trying to fix oneself. So if a listener recognizes themselves in this high achievers loop today, what is the very first step toward change that doesn't involve adding self-care to something that is already overflowing or overwhelming in that person's life? Their long to-do list. And now I have to just add this on. How do we shift that mindset? 

Dr. Jennifer - Yeah, well, I think one of the first shifts can be the contextual view of it. Right? So fixing self-care even can just be another form of overachieving. Right? So now I got to be like the best person going to yoga four times a week and like, no, if you want to go do yoga. If you don't. I would encourage people to meditate and do yoga, but if it's not something you're up for, then don't. When we fix, the way I see it is we usually end up with a different version of the same thing. So I'm in a job, I hate my boss, I quit the job, get a new job, quit that job, get a new job, and I end up with three different bosses who are all versions of the same thing. 

Dr. Jennifer - And extrapolate out that out to life partners, to friends, to whatever. Because when we're fixing, it's like we are operating at the surface level with the same awareness, the same tools, the same strategies that got us here in the first place. If I could fix the situation, I would have already. So I try and I try, and a different version of the same thing keeps showing up. So then what happens is I say, well, it is what it is. I guess that's just my bad luck. Or I guess I just stink at this. Or I guess, you know, all bosses are this way. Oh, well. And then in comes resignation, cynicism, disempowerment, and again, feeling stuck in that loop. So alternatively, fixing things is transforming things. And when we transform things, we are fundamentally shifting how they are. So it is now different. 

Dr. Jennifer - And the way we achieve transformation is by bringing new insight, new perspective, new context, new awareness into the picture. So that now all of a sudden, you know, pretend that we already know A, B, C and D, and we keep trying everything with A, B, C and D. Well, all of a sudden we bring an E, F and G perspective. Everything looks different. And all of a sudden there's. There's options. And we're like, oh, I didn't know. And wow, can I actually stand up and say that? Could I actually leave here and find a practice that treats me differently? Oh, wow. Like, all of a sudden, there's just different ways. And so the moment that we see something that. That we didn't see a second ago, or we hear something, you know, the whole. 

Dr. Jennifer - You can't unhear something, a shift has occurred, a transformation has occurred, and now forever there is a difference. That's where the true change occurs. To me, fixing is almost like guaranteed failure and leads to more of the same. And then, you know, obviously just reinforcing this experience of disempowerment and being resigned. 

Dr. Marie - Yeah, it sounds to me like you're describing the difference between shifting a person's perspective versus putting a band aid on something. And I think oftentimes I feel like that Band-Aid is more that external stuff, you know, like it's everything out here. It's my boss, it's my co-workers, it's the clients. It's like, you know, Band Aid, Band Aid. Projecting outward where we don't have control over any of those things, we really only have control over ourselves. And so looking inside, recognizing those patterns, shifting our perspective, shifting our approach, but making it internal work versus trying to fix everything around us. 

Dr. Jennifer - Yeah. Does that resonate? 100%. It's like the difference between going through life with the perspective that you are. Cause in the matter of your life doesn't mean you can change every circumstance right in that moment, but you certainly can shift how you respond to that circumstance versus being at the effect of your life. Right. And so when we are affected by all of the people, circumstances, things, you know, it's almost like a victim mentality. And I use that word delicately because that word for some people means something else. But in this context, it's just a mentality of a context from which to live where we don't see that we have a say, we don't have agency, we cannot affect things. He or she is mean to me. Oh well, I guess my work life just has to suck, right? 

Dr. Jennifer - There's a lack of an ability to see how we can start to shift things around us because it really, truly seems in that moment like it is those other people. It's not wrong and it's also not right. And so I always say everything's true until it's not. And so I think it's important for people to honor and respect what their current version of the truth is for them that they're living inside of, because that is their truth, that's their experience, and at the same time understanding that it's truth with a lowercase t. It is not the truth. And we can create new truths, we can create new ways we see things. 

Dr. Jennifer - And miraculously when we start to do that, all of these circumstances and people around us that seemed impossible, not all of them, but some of them start to change and we're like, oh, I never knew. Yeah, I know. And it's quite miraculous. 

Dr. Marie - I love this conversation. Okay, so moving on then to a topic that is really near and dear to my heart, which is perfectionism. As a recovering perfectionist, I always love discussing this for those high achieving folks who are afraid that letting go of these patterns will mean a drop in their medical excellence or whatever, their productivity, you name it. How do you define the difference between pursuing excellence and reinforcing self-sacrifice. 

Dr. Jennifer - Yeah, I love this topic. Because there is an erroneous belief that to be high achieving, we need to be perfectionists. We need to be perfect. And that's not true. And in fact it's the opposite. So the more we let go of perfectionism, the more freedom and space we have to strive towards excellence because of the fact that it's a fact that it is a given that we are not perfect. It's just the way humans are designed, right? Especially when we attribute ourselves to be at fault for things we have no control over, then we're even more not going to be perfect. We are guaranteeing failure. Because I want to be perfect. Something happens, I'm not perfect, the dog didn't get better, I'm failing. So that is a very limited viewpoint. 

Dr. Jennifer - And it is a viewpoint that creates us living in very low levels of energy. The experience of failure, self-criticism, self-judgment, anger, resentment, frustration, a lot. Because there's no space for the dog to not get better. I have to be perfect. When a client asks me something in the exam room, instead of saying, you know what, I actually don't know, let me find out and get back to you, I start to have a panic attack because I didn't know and I should know everything and, or the client told me something. I can tell you how many times over the years clients told me things and I was like, oh, I actually didn't even know that. And I go and look it up and they're actually right. So it's a learning opportunity. 

Dr. Jennifer - But when we don't see it that way because I have to be perfect, I then experience failure. When we strive for excellence, which I encourage everybody to do, what that means is that we have a growth oriented mindset. Part of growth is having things not working out and learning from it, right? So you know, a little baby stands up and falls on their bum and they're like, oh, that balancing didn't work out so well. Let me put myself back up and maybe if I lean a little more forward and oops, now I fell forward. Oh, let me stand back up, right? Learning everything in life takes, quote, failing. We don't even need to use that word. It takes things not working out the way we wanted. We learn, we grow, we move on. 

Dr. Jennifer - When you pick any aspect of veterinary medicine, be it surgery, dentistry, diagnostics, internal medicine, I don't care what it is. If you imagine somebody getting out of veterinary school or veterinary technician school setting out to try, didn't quite get the diagnosis, looking and saying, oh, you know, maybe I should have run that test a little sooner. Okay, not happy. I'm not saying that we don't care that things didn't work out. We're like, oh, I don't like that. Okay, I don't want to do that again. What can I learn here? Next time they approach the case a little differently. Next time they approach 10 years down the line, how are they going to be as a diagnostician, as a surgeon, as a dentist? 

Dr. Jennifer - Amazing, because they learn, they grow, and they see every opportunity as an opportunity to learn and grow versus an opportunity to be a failure. And so in the aftermath of a given situation, you know, dog doesn't do well in X situation. Person over here is in a state of failure. Person over here is in a state of learning and growing. You can just imagine it in your mind. You can visually see them and their energy and what most likely is going to be the next day, the next week for them. So it takes practice. Again, back to the original conversation of, we are selecting for people with a bit of a perfectionist mindset to get into vet school and to get out of that school, because that's not easy. But we can start to retrain our brains, we can start to retrain our nervous systems. 

Dr. Jennifer - You know, the experience of failure is real at a nervous system level. Be with that, examine it. Say, what is this trying to tell me? Oh, this feels awful. This anxiety, this look, my heart's pounding, this feeling in my shoulders, what can I let go of? How can I say this is necessary? That's also part of excellence, is self-care, learning about yourself, knowing you're going to feel like garbage. Learn and grow from it and say, is this necessary right now? Do I need to beat myself up? Maybe not. How can I let go of it even 10%? How can I acknowledge the good job I did even though the dog didn't do well? Again, it's training these habits. It's training the nervous system to not react in a way that's panicked. 

Dr. Jennifer - And again, some of this is more innate for some people, like you said earlier. But a lot of it is learnable. It really is. And it's a choice to start to go down that path of growth and development. And I would just offer that our experience 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20 years down the line is going to be very different depending on how we choose to approach it. 

Dr. Marie - Really such beautiful sentiments, Jennifer. I feel like we could talk forever. I just love what you do and how you approach it. And I'M so grateful to have you in our profession helping others leaders and other professionals to really be able to take care of themselves and to shift their perspectives and thrive long term in their careers. I want to ask you one more question before I let you go. And that's a question that we ask to all of our guests on the podcast. And that is, what does the phrase reviving veterinary medicine mean to you? 

Dr. Jennifer - It means a lot of different things. I mean the word revive is, you know, in a way meaning like bringing back to life, bringing alive again, maybe from a state of death, or maybe it's just from a state of near death. And in some ways I think there's aspects of our profession that have really gone down in that regard. Reviving to me in this profession is bringing back the humanity, you know, almost like going back in time, but not in every aspect. Like I love the technology, I love the new standards, I love so many things that we've learned and grown again, that excellence, mindset, but going back to where people matter. And I will pause in that because generationally we have some really old disempowering conversations in this profession as well of like self-sacrifice and all of that. 

Dr. Jennifer - But I do believe that there was an aspect of the humanity of it all, that if we can get back there, if we can honor and respect people and what they need, then those people will provide what the clients, what the patients and what the business needs. And from a business standpoint, you know, at the end of the day, and we're seeing it everywhere with staff shortages and all of it people are the rate limiting step. You know, AI can make a person more effective and more efficient, but AI can't make a new vet, it can't create another set of hands, right? And at the end of the day, that's what we need. 

Dr. Jennifer - And my prediction is that those, either private practices, corporates, whatever people in charge of practices, the more of those that embody a conscious leadership mindset and start to make people a priority in all of the right ways and focus on their business, are going to be the ones who are successful because they'll have the people. People in this profession are dedicated and they're loyal and they care and they're hardworking. They can produce, create the right environment so that they feel good and they're happy and they're connected back to their purpose and their passion. People are unstoppable. And for those out there, maybe there's some corporate leaders listening for those out there that can have the awareness and the consciousness to start to really embrace that. My prediction is those are the ones that will be successful in the end. We'll see. I love it. 

Dr. Marie - Well, thank you again. I really appreciate your perspectives and the advice that you've given to all of us today. It was great chatting with you, Jennifer. Thank you again for joining me. 

Dr. Jennifer - Thank you for having me. It's fun. 

Dr. Marie - So that's it for this episode of Reviving Vet Med. I'm so grateful to Dr. Jennifer Edwards for helping us deconstruct the High Achiever Loop. It's a powerful reminder that our value as humans isn't tied to our last successful case or our ability to work through lunch.  If you felt a spark of recognition in today's conversation, I highly recommend visiting Jennifer's website or following her on LinkedIn. We've included all her resources in the show notes and if this episode resonated with you, please share it with a colleague or coworker who might need to hear that it's okay to let go of the perfectionist mask. The more we shift these internal patterns, the more sustainable this profession becomes for all of us. Don't forget that we've got lots of resources on RevivingVetMed.com and please follow us on Instagram. We're RevivingVetMed. A big thank you once again to Dr. Jennifer Edwards for spending time with us today, to Bearbeat Productions for producing this episode, and to you, the listener, for being part of this community. Until next time, take care of yourself. Bye for now.