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Premed Productivity Podcast with Dr. Andre Pinesett
I’m Dr. Andre Pinesett and I’d like to welcome you to the Premed Productivity Podcast, where I'm bringing 15+ years of experience as an award-winning mentor/coach to take the stress out of getting into med school with episodes designed to help you: develop a healthy mindset, study efficiently, premed smarter, dominate the MCAT and make your application stand out!
I was told I wasn’t good enough to get into medical school, but I adopted the “No Excuses, Just Dominate” mindset, learned the secrets of successful students and got into Stanford Medical School.
Now, I'm on a mission to empower 1 million students in 5 years by making sure that every passionate student has the information, inspiration and support they need to make their doctor dreams a reality. This podcast is all about you, the premed. I will be answering real student questions, coaching premeds and breaking down every aspect of premed and getting into med school. Enjoy!
PremedProductivity.com
Premed Productivity Podcast with Dr. Andre Pinesett
Why Studying More Could Hurt Your Grades, Says Science
Why studying more could hurt your grades, says science. Discover research-backed study tips to improve focus, learning, and results without burnout.
In this video, Dr. Andre Pinesett breaks down why overstudying doesn’t work, how diminishing returns impact your GPA, and the smarter, science-based strategies every college and premed student should use to succeed.
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Each week, I’m bringing strategies for:
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All right, guys, I am running super late, but I appreciate you guys who are hanging around or joining me right now. We're going to hop on here because we are live action today, and today we're talking about something that often happens to students, and it's that overload, that overwhelm. And there was a study this week I don't know if you guys saw it where they realized and it's a great study in the Lancet that essentially showed that everyone's been talking about 10,000 steps, 10,000 steps, 10,000 steps, and so people have been pushing for 10,000 steps, but they were able to show that even if you walked 5,000 to 7,000 steps, you got most of the benefits of those 10,000 steps, and that there's a huge jump when you go from those 5,000 steps from 2,000 or less. And so the big takeaway is that it's not about being perfect, it's not about doing an over an abundance of things, but it's about doing more than what you're currently doing and finding kind of that minimum effective amount that gives you the big bang for your buck, but at the minimum level that you're able to do consistently all the time. And so for you guys as students, the takeaway from this, when I saw this like, oh, as students of pre-meds. This is a perfect lesson because, for you guys, how many of you guys are so fixated on being perfect, are so fixated on changing everything all in one day and being incredible all in one day, that it overwhelms you. You feel overloaded, you feel stressed out, you feel like you can't achieve that goal and so, instantly, you feel defeated. And I want to tell you you're not alone. It's so many, so many students. But it is terrible to do that to yourselves, guys.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to break that and by the end of the session, I'm going to give you guys, my 14 day plan for breaking that and I'm going to talk to you about my medic method for breaking free of that and then building successful habits, and we're going to break down some of the common characters and flaws of this perfection and how it hits you guys. So it's healthy perfectionism today, healthy productivity today, being more successful, being your greatness. Can we get at it, y'all? Let's hit the intro and then we'll get right to it. Today is the day, guys. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate, you're going to be successful. No excuses, just dominate. All right, guys.
Speaker 1:So I was like this is such a great topic, let's do a PowerPoint. And we're going to try this because I like to educate. If you guys don't know, I love to educate students. I am an educator at heart. I am not a social media person, so I am oftentimes not as consistent as maybe some of you guys would like, but I'm always educating my students. I'm always teaching. We have teaching every week in my, in my programs. I love to teach, and so let's bring PowerPoint up.
Speaker 1:Let's really get at it. Um so, spencer, what is up? Meryl, what up? Ready to rock, let's get it guys.
Speaker 1:Um so my theory and my kind of thing in this is, when we talk about this 10,000 steps and this quest for this impossible perfectionism, is it boils down to finding the minimum effective dose where you can raise your grade. You can have huge accomplishments, you can succeed, but you can do it in a way that you're not burning out, you're not feeling pressured, and so this is a 14-day action plan we're going to talk about for students who want to get the better results but want to do it less stressed, right? Who doesn't want that? So let's get at it. You've been lied to right, as I talked about in this study. It was talking about how let me move this so I can see it was talking about how everyone was like 10,000 steps, 10,000 steps. You guys set your little watches by it and do all kinds of things. And I have an Apple watch. I don't wear it very often, I don't like these on my wrist, but people wear it and so people push themselves with those steps and I think it's awesome to set huge goals. But sometimes setting those huge goals can actually be defeatist because it feels impossible. And so we're like why even do it? I'll just quit right now. Right, how many of you guys do that? Right, where it's like it's so overwhelming, avoid it.
Speaker 1:But what you have to recognize, guys we have to flip this whole thing on its head is that you don't have to do the most to see real results. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to change everything, you just have to make progress. And so if you get nothing else from this video, understand that it's not about perfection. You don't need to be perfect to be successful. You don't need to be perfect to get into Stanford Medical School to become a doctor. You don't need to be perfect like Spencer and Merrill I can see on here who have commented, who are both in medical school. Now, you don't have to be perfect, but you have to make progress.
Speaker 1:And I'm always so proud of my students because I specialize in working with students who have a lot to overcome. Students who are disadvantaged in some way, students who aren't the most advantaged wealthy, have everything going for them. I like working with the students who come in from the bottom, because that's where I came from, and so when my students succeed, I take tremendous pride in it because and I'm proud of them because they've made so much progress to achieve their greatness. And I want you guys to embrace that progress that you have to make and not be ashamed about it and be excited about it. And so you're going to leave here today understanding what the personal minimum effective dose is and what that really means. And specifically, it's a small, specific effort that still moves your needle academically. So we're gonna talk about how to find that. I'm going to provide you my two sentence focus strip to help you really kill the distractions, kill the procrastination and engage in lock in your study sessions. And then we're going to talk about a two week action plan where you guys can implement this and truly, truly change right, because that's what we want to do.
Speaker 1:And so let's start with introducing you guys to this medic method and then, after I introduce it to you, I'm going to break it down to you guys. I like systems. Who likes systems here? Who likes step-by-step, who likes recipes they can follow to be successful? That's what we're doing today, and so, for me, when we talk about overcoming unhealthy perfectionism, finding our correct, right level of perfectionism and then striving for our greatness, it comes down to the medic method. It's five steps to win without burnout. And so it's going to help you raise your grades, raise your pre-med profile, without having to raise a ton of hours and get stressed out about it. So, as we go through this medic method, I'm going to break it down, all five parts of it. Then we're going to go through specific scenarios of the most common culprits of stealing your joy and stealing your success. So the first M in this medic method is measuring your baseline.
Speaker 1:You have to do a truth audit, and this is so important because it's the lies we tell ourselves that get us into trouble. How many of you guys consistently lie to yourself? You consistently mislead yourself in an attempt to protect your feelings, you actually hurt your future, you kill your dream because you're so concerned about not feeling that regret, not recognizing that you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. But if we're honest with ourselves, how many of you guys tell yourselves in your mind I'm studying all the time. I'm studying focused. I'm studying every day when really you're not. You're going through the motions, and it's one of my favorite things to do when I go out to study.
Speaker 1:Events is ask students hey, how many of you guys know how to study? And I'll ask that question and I'll re-ask how many guys really know how to study. And I make them be honest with themselves. And when they're honest with themselves, they recognize dang it, I really don't know how to study. I'm just kind of faking the funk. I thought I'm supposed to know how to study, like I'm a student, but I really have never been formally trained, dr Feinsett. And then I'll ask another question. I said hey, how many of you guys study listen to the words of this how many of you guys study when you're supposed to study? How many of you study when you're supposed to study? So, if you schedule study time, how many of you guys are actually sitting down and starting that session when it's supposed to start, following through to the end of that study session and you're focused throughout that session. And if we're honest and we're being truthful with ourselves, the truth is we are not as focused, we are not as dedicated, we are not as consistent as we would love to be and, more importantly, as we would need to be to be successful. Yes, so if we want to be successful, if we want to create effective change, if we want to make ourselves an accessible student we aspire to be an accessible pre-med we have to figure out where the heck we are at, truthfully and honestly.
Speaker 1:And for me, if you guys know my story right, my jam where I was flunking out of college, I was not on track to get a stand for medical school and I wanted to become a doctor. I really wanted it, really really bad, all my heart, but I wasn't on track and I was lying to myself, telling myself hey, just keep working hard, hey, put in more time, hey, keep doing this, and it's like the 10,000 steps. I was in a position where every time something went terrible, every time something went terrible, every time I got a bad grade, my solution was work harder, push through it, grind more and you'll be more successful. But what kept happening was is I was just burning myself out. I was spending long hours in the library, a ton of time in front of my book, but I was distracted, I wasn't focused, I wasn't effective and I wasn't outcome driven and, as a result, my grades got worse. And so it was like I was't focused, I wasn't effective and I wasn't outcome driven and, as a result, my grades got worse. And so it was like I was literally like I was stuck in academic quicksand.
Speaker 1:How many of y'all are in academic, gosh darn quicksand, where the harder you fight for what you want, the further away you get. You're getting sucked down and suffocated. By that hard work and by that effort, you're burnt out and you feel smoked. We, and by that effort, you're burnt out and you feel smoked. We gotta break that cycle. And so it starts with being true to ourselves and measuring our baselines. So we set realistic expectations for ourselves.
Speaker 1:So, measuring this baseline, I want you to take seven days right, and it's easy to lie to ourselves when we don't have data right. It's like what we see in the media right now. I ain't gonna name nobody, but you got certain politicians, certain people out here who love to twist the facts or, flat out, just make stuff up. And it's one of those cases where if you don't have the facts in front of you, if you don't have the data in front of you, it's easy to mislead and be misled. And so we want to get to the truth. So let's get to the facts and get to the data.
Speaker 1:So for the next seven days, to establish our baseline, I want you to track, literally, sit down, make a grid and say, hey, listen, what are my focused minutes? This is so important as you go to study. It's not about hours, because a lot of times we go too gross. We say, oh yeah, I was in front of the book for hours. I want you to literally look in your study sessions, break it up. How many minutes would I estimate that I actually was focused in studying? I was supposed to do it for an hour, but how much of that was really spent focused? And give yourself a percentage. How many minutes was it, ask yourself.
Speaker 1:Let's look at not just the focused interval, let's look at the outputs. So a lot of times you say, oh yeah, I got a lot of work done. I got a lot of work done. I did a lot of stuff. If we don't get specific and quantify again, we can lie to ourselves. So what are real, tangible outputs? You could put your gosh darn thumb on. You know what. I completed X amount of problems. You know what I attempted X amount of passages. I was able to answer X amount of questions, from my memory, without having to cheat. Then we get even more granular with our outputs. Well, yes, I completed these problems, but what did I actually learn from these problems? Do I have tangible takeaways, concepts that I clarified today, that I learned new today, or I clarified today when I went through these passages? Have I identified any patterns, things that I'm messing up?
Speaker 1:Let's quantify our effectiveness, not just our work, because for a lot of you guys, how many of you guys are working, putting time in, but you really don't feel like you're getting the outcome, and it may be that you're so focused on doing work that you aren't focused on where the work is taking you and the separator from really high level students from average students is that they look at making all of their work laser focused and directed towards an outcome. It's so important. We don't want to be busy. We want to be productive. Do you guys understand the difference? If you don't understand right now, like this video right now, comment. Let me know that I'm here and you guys understand what I'm talking about and the importance of getting clear on the data and measuring our baseline and talking in terms of specific time intervals and talking in terms of specific outputs and outcomes so we can know if we're being successful. We cannot be vague. Oh yeah, I've been studying all day, professor. I've been doing all this stuff. I've been doing all the things I can do. I've been all. Let's get specific. So write down your baseline, let's figure out where we're at and there's no shame in this, guys.
Speaker 1:As someone who was the worst student in the world, it was hard for a second to admit that I sucked. But by getting clear on my baseline, it allowed me to then recognize and realize and accept the fact that I could not be the A student today Because I'm an F student. I can't go from F to A today. I have to be realistic. I can't go from F to A today. I have to be realistic, but without acknowledging the fact that I'm an F student. I had the unrealistic expectation that if I just worked hard enough today, I'd get the gosh darn A Right. And the consequence of that is that bam, oh my gosh, like how can I? It was devastating, right. It's literally the impossible task. So get that baseline so we know how we're growing, where we're going from.
Speaker 1:Once we measure our baseline and we establish that baseline, let's figure out what things we can do to just be more effective. Not everything we could do. Yes, I'm going to study more. I'm going to remember more. I'm going to take these notes. I'm going to do this. Let's find a minimum effective dose. Maybe it means let's just study 60 minutes, completely focused, 60 minutes. Commit to it.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know what, if I'm studying for the MCAT, instead of saying I'm going to do as many blocks as possible, can I just say I'm going to do three MCAT blocks this week, just three. I'm going to go passages. Then I'm going to do a super, super thorough review where I get down to the nitty gritty and I'm learning from this. I'm taking high yield notes, I'm organized, all those kind of things. Hey, you know what, instead of saying I'm going to learn all this stuff this week, I'm going to be, I'm just going to show up to freaking lecture prepared, having pre-read, I'm going to attend that lecture and be present in that lecture and we'll talk about you lecture people later. I'm going to attend this lecture and then after that lecture, I'm not going to rush off to my next thing, I'm not going to throw those notes in the bottom of my backpack. I'm going to take a second and I'm going to go back through that lecture and say wait a minute, what did I take away from this? What am I still confused about that? I could get some clarity on from the professor right now or at office hours later. What do I need to work on? So we're going to look at small changes we can make that we think will have big impacts on our life and on our outcomes.
Speaker 1:This med, the minimum effective dose you're looking at it as something that's winnable. Too often the goal is too big. It seems impossible. So what do we do? We pull away and we quit on ourselves. So what we want to do is create a realistic goal that we can set, feel like we can achieve and then actually achieve so we can create momentum rolling forward. So it's a minimum effective dose.
Speaker 1:Like medication right, I do anesthesia and there's all kinds of fancy terms for pharmacology and medications or whatever, but as an anesthesiologist, I don't want to give my patient more medication than they need, because the more medication I give, the more unwanted side effects I get. So what do I want to do? I want to give the minimum effective dose to get the outcome I want. Yes, so once you create this, if you're looking at it, don't confuse the picture Write your med in one sentence, and if you can't write it in one sentence, it's too complicated. And if it's not doable on a bad day, then shrink it. You have to be able to do this even when you're off.
Speaker 1:So that's our second thing, right, we're going to establish a minimum effective dose. The third thing y'all, y'all still with me we're going to defend our streak. So once we set this med, this minimum effective dose, we're going to start actioning it every single day. As we do this, we must recognize we are not going to fall into the track of trying to do I'm going to run five miles today and then my freaking hamstrings are so sore I can barely sit, let alone get back to run the next day. We are going to defend our streak by focusing on consistency over intensity. I'm going to study 19 hours today.
Speaker 1:But then what happens? Y'all you study so hard one day that you're exhausted. You were so busy, I'm doing so much time that not only are you exhausted but you're also frustrated because you don't feel like you had the gains you had. And then you're in this negative spiral of regret of oh gosh, I feel terrible. And then what happens the next day, guys? What happens? You take that academic personal day. Right, it's a personal day. Why? Because you're so distressed I'm so distressed about the travesty that was my day on Monday that I got take Tuesday and I gotta unplug, I gotta distract myself, I gotta procrastinate myself so that way I don't have to think about the terribleness that was yesterday. And so by trying to be so intense one day, you cost yourself multiple days, whereas you could be much more high level if you were consistent over that week. It would be easy, it would be sustainable, it would be productive, right.
Speaker 1:And this is where we get to that space retrieval. We talk about all these things. That is right. That is where your gains are going to come. So we want consistency over intensity. To do this consistency, we are going to protect our study blocks. How many of you guys violate yourself all day. Right, that count kind of weird. How do you guys violate your time blocks every single day where you had time set aside for something, but something else bleeds in, or we're supposed to initiate at a certain time and we tell ourselves, oh yeah, I'm gonna start studying at three, but then you know what? I'm a little tired, I'm a little nervous about this. I'm gonna go ahead and go on social media for like five minutes, but now you lost five minutes of studying at best case scenario. But more commonly, what do you guys do? You go for 20 minutes? Oh, my gosh, 20 minutes went by, and so what we want to do is create consistency. So we want to anchor our small med right, our minimum effective dose, to a consistent cue.
Speaker 1:So after lunch, I'm going to review these flashcards. Hey, you know what? When I go to lecture, I'm going to sit in the same exact seat. Hey, when everyone else empties out, I'm going to wait until they empty out. I'm going to look at everybody and I'm going to sit there, and then I'm going to do my 10-minute retrieval. When I sit down to study, I'm going to eliminate the distraction that's going to make to rush through. I'm going to take the time and take my knowledge and make it knowledgeable and make it test worthy knowledge by asking myself what are three test questions that I could think of from this material? So now I'm not just saying, okay, what's here in the book, I'm telling myself, how does this book translate to the exam? And so I'm preventing that test trickery, right. And so we're building a productive streak, getting the snowball rolling downhill, using momentum, so that way we're not having to fight ourselves and use willpower to get us there. Because the sad truth is, guys, is willpower is not a real thing. We don't have the willpower, y'all. But what we can do is create systems and create habit loops that have us doing the right thing by default and therefore the momentum is rolling forward. We're going into the. Our default position is the correct position To help cue us and create the consistency.
Speaker 1:I want you to keep in mind this focus script. So screenshot the screen right now. Turn your timer on your study timer. You should have a study timer. If you don't, you should have one. Today I win. And then you put in what works for you.
Speaker 1:Today I win by mastering glycolysis Simpler. Today, I win by mastering the first three steps of glycolysis. Today, I win by completing X amount of pages. Today, I win by completing three MCAT passages. Today, I win by writing three test questions after I study. Today, I win by doing three questions in the back of the chapter after I study. Today, I win by getting my phone out of the room and when the timer ends I stop, that's it.
Speaker 1:And I tell myself all of these wins tomorrow, the next day, the future the AI want it starts right here, right now. And so I'm linking a future outcome which is amorphous and I'm tying it to something that's tangible today to make it more practical and real and make it something that I need to do. And as I say this to you, right, you're like well, this sounds kind of like whatever, but this is so powerful guys of triggering ourselves into the right emotion. And so for how many of you guys do you sit down and you're stressed, you're overwhelmed, you're sad, you're tired, you're all these things, and so you don't study, you procrastinate the ability, emotional regulation, emotional quotient, right, eq these things people talk about Regulating your emotions. There's many, many tools and tactics, but the big outcome is that we wanna be able to take ourselves from whatever emotion we're feeling and trigger a productive, helpful, fruitful, healthy emotion that's going to get us into a better space.
Speaker 1:And so, for me, when I used to sit down to study, I could instantly trigger motivation, desire, focus, by telling myself I must study today for my kids tomorrow, because if I don't study today, my kids tomorrow are going to have an unstable, chaotic, terrible childhood. And what I want for my kids is to have the best of things. I want them to have opportunities, I want them to be stress-free, I want them to have a full, rich life where they get to have these amazing experiences that shape them as a human being. And so I tied studying, which can suck to something that I wanted so deeply and so badly in the future, and so by doing that, it made that studying. All I could see was my kids, my kids, my kids, right. And then the outcome I get to stay at a medical school, I become a doctor, and now my kids have this incredible life where they have all these great experiences.
Speaker 1:We were at Dave Buster's yesterday and now my kids, right now, are at a water park having fun. I'm here with you, knuckleheads, teaching live action, but they're at the water park having fun, and that was all crafted from that focus script that I crafted about how my kids needed me. Yes, yes, do you guys get what I'm saying? So we're going to create the consistency and move ourselves to consistent, productive action. We are Live Action guys. I am Dr Andre Pines and I'm here, as always, to make you more positive and more productive as a pre-med and as a student.
Speaker 1:And today we're talking about how we can create effective change in our life and be more consistent, be more high level and avoid unhealthy perfectionism. If you're here for it, let me know. Y'all Comment in the box, like the video. Let's keep it going, medic, let's go back and let's review, measure your baseline so we know where we're at. We can set realistic goals, establish a minimum effective dose. Okay, what do I really need to achieve right now? That's achievable, that I can do on my worst day, defend your streak. So we say to ourselves wait a minute. I want to be consistent over intense. I want to make sure that every day I'm working, everything's done, and then, as we start to do this and we start to execute, it's like, yay, I'm having wins. Oh, my gosh. Once you're consistent for a few weeks, then it's time. We never satisfy, we never stop, and this is such a let me sidebar here. I consider myself, and I have a whole video about this. You guys want to talk more about perfectionism, so check my YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:But I am a self-proclaimed perfectionist. On purpose I am a perfectionist, but I am a productive perfectionist and that my perfectionism doesn't paralyze me, doesn't handicap me, doesn't overwhelm me. It drives me and it excites me. And the fact that I recognize, through growth, both in terms of my knowledge and through my practice attempts and developing skills, I can get better and better and better and better and better. And approach it's like those line graphs right, I approach I don't quite hit it, but I approach one. Right, I'm approaching perfection. I don't force myself to be perfection. I don't expect myself to be perfect every day. I don't expect to be a perfect human being, because none of us are perfect. Right, we have to have that level of forgiveness and understanding with ourselves.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, I recognize that I can strive for perfection and I can strive to reach that perfection in some distant day by making every single day as perfect as it can be and being my best that day, which is different? I just want to be my best self every single day. And if I show up and I'm my best self, what does that mean? That means giving my best effort. That means being as focused as I can be. That means giving everything I got that day and it might be less than my best day, but if I can give my best effort that day, then I celebrate that guys. I applaud myself for striving for perfection, for seeking perfection, and then I never penalize myself for coming up short.
Speaker 1:I look at it as an opportunity to say wait, why wasn't I my best self today? How can I get better? From that, and I move myself forward with the encouragement and the optimism that you know what? Perfectionism isn't possible, but getting better and being more and more perfect is possible, and that's a big swing. Does that make sense to everybody? It's a big. It seems subtle, but it's a powerful thing. Because, as many of you guys have experienced right that parental pressure to be perfect how many guys, as pre-meds, feel this peer pressure to be perfect where everyone around you tells you that if you're not perfect grades, perfect, extracurriculars, perfect personal statement, that you're not getting to medical school right, got you running around doing this and doing that and doing this and doing this and doing this, and constantly overwhelmed, constantly stressed out, constantly feeling inferior because you're chasing some perfect pre-med shadow that doesn't exist. So we must change that right.
Speaker 1:Even in medical training I'll have students that I work with right Medical students, residents and I go out and do these talks and I have to talk to them and say, hey guys, medicine is about lifelong learning. Hey guys, medicine is about lifelong learning. You should be struggling, you should be learning, you should be growing. You should feel confused. The day you show up to the hospital and you don't have anything to learn is the day you should retire from medicine, because then you don't have the mindset to be the best doctor possible Every single day, even now. I'm a fantastic anesthesiologist, I'm the best of the best. I'm a great anesthesiologist, but every single day I'm constantly assessing and looking for ways that I can get better, that I can learn from things that happen, that I can tweak and that I can improve myself. That's what you guys want.
Speaker 1:So don't get down on yourselves. Don't force yourselves to always know what to do, to always have the right thing to say on rounds, to just go in there and say I'm gonna learn as much as I gosh darn can today to be my best self today to be even gosh darn better tomorrow. Yes, so as we go, we are never satisfied, we're always improving, and so we wanna have incremental changes, very small changes and nudges. So, after a couple weeks consistency, add a small amount to your thing to continue to level up and grow so you don't stagnate. Oh, you cannot stagnate y'all. We have to be getting better at all times. And so, after those first couple weeks, add 15 minutes on your focus block. So if you are a student right now, right, where are my ADD, adhd students at right now? Right now? Right, I teach my students. We're all in the ADHD spectrum because we all have inattention, we all have distracted attention, attention that's hyper-focused where it shouldn't be, on the TikTok, right. If you right now can only study for 25 minutes at a time, 30 minutes at a time, there's no shame in that. But just because that's what your maximum is today doesn't mean that has to be your maximum tomorrow or next week or next year.
Speaker 1:For myself, as a student, I knew I was highly distracted. As a student, I realized my brain wasn't the sharpest brain and so it took a lot of work for me to study. It was hard gosh darn work to read and try to remember and to process things, and so I started small 30 minutes. Then, when I was able to consistently knock out 30 minutes, I then started adding on 15 minutes. I'm at 45 minutes and then I'm at an hour, and then I'm at an hour and then I maxed out at two hours. But those two hours y'all were so high level, so high focused, and I would have never got there if I didn't make incremental changes. And as you make these incremental changes, make them winnable changes. Don't go from 30 minutes to two hours. It's ridiculous. Small incremental changes to get better, maybe with your MCAT prep as it gets more fluid and you get used to the flow of it and you get used to breaking down questions.
Speaker 1:Don't stagnate and say I'm gonna do the same amount of practice blocks every week. Add a practice block, challenge yourself, push yourself so you can peak to your exam. Mcat Ted St. And this is something that students don't think about with the MCAT, but we wanna be peaking to the exam something that students don't think about with the MCAT, but we want to be peaking to the exam. We don't want to be. We want to be peaking to that exam, that exponential growth, to get there as you increment up, you're not going to be perfect. Again, it's not about perfection. So if you miss consistently, if you miss a couple of times in a row, don't get down on yourself. Instead, go back to that last effort level or pick a smaller increment and make yourself successful, recognizing that we'd rather move up one stair, a baby stair than try to jump up five stairs and bust our lip and our face and go tumbling all the way down.
Speaker 1:I was watching Kung Fu Panda with my kids. In Kung Fu Panda you guys have never seen it Poe tries to go up and sell his noodles at the top of the thing and he goes up the stairs and then he comes down, ah, and his whole cart comes crashing down. Don't be Poe. Y'all Baby steps, one step at a time, one step at a time and you'll get there. Okay, small, sustainable steps, that's what wins. The last thing is the C, and this is so important, and this is so important we have to get out of punishment culture.
Speaker 1:We've talked about unhealthy perfectionism. Let's also talk about our self-image and let's talk about our lifestyle. My life is amazing, is incredible. It's happy, it's joyous. It's always been that. As a pre-med I mean, it wasn't always joyful when I was flunking and failing and being miserable, but I recognize that through my growth as I was striving for things, it's easy to get sucked up in. Oh, I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm going to be happy with myself. I'm going to be proud of myself when I reach this milestone and that milestone is super far off. I'm going to be happy with myself when I graduate. I'm going to help myself get the A, help myself get to medical school. How many of you guys are like that? You're like man, I'm not having fun right now, but it's all going to be worth it. I'll be happy when I'm blank. I'll be proud of myself. I'll acknowledge that I've done some nice things. Once this happens.
Speaker 1:That's a flawed logic, because that puts us in a position to never appreciate and celebrate and enjoy the current stage we're in, and life is one big journey to enjoy. We should enjoy the process, we should enjoy the progress. We should enjoy the journey and be focused on the journey, not the destination. Yes, our destination is where we are today, y'all what we're doing today, how we're improving, and so we want to kind of concretize and lock that perspective in by doing what, celebrating and cementing in our wins. So, at every step, a win is a win, y'all. We take it, we embrace it, we say yeah, even if it's small to somebody else, it doesn't matter, we magnify it, we love it. Yes, I went to lecture today. I actually went. I didn't sleep in, I got myself up, got my ass out of bed and I went to lecture. Thank goodness, I'm incredible. I'm incredible.
Speaker 1:Celebrate wins, guys. And then, as we celebrate, we want to cement them. How many of you guys consistently run what I call the low light reel, where you remind yourself of all the things that went wrong today or this week or this term, all the things that you don't have, all your shortcomings, all your issues, all your problems? We want to change that narrative by celebrating first, but then cementing that celebration by documenting our wins. That way, whenever we get down on ourselves and we tell ourselves we're nothing and we have nothing and we're never going to be nothing, we have a concrete written reference of the fact that you know what I can win, even small wins, but I can win them. And so we have again data so we don't deceive. I have concrete data that I can and I have and I continue to win. It's right here in front of me so I can talk myself out of a loser's mentality, out of a pessimistic mentality, out of a regret-filled mind space that's going to have me beating myself up. I want to uplift myself. Guys. I'm my number one biggest fan. I love me, some me. I want you to love you, some of you, yes.
Speaker 1:So celebrate and submit the wins. So have a daily win log. It takes 30 seconds. Every single day, literally, I lay down on my bed and for you, I want you to write it down. Every single day, literally, I lay down on my bed and for you, I want you to write it down. I'm years past this, but every single day when I close my eyes, right before I close my eyes, I lay down there, I'll close my eyes and I'll envision my wins of the day and I'll smile to myself and I'll celebrate myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, yeah, you know what? I was tired as heck. I got out of the or late today. I was supposed to go live at four. I wasn't able to go live till five o'clock. I literally ran in the door still got my scrubs on. I didn't really feel like getting on the live stream. I'm exhausted, but I did it. I got on the live stream. No matter how much it sucked, I got on the live stream. So thank you to me, celebrate me. I'm a champion for just showing up.
Speaker 1:What's one thing you learned Every single day, guys? I have a goal. I want to learn something. I have a couple goals, three things I want to learn something, I want to help someone, and I want to push forward and create something and put something out into the world. And so, for me, being a doctor is fantastic because I constantly get to learn new things, I constantly get to help someone, improve someone's life every day, and I constantly get to have a work product that I put out every day. But those are my goals. So what's one thing you learned, guys? How are you learning? How are you growing? How are you improving, not just in the classroom, but also outside? Who's one person who benefited from your work today? How many of you guys feel like you're in this work, work, work, work, work and you don't really see the fruits of your labor?
Speaker 1:You can't tie your pre-med efforts to that distant doctor selfie. What does this relate to. Instead, I want you guys to look for ways you can positively impact people's lives every single day and then, when you do that, celebrate that. And by doing that, guys, you're going to see you become an impactful, different person who's a standout pre-med. It's awesome. And then, at the end of every week, I want you to take those days and scan over all your logs from the week and circle your three biggest wins and share them with someone. Make them real. Call your mom, call your dad, call your girlfriend, whoever. Talk to a stranger, but hey, stranger, I just want to let you know that I'm out here doing big things.
Speaker 1:I went to lecture.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know what? I actually studied every single day this week. I wouldn't say for five minutes every day, but I actually studied every single day. I've never done that before. Right, I went to office hours. I was too nervous to ask a question, but I went to office hours.
Speaker 1:I'm doing big things. Look out for me. In the future, I'm going to the top baby. That's what we want to do. Make it real. Your brain, your body, yourself will repeat the actions that are rewarded. Right, it's why you guys love your parents' approval. Oh my gosh, you get a reward. I'm going to do this behavior. We love the A because that's the reward. So what we want to do is start tying our actions to reward so that way we can cement the practice and we can create this identity of consistency and positivity and self-belief instead of crushing ourselves. Yes, that's medic.
Speaker 1:As I recap it, let me know you guys are still here. Md, more damage, appreciate it, appreciate it. Appreciate it, appreciate it. Anybody who's here, who gets what I'm saying right now, who would like me to continue, even though I'm exhausted, let me know If you're enjoying the PowerPoint, if that's adding something visually to you, or if you're like you know what, dr P, that's cool and everything, but I really would just rather you go back to just the normal screen that you'd be doing, where it looks like this Is the PowerPoint helpful to you that you can see what I'm talking about, or would you rather we just do this? I'm open to whatever right. Do you want me to continue? We're at 37 minutes, or are you like hey, dr Pineset, I'm as tired as you are and I think we've done a lot tonight. Maybe we can do part two of this on Wednesday. Maybe we'll stop there. Maybe that's what we'll do.
Speaker 1:Let's recap it the medic method and then measure so we can get real data. Establish your minimum effective dose, your med, defend your streak by eliminating distraction and anchoring things. Increment once you start being consistent, push yourself Don't stagnate to grow. And then, as we grow and as we accomplish, let's celebrate, celebrate, celebrate, yes. And then we'll stop here.
Speaker 1:I'll introduce this, and this is, for next time, a little teaser there are six student overload archetypes are six student overload archetypes. So for you guys who overload yourselves, you guys who punish yourselves with your perfectionism, there are six primary archetypes and there's more, but these are the six most common. And so what we're going to do is walk through these six types and I'm going to describe this to you and as we go through, you can raise your hand and say, gosh, darn it. Dr Pineset, that is absolutely me. And we're going to talk about what that is. We're going to really get real about what that lifestyle is like, and then I'm going to break it for you, using Medic and giving you the example, and then, after we go through all six of these archetypes, we're going to do an overall walkthrough of how you can implement this in 14 days, and then I'm going to give you guys a cheat sheet that you can walk through and you can track so you can make this progress, make this change in a healthy, not overcoming way. Yes, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:People said I like the PowerPoints, the visuals help. Steven says can you do more videos about current events and culture? Yeah, definitely can do that. Yeah, we're gonna start talking about this. And actually this is a culture event, right, because this is based off of the fact that a recent study just came out and showed that you don't need 10,000 steps to have 10,000 steps worth of health benefits. 5,000 will do, 7,000 will do great. Just about taking action, doing more than what you're currently doing, and being successful and being consistent in that action.
Speaker 1:So next time, on Wednesday four o'clock, we're going to tackle each one of these. Come up with your solution and get you guys outcome oriented to be successful. Can we see you guys on Wednesday? If you enjoyed this, guys, take a second to like this video, comment, let me know. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for being here and I will see you guys on Wednesday. If you have questions about this, if you're like, hey, dr Pinesy, clarify this, I will get to it on the next lecture on Wednesday. So put your comments in the box, let me know you like this, let me know your thoughts and then let me know what you guys want to get into specifically or what your particular overload issue is, and we'll get into it Wednesday. Thank you, guys, so much. See you next time.
Speaker 1:Today is the day, guys. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to. That's it for another episode of the Pre-Med Productivity Podcast. Show your love by smashing the like button and commenting in the box below. Today is the day, guys. No more excuses, no more complaining. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to be successful. I challenge you. What are you going to dominate? You're going to be successful. I challenge you what are you going to do today to make your life better? Get to my website, premedproductivitycom, grab a free ebook, sign up for a free webinar and, if you're really ready to transform, enroll in one of my life changing courses or coaching programs. You have greatness inside you. Let me show you how to unlock it so you can dominate and make your dreams a reality. No excuses, just dominate.
