What is your mountain top?
What are you striving for?
What are you hoping to achieve in your career?
There was a post on a Veterinary Facebook group about the amount of time spend posting and commenting on social media. The author commented that if people put this much effort into their career they would be at the pinnacle of their career.
I understood the point he was making. Invest time into your career and it will soar. Invest time into learning and growing instead of losing hours checking status updates. I agreed with him and at the same time didn’t.
There was a lot of comments from people who used social media to further their career, connect with colleagues and in their time to switch off. Social media is a form of social support which is a big predictor of positive mental health.
I thought about the comment more and wrote a response on the page and have posted it below.
I think for some people, the pinnacle of their career is what they love and it is their passion. It IS their life. Good on them. It is so rewarding to have a career that you are passionate about. That excites you.
It just makes me sad to see people striving for their pinnacle at the exclusion of everything else. At the expense of marriages, family breakdowns and for children who never see their parent/s.
I remember working full time and not having much of a life. Working 5-6 days/week, 10+ hour days. I didn’t mind working hard but for what?? I felt it was groundhog year, every year. The pay wasn’t great so it wasn’t like I could go travel on weekends or go out for dinners or to concerts, etc. They was no big adventure every year which for me is very important. I couldn’t afford to pay for CPD or go anywhere anyway.
The real issue was I didn’t love IT enough. IT being a veterinarian. I loved certain aspects of it & the other aspects I struggled with. Some things came naturally to me and some things didn’t. I found it challenging.
Every year it became easier as I became better in my knowledge, skills and experience but I became more miserable when I thought ‘Is this it?’ for the next 30 years. The long hours, the low income, the stress. A lot had to do with my perception of me and the profession as well as my expectations.
I absolutely love my coaching. I am so glad that I was dissatisfied as a Veterinarian and searched for something else and found it. Coaching just comes so naturally to me. This is the pinnacle I am climbing. I just love working with people & helping them realise their potential & overcoming the challenges we all experience.
I remember thinking, now I get it. I get that burning passion and I wished I had felt this as a Veterinarian. I am sure I did at one point but I think it went out with the exhaustion, the stress, the disappointment I felt for myself.
High achievers hold themselves to impossibly high standards which can lead to greatness or misery.
I now find practice so much more enjoyable as I have taken what I learned in my coach training and I understand my reactions and clients so much better.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very good at what I do in practice. I can look back and see where my challenges & struggles were. Working with colleagues, I know we had similar challenges. I know what areas I needed help & support in as well as further training. This is what I tailor my coaching and training programs around.
In practice, I still have challenges in certain situations but I really enjoy clients now. We have a good old chat and they know me and I know so much about them.
My pinnacle here is to be their family doctor. The person they trust to come to in the good and the bad times. I am part of their community. My passion here is my clients.
For my life, my main focus is my family. I have been to too many funerals and learned very early what it really important in life. My real purpose is to prepare my kids for life and help them navigate their challenges. To travel, to have fun and to create incredible memories whether it’s through adventure or just reading a book.
So I have 3 pinnacles. Neither works without the other. How do I know? I may be happy in 1 area but dissatisfied in another.
When I am on my death bed and I look back at my life and ask myself the following questions, what will the answer be.
“What do I wish I had focussed on in my life?”
“What am I most proud of in my life?”
“What are my greatest achievements?”
It’s not what I have but the person I have become. And if either of my careers crash & burn, I will start again. It took me many years to let go of the need for career achievement to define me.
I can never recover family if I lose that.
We all need a pinnacle. We all need a mountain top to climb. We need people who strive for pinnacles in growing tomatoes, baking bread, making furniture, designing buildings, etc, etc…
Who said you can only have 1 pinnacle at the exclusion of everything else?
Don’t climb the mountain top because someone else said you had to or you are supposed to do it.
Do it because you love it.
Natasha
