There are 2 major barriers that can prevent you from creating the life of inner peace and fulfillment you want in life.
1. Lack of desire
If you don't have the drive or the desire to want to have a life of wellbeing, inner peace, and fulfillment, then you may find it hard to avoid resentment, burnout, and dissatisfaction in life and vet med.
How great is your desire to be fulfilled?
My best guess is that you do have some desire, or else you wouldn't be reading this.
That said, just in case you have found your way here and you are lacking in desire, let me explain why this can't work without it:
Why is Desire important?
Desire is the fuel that is required to create the life you want for yourself.
If I give you a really nice car and put you out in the middle of nowhere, and there isn't any gas in the tank... aside from being able to provide you with shelter, the car is more or less functionally worthless!
You ARE the really nice car! You need a full tank of gas at ALL times in order to drive around and see and enjoy the world!
So let me ask you, how much desire do you have to live a life of wellbeing? How much desire do you have to be able to make your worst days your best days? How much desire do you have for wellbeing?
How do you cultivate desire?
Desire can be cultivated through knowing your purpose, having a vision, and getting clear on what you want out of life. This takes time. This takes stillness. It takes a little bit of effort. If you give yourself at least 5-15 minutes each day to ask yourself:
"What is my purpose?" "What would my ideal life look like if I was living in my purpose?" You will eventually come up with something. It may need to be refined as time moves along, but by doing this exercise, you get the gears turning! You were born for a reason, and if you aren't living in that reason, then you may find yourself with little drive or desire to get out of the bed each morning.
Your purpose wasn't to go collect a check so that you can pay off your student loans and eventually retire at age 60. Your purpose wasn't to ENDURE a subpar veterinary career doing things you didn't want to do with people you didn't want to do them with.
Your purpose is something that's far greater than that!
2. Lack of belief
Cultivating self-belief is kind of complex, but we have a very specific strategy for cultivating UNLIMITED amounts of healthy self-belief! over at Get MotiVETed University: School of Wellbeing! I'll link to it below!
However, it is vital to understand that if you don't believe you can have a life of wellbeing at work and at home, then it doesn't matter if I give you a really nice car and all of the gasoline you could ever dream of because you would never even get in the car.
If you managed to get in the car, you would never even turn the key.
If you managed to turn the key, you would never put the car into drive.
If you managed to put the car into drive, you would never take your foot off of the brakes!
If you don't believe you can have a life of wellbeing that is free of burnout, then you will never try to see it through, and if you do manage to try, your effort will reflect that you don't believe you can succeed. And you will fail.
You must have belief, and you can learn about how to do that in our RACE-approved course "The Veterinary Wellbeing Choice: How to Prioritize, Cultivate, and Maintain Wellbeing"!
Honorable Mention - Lack of action
This is an honorable mention and goes very well with the first two.
If you don't take any action, then you can't get the life of wellbeing that you want.
You're going to have to do something in order to change your life situation.
Needless to say, if you don't have desire and if you don't believe you can change it, then there will be no meaningful action.
If you don't have gas and if you don't even believe you can drive the frickin' car, then you need not worry about it actually moving!
This course will give you build the car that you want. This playbook will even help you believe in yourself.
It will not give you the desire (though I hope it motivates and inspires you at least a little), and it's my best guess that you already have it!