Our world is a whirlwind of busyness.
In VetMed we race from appointment to appointment for hours each day.
Other aspects of our lives often get pushed off as we run low on time and energy.
This cycle continues as time continues to pass.
From time to time we become aware of what we haven’t accomplished, yet.
Our goals and dreams seem so far away.
And in the distraction of it all, we totally miss how far we’ve come.
In a world that is constantly moving forward at a frenzied pace, we must periodically take time to look back.
We must celebrate how far we’ve come, the challenges we’ve conquered, the growth we’ve experienced.
Without these moments of reflection, it’s easy to conclude we haven’t accomplished anything…
… that we’ve wasted our time…
… that we’ve made no progress toward our goals…
Those conclusions are NEVER true.
You have made progress.
You have experienced success.
You have accomplished big things.
Take a moment to remind yourself of all that you’ve done.
Celebrate your efforts and achievements.
Remind yourself that you are capable of creating all that you dream.
The evidence and encouragement is all around you.
In this episode I take a look back at all we’ve accomplished since starting Joyful DVM in 2017. The list is very humbling, a bit mind-blowing, and strong evidence that our mission resonates with the veterinary community.
Thank you for being a loyal listener and helping us to reach this most recent goal.
If our podcast has made a difference in your life, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.
Resources discussed in this episode:
VetMed; JOY CLUB
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE
Website: https://joyfuldvm.com
Music Credit: Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain typos. Hi there. I'm Dr. Cari Wise, veterinarian, certified life coach and certified quantum human design specialist. If you are a veterinary professional looking to uplevel your life and your career, or maybe looking to go in an entirely new direction, then what I talk about here on the Joyful DVM podcast is absolutely for you. Let's get started. Hello my friends. Last week I received an email that kind of blew my mind and it really got me to thinking about the journey of joyful DVM since we started back in 2017, that email was a notification that we have had 100,000 downloads of the joyful DVM podcast Since starting this podcast back in 2020, that's a mind blowing statistic. And as the numbers have gone up over the years, I remember getting that first 1000 downloads notification and 10 downloads notifications, and they seem to come kind of few and far between. And so when this 100,000 downloads notification came across in my email, I was completely surprised and totally delighted at how we continue to create content that is relevant to everyone who listens. And you're very, very appreciated. I think I wanna first and foremost, thank you for listening to the Joyful Deviant Podcast and for sharing it with your colleagues and your friends. We are making a difference in the way that we interact with our profession. And I know that the opinions that I share and the information that I share here on the podcast isn't always mainstream, but I think it makes a huge impact and has a massive potential to actually have a real impact on the quality of life and the sustainability of our career field. And so when I got that 100,000 download notification, it got me to thinking, what other milestones have we hit along the way? We tend to get so busy in our lives that we don't take time to stop and to reflect on where we've started and where we've come. We don't see all the little victories along the way because we're always looking forward and we're dreaming and we're working toward these new goals and aspirations. And you know that I believe that living a forward focused life is a very strong motivator. I think it is a very intentional way of existing, and it's something that I recommend that we all do because we cannot move forward if we're always looking back. But we do need to stop from time to time and reflect on the journey and where we've come because if we don't take a moment to notice the distance between where we are now and where we started, it's easy to believe that we actually aren't making any progress. So this morning I dug into some statistics of joyful D V M and I wanted to share those with you today because I think it is, again, a little bit mind blowing to consider what we've done over the last, almost, well, I guess over six years. And to then consider how that's just gonna continue to compound as we move forward. Joyful D V M started as just an idea back in 2017, it was a vision that I had to improve the lives and the wellbeing of veterinary professionals and to help create a sustainable work environment. It was really driven by the high rate of suicide that we have experienced in our profession, and even my own beliefs about that and how that is not an inevitable consequence of the careers that we have chosen. And so that really was the heart of the why behind Joyful D V M back in 2017. And we hit our first milestone that year in 2017 as we started as a brand new fledgling little company. We managed over that year to gather our first 100 email subscribers. And how exciting was it when I saw that triple digits in our email, email software, that we had over a hundred subscribers to our weekly emails here at Joyful D V M. By 2019, that email number had grown to over a thousand. So we hit the 1000 email subscribers in 2019. And that again, was a little bit mind blowing to see that the things that I was sharing were resonating with veterinary professionals and that the word was getting out on how we could do things differently and see things differently. And that I wasn't kind of here on this island by myself with these ideas that others shared in that vision. And so that 1000 email subscriber was such a sweet moment, and really for me, that validation that what we had to share through joyful D V M was resonating with the veterinary community. 2020 was quite a year. And aside from the pandemic, which was just life altering for all of us, we hit a few really big milestones over here at Joyful D V M during that time. And I think it's because we slowed down and as a world, I think it's because we took a minute to reevaluate our lives and to seek different information and different ways of being. I think that is really what helped us in 2020 to be continue to grow. And so during 2020, after hitting our 1000 email subscribers in 2019 and 2020, we crossed the 10,000 subscriber mark. It was huge growth that year as far as the people we were able to serve. And as I look back on 2020 and I think about what did we do that year, we hosted a lot of workshops that year, A lot of free webinars, a lot of free workshops. We created a lot of free resources and put them out there for everybody. And so those things all contributed. And the other thing that we did in 2020 was that we launched Vet Life Academy for Life. And what was so exciting, we actually launched it in 2019 with our very first beta users, the beta brand, the original people is what I say, the OGs of Vet Life Academy for Life, where we started this as an idea and refined it during 2019 and then really kicked it off trying to get the word out about Vet Life Academy for Life in 2020. And so it was in 2020 when we welcomed our 100th member into our Vet Life Academy for Life program. And what an exciting day that was to cross that 100 member mark and think about the number of people that we have been able to help and that ripple effect that those people are having in their environments and the people around them. Our growth continued and in 2021, we added another 10,000 email subscribers because of all of our different free resources and our Value Academy for Life program and the other things that we were doing. And then in 2022, we celebrated our 100th episode of the Joyful D V M podcast. That again, was a huge milestone that came along with a lot of ideas and a lot of changes and a lot of things that we have changed again since then. It has been a rollercoaster of a journey over here on the Joyful D V M podcast. And so it was so exciting to cross that 100th episode mark and 2022, and that brings us now to 2023 where we have just crossed a hundred thousand downloads of the Joyful DV M podcast. We are so grateful for the opportunity to be able to share with you, to be in your ears because we know that it's not to be taken lightly. I know that you have a lot of choices and there are a lot of things that are pulling at your attention. So to know that we are here, that you're listening to a little bit of what I have to say, I'm hoping that it's inspiring and encouraging and motivating for you and keeping you focused on what is possible. That's always been our, my goal at Joyful D V M and also with our joyful D V M podcast is to give you that inspiration, to encourage you, to inspire you, to help you to know that you're not alone, to help you to normalize the stressors that we experience in veterinary medicine, to show you how to navigate that so that it doesn't suck the life outta you. And so it is a thrill for me to see that we have crossed that 100,000 download mark. In addition to that, the other thing that we've done this year is we started the Vet Med Joy Club because of that need for inspiration. So the Vet Med Joy Club, if you haven't heard about the Vet Me Joy Club, it is a membership over here at Joyful D V M where three times a week you just receive inspirational, motivational type content. So we do it twice a week in a written format by email. We also send by text message if you elect for those. And then once a week, it's an audio message that you get by email or also again by text message. And it's a very simple concept, but it has a very big impact as far as the ability to keep us focused on what's important and what is true because it is so easy for us to get caught up in the daily grind of veterinary practice where all we're thinking about is what's happening at work the next day, or the cases that are still niggling in our minds and and spiraling and looping the things that didn't go the way that we wanted them to, the things that we dread having those experiences of the Sunday Blues or the Day off blues, if you will. And it's very easy for us to live in this very fast paced but autopilot mode where it's just get up, go to work, do your thing, come home, collapse, get some rest. Scroll on your Facebook, eat some junk food, fall asleep, get up, do it all over again. And this constant cycle where there isn't any opportunity to have any life or to think about anything other than veterinary medicine unless we intentionally stop the cycle, interrupt the pattern, and put our perspective somewhere intentionally. And so that is why we created the Vet Me Joy Club. And so with the celebration of the creation of the Vet Me Joy Club this year, we're also excited to be able to say that we have crossed the 100 member mark in the Vet Me Joy Club. So this 100,000 download notification last week really was an opportunity for me to take a minute and to reflect onto how far we've come. It's easy for me just like it is for you to get caught up in what's happening day to day. And I have big dreams for what we're doing over here at Joyful D V M as we cross those milestones. I am more motivated than ever, but it can also be things that I miss that I don't see happening in the moment because I am so focused on being able to reach more people and to help more veterinary professionals. So this opportunity to step back, to reflect and to see just exactly what we've managed to accomplish in six short years is really humbling. And I am very honored and grateful for every single one of you who listened to our podcasts, who have signed up to get some of our free resources, who have joined us in our programs like Vet Life Academy and the Vet Med Joy Club who have attended any one of our workshops or our, or our webinars who have downloaded any of our free resources. We have helped tens of thousands of veterinary professionals to date. And we are just getting started, my friends, we are just getting started. So as you finish out this week, I want you to take a minute to consider what, where you started and where you are now. Give yourself a moment to celebrate all the victories along the way, all the milestones that you've crossed, and even if you are still looking toward the future, dreaming of what you wanna create next, setting big goals. That does not minimize what you've done up until this point, because until you got here going there wasn't even possible. So moment by moment, take a minute to celebrate what you have accomplished, to give yourself a pat on the back to be excited about the work that you've done and the contribution that you've made to the world. Because my friends, I promise you, the work that you do day in and day out is life changing. It matters. It's important. And the people that you serve are grateful for you, even when they don't show it a hundred percent of the time. My friends, what you are here to do matters in this lifetime. And as you have your own goals and dreams and hopes for the future, make sure that you don't get stuck in the daily grind to the point that you aren't actually making decisions to move your vision forward. It's easy to get stuck in the habit pattern of the day to day activities of this life, but the busyness of life is actually distracting us from our purpose. When we take a moment to reflect, to recalibrate, to refocus our attention on where we want to go, then the odds of us actually getting there increase exponentially. And so today, as I share with you our 100100000th download of the joyful D V M podcast, I'm already dreaming about when I can come back here and tell you that we have hit the 200,000 download mark. And I hope that you'll help me to meet that goal by sharing this joyful DV M podcast with anybody that you think would benefit from the messages that we share here. It's all about sort supporting veterinary professionals, offering an alternative perspective, giving you an encouragement and motivation to keep moving forward and to create and craft a veterinary career and a life that is really defined just for you, my friends. You are not supposed to be like everybody else, and your veterinary career does not have to follow any kind of specific path. You are here for a reason. And the number one thing that you can do to create a fulfilling life for yourself is to take time to consider what is it that you want? Because the dreams for your life are intentional and they have an intentional purpose for all of us who are living at this point in time. It is no accident that you live in a time where veterinary medicine is in a huge transition. And yes, there are challenges, there are stash shortages, there are over bookings with clients. There's more veterinary need than there are veterinary professionals right now. Yes, all of those things are true, but that you live in this lifetime when all of this has happening and that you are part of our profession during this massive transition is not an accident. You are here on purpose because you have a contribution to make to what we are creating overall in our profession, which is a more sustainable way to provide veterinary services to all that needs them. So my friends, whatever aspects of veterinary medicine are on your heart, whatever Drew drew you into the career of veterinary medicine in the first place. Do not let the rat race of the day in and day out. Do not let the pressure of your student loans or your schedules be the thing that derail you, that pull you away from that vision and that dream that you had initially, because all of that is very, very important. So take a minute to reconsider and refocus on the reason why you started this journey in the first place. And if this journey in this moment isn't moving you toward that reason, then this is your opportunity to recalibrate and to recreate your life and your career in a way that not only is sustainable for you, but actually helps you to fulfill your mission here in this lifetime and in this world. Alright, my friends, take a moment to celebrate. I hope you have a wonderful week, and I will see you soon. Bye for now.