Someone wants the job you have.
They want those 3 letters behind their name.
DVM, VMD, RVT, LVT, CVT, CPM…
They hold close the dream of becoming exactly the veterinary professional you already are.
Their vision of life working in VetMed brings them joy.
They can’t wait to get there… to help people… to help animals.
Do you remember what that was like?
Do you remember when you held the vision, had the dream and believed all the hard work you endured along the way was worth it?
Is all of that still real for you, or has it faded?
Has it been replaced with bitterness and defeat?
If it has, why?
Many of us who are in or approaching burnout in our careers blame the career itself.
It’s the hours, the pay, the demanding clients, the toxic coworkers…
I personally don’t believe any of these things are the root cause.
The job hasn’t changed.
Working in VetMed was always going to include challenges… it always has.
The world itself was always going to be changing… it always does.
And the people we interact with were always going to be unpredictable… they always have been.
You were already equipped for all of this when your journey began.
As I’ve said many times before, VetMed doesn’t actually ruin lives. It simply brings awareness to the areas in our own lives where we have work personal to do.
It’s a catalyst for self discovery and personal growth.
And when we struggle with self-worth, self-value, self-confidence, and self-acceptance, VetMed jobs feel especially difficult.
From this place, we often discourage others from pursuing their dreams.
But, why?
To what end?
What do we gain when we discourage others from pursuing their dreams?
The answer: Nothing.
We simply reinforce the limiting beliefs we have about ourselves and our choices.
We trap ourselves more firmly in our limiting beliefs.
We block opportunity to create a better experience for ourselves… the experience of our visions, of our dreams and of unlimited potential in the future.
You already have what someone else wants.
More importantly, you have what YOU wanted.
Don’t let someone else’s opinion of your circumstances change what you believe.
Don’t adopt the negative perspectives that are shared with you.
Protect your vision, your dream, your future.
Tackle your own demons. Embrace the opportunity to know yourself.
When you do this you become untouchable and unstoppable…
You become the best kind of example for others and the joy and satisfaction in your own life expands.
Not sure where to start?
Check out VetMed; JOY CLUB where alternative perspective and inspiring content get delivered right to your inbox or mobile device multiple times each week.
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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. Today. I wanna spend a few moments here on the podcast talking about something that we don't often consider. The truth is that somebody wants the job that you already have. Recently, in one of my posts over on Facebook and Instagram, there was a conversation between some people who work in the veterinary profession, and this was during Vet Tech week, and they were talking about those magical three letters referring to the credentials that a veterinary technician can achieve through formal education in passing the VTNE. And when I saw that phrase, those magical three letters, how much they wanted those magical three letters, and this was somebody that had experience in the field, they'd been working in veterinary medicine for some time. It just reminded me how privileged and fortunate we are to have those credentials behind our own names. It's so easy in the world of veterinary medicine to get pulled into the drama, to get pulled into the negative perspective and the difficulties that come with this job. And in doing so, we forget why we headed in this direction in the first place. We forget about all of the time and the effort that we put into gaining those three magical letters for ourselves. And instead, once we get into the profession and we bump up against challenges, we so easily adopt the negative perspective of those who've gone before us. In doing that, we actually end up negating all of the joy and excitement and anticipation that we had in our journey in the earlier years. What we also do over time is we start to believe that going into this profession was the worst decision ever. That somehow, that perspective of struggle and frustration and anxiety and victimization somehow that is the reality of veterinary medicine and my friends, nothing could be further from the truth. The experiences that we have in this job are those for us and us alone to create, we decide for ourselves what kind of experience we will have. Veterinary medicine always was going to involve days that were challenging. There were always going to be clients who were not the friendliest and most respectful. There were always going to be cases that didn't turn out the way that we wanted them to turn out. That's just the nature of this job and this profession. It was always going to be that way because it always has been. But what's happened in modern time is that we have turned this experience into one of limiting opportunity and limiting potential. We have chosen to reinforce the perspective that keeps us out of our power. It takes those three magical letters and turns them into some kind of trap and some kind of heavy shield to carry. It doesn't have to be that way. Whose story about your profession are you living through? Is it the story that you chose for yourself? Because odds are, it's not. If the story you live today about what it means to be a veterinary professional is the story that you held when you started on this journey, you would not have continued on this journey. And it's easy to be where you are now in some of the struggles and challenges in the trenches, if you will. It's easy to be there and to adopt that story because that's the story that keeps getting offered to you. And when you adopt that story, it's easy to look back and to then conclude that going into this profession was the worst decision ever, that you somehow ruined your life by heading down this pathway that you don't really have any opportunity to help or any capability of making a real difference. But my friends, none of those things is true. We have to be careful if we don't understand that our opinions and experiences in this career field and in our entire lives are actually created by what we believe about it. And if we aren't intentionally creating those perspectives for ourselves, we will simply adopt the perspectives that are offered to us. The mind is a sponge and it is always learning from things around us. If we aren't careful to question the quality of the information that we're learning, we then end up subconsciously learning to resent a career field that we worked really hard to join. And what's more, we actually begin to learn that we are not good enough, that we are not strong enough, that we are not resilient enough to keep moving forward. None of these things are true. You know that these aren't true. If you'll take a second, second to step back and consider what did you believe at the beginning, this is really important. So listen up. What did you believe at the beginning of your journey? What did you believe about your future? What did you believe about yourself? There are two things I'm willing to bet that you believed. I bet that you believed that you could do it. You had to have believed that because if you didn't believe you could do it, then you never would've done what it took to get to the other side. Those three magical letters never would've been added to your name if you did not hold a belief that you could and you did. The other thing that I bet you believed at the beginning was that life was gonna be better as a veterinary professional. That life as a veterinary professional was going to open doors for you. It was going to create opportunities for you that it was going to give you the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of animals and the lives of people. I'm pretty darn sure that you believe that at the beginning. And so if you don't believe that any longer, if you don't believe that you can make a difference, and if you don't believe that you are capable that you can do it, then I want you to recognize that somebody along the way has taught you to believe something different. Let me say that again. If you don't believe that any longer, if you do not believe you're capable, if you do not believe you can do it, if you do not believe that you can make a real difference, it's only because along the way you have been taught to believe something different. The source of that information is not reliable. It's not. And because this is something that you have learned along your journey, it is also something you can unlearn. You've just simply managed to pick up and to identify with a bunch of crap that our profession keeps handing down from generation to generation to generation. It is not making us more empowered. It is making us more limited. It is making us more victimized. It is taking away the point of why we do this job in the first place and replacing it with self-doubt and fear and anxiety. It was never supposed to be like that, my friends. And it doesn't have to be for any of us who have chosen this career. It is completely possible for us to feel empowered and joyful and fulfilled in this career field. It is completely possible for us to feel good enough and worthy and capable feeling. Any of those things has nothing to do with the actions that we take. It has nothing to do with the outcomes of the cases that we manage. And it has nothing to do with the interactions with the clients who we serve. It's all an inside game. It's all up to us to individually determine and to decide and to protect what we believe about ourselves and what is possible. And as soon as we allow that opinion of ourselves and our future to be determined by somebody else, as soon as we allow somebody else's opinion of us or even of themselves in this profession in a similar role to decide what is possible and the level of struggle that we are going to endure, then we simply give over to those other opinions. We miss that it's all learned behavior that we just keep handing over to each other more and more victimization and inadequacy and imposter syndrome. We don't see that to break the cycle. We don't need the externals of veterinary medicine to be different because honestly, they're the exact same externals that have always been part of veterinary medicine. What we need to be different is the way that we take care of ourselves and by taking care of ourselves, I mean, how do we take care of what we believe about who we are and what we can do? It's no accident that you are a veterinary professional. It's no accident that you're listening to this episode of the podcast. You need to hear what I have to say. And if this is resonating for you as I suspect that it is, I don't want you to just dismiss these words. These are very important concepts to understand. You've been taught to suffer in your lifetime. Suffering is not your natural state. You've been taught to struggle in your profession. Struggle is not your natural state. And when we align with our natural state, we actually become more resilient and more protective of ourselves. We make it impossible for the external opinions and external events to determine our own value and our own worth. And when we can step back into our own power, it's much, much easier to let veterinary medicine just be veterinary medicine, to not entertain the drama that comes along with it and to actually start creating the experience of it that we always wished and believed honestly, that we believed that we would have. The only thing that limits our experiences in veterinary medicine is what we believe about it. So if over time you have shifted from somebody who believed in a future in veterinary medicine with excitement and anticipation and drive to do what it took to get those three magical letters so that you could join this amazing career field, but today, you find yourself bitter and jaded and regretful. I want you to know that somebody and something along the way, and probably a combination of many somebodies and somethings along the way simply taught you to change your perspective. That doesn't mean they're right. That doesn't mean it's true. And in a profession that likes logic, that gathers data, it's very easy for us to conclude. When we look around at the number of veterinary professionals who struggle with anxiety and depression and burnout and imposter syndrome. When we look at the number of veterinary professionals who suffer with those things, it's easy for us to then logically conclude that it is the profession that did that to them. I 100% disagree with that conclusion. We are all just humans in a human experience, and this is simply a career field. You can find similar patterns and outcomes in many career fields. It is not a veterinary profession dependent thing. So the solution is not changing veterinary medicine, the solution is not leaving veterinary medicine. The solution is learning how to thrive in whatever environment you find yourself in so that your life and your wellbeing are no longer at the mercy of those environments. My friends, the world is not gonna slow down. It is not going to get easier, and you didn't choose to come and live in this time in the world in order to have an easy path. Don't forget that you are equipped for every single challenge that you come up against in your life, whether it be at work or otherwise, and that you already have what it takes to accomplish and achieve and experience all the dreams that you have, even dreams that you've let go of because maybe somebody along the way told you that they were impractical or they were irresponsible, or they were just too big. You already have inside of you everything that you need to make all of those things true for you. But if you accept what other people tell you is possible, if you adopt the opinions of those around you who are living bitter, jaded, small lives, then you will not end up creating anything different from yourself. And those three magical letters, instead of being something to be proud of, something to show, be evidence of some of the hardest work that you've ever done in your life, something to be celebrated, those three little letters will become heavy. They will become baggage. They will be saddled in regret. The option is yours. You and you alone get to decide what you believe in any given situation. And if you can see that today, what you believe about being a veterinary professional and what that means for your future is vastly different than what you believed at the beginning of your journey, I want you to just consider maybe along the way completely unintentionally and completely without awareness. You have managed to adopt a belief system that does not serve you and is never what you meant to adopt in the first place. It's learned behavior and it can be unlearned. You do not have to settle for where you maybe have landed at this point. You can get back into your power. You can get back into control of your future and your own wellbeing, and you're the only one who can do the work to make that happen as a collective in veterinary medicine, there are many out there who are really championing a lot of changes within our profession, and we do need to make changes within this, the profession to make it more equitable and more sustainable. I'm not arguing those points, but what I wanna make sure that each and every one of us understands is that those changes will never create wellbeing. The most sustainable and equitable learning or working environment in veterinary medicine will never create wellbeing because wellbeing is an inside job. It is something that each of us has to do individually for ourselves. And as I've said many times before, veterinary medicine is a catalyst for personal change. It takes something of us to stay in our power, to defend our wellbeing, to learn how to be the people who we actually are, and to not give in to the negativity and to the opinions of those around us who are so far into bitter and jaded and burnout that they just wanna pull everybody down with them. Drowning people will drown other people sinking people will sink other people. It's not malicious, it's survival instinct, but my friends, your survival is dependent on you not accepting what people are telling you is possible in your life. You get to decide that and you actually already know. So give yourselves some time to sit quietly, to go back and to think about what you believed at the beginning of your journey. There is no reason to believe that those things are not still possible. Making them reality is up to you. You have the ability to do it. If you didn't have the ability, then you wouldn't have those dreams in the first place. Trust me on this. And what perhaps is happening is just a moment of clarity for you to see that if you hand over the reigns of your life to perspectives and opinions and beliefs that you didn't choose for yourself, it's going to take you in a direction that you never wanted to go. If you're already headed in that direction, it is not too late to turn it around. You absolutely can take back the wheel and turn your life into a direction that you want it to go into. It's all still possible, my friends, helping you regain control of your life, to be the driver of your own bus, to be the dreamer of your own future and the creator of your own reality. That is exactly what we do over here at Joyful DVM. That is the heart of everything that I do to put you back into your power. And if you're not sure where to start, the easiest place to get started is just to join us in the Vet Me Joy Club. It's very easy to join us. Just jump over to joyful dvm.com/joy Club and learn all about the Vet Me Joy Club and how you can start actually teaching yourself to live in a perspective that actually helps support the future and the career that you want to have. All right, my friends, that's gonna wrap it up for this episode. I'll see you next time.