Part 2: Are you ready to admit your addiction?

I will admit that I used to be an addict.

I was addicted to my goals and accomplishments.  The moment I achieved one goal, I’d cross it off and list 4 more… Without ever celebrating my achievement.  

That’s what I did when I was accepted into med school.  When I matched in residency.  I got lost in the horizon effect of kicking goals down the road and never reaching my destination.  

I was always driving toward a goal and when I reached it before I celebrated my achievement and the joy of my success, I found another goal or 5.  

I was obsessed with more goals and constantly dissatisfied, always heading toward a horizon that I could never reach.  

Do you keep moving the finish line and never celebrate?

Are you an addict?

Do you need an intervention?

What are you addicted to? Goals? Work? Money?

You may not think you are.  But I’m sure if you have made it this far in the pursuit of your goals and career, there is no doubt you have a work addiction or a goal addiction, or an achievement addiction… like me.  

There is no way you can make it this far without laser focus, intense drive, superhuman resilience, and relentless endurance.  This is a pillar of the tribe we learn and train in.  It is so contagious in medicine and yet invisible and lethal.

In fact, addiction is so severe that most of us don’t appreciate it or realize it even when other areas of our lives come crashing down around us.  Our health.  Our relationships.  Our sanity.  

Or the rare day that you don’t go to work and have nothing to do and are uncertain about who you are… without work.  

That is how that hunger for more achievement, more goals, more success, and of course, more money is never satisfied and always pulling us to the next MORE.  

Our addiction becomes our religion, our habits, our excuses, our reasons, our blindspots, and our biggest challenge.  

That is why you are here at Breaking Out of the Medical Mindset.  For an intervention before you OD.

Let’s review BOOMM’s 12 steps of recovery from the work addiction consuming our lives. 

So we can recover from our goal-itis and work obsession which bulldozed us to depletion, exhaustion and into a stampede to the fire exits of medicine.

1. We admit we were powerless over our medical mindset and the shackles it places on who we think we are and the actions we take to the point that our lives have become unmanageable.
   
   
2. We know there exist other people who are happy and live their lives with joy and freedom better than ourselves and to restore us to sanity, we must be open to new ideas, strategies and people in our world.
   
   
3. We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to our truth and authenticity that we once followed as a child to make our dreams come true.
     
4. We conduct a searching and fearless inventory of who we are and our lives at this moment.
   
   
5. We admit to ourselves and to another human being whom we trust and is safe and non-judgmental on the exact nature of our challenges and problems as we use that pain as a wake-up call for change.
   
   
6. We admit that we are ready to pivot in our lives and our thinking and claim our power in our lives.
   
   
7. We humbly acknowledge all our achievements and gratitude for our accomplishments as well as for our pain and problems.
   
   
8. We make a list of all the persons we are grateful for in our lives as well as those we wish we treated better and acknowledge both in person or in writing.
   
   
9. We let go of who we have been and step into the discomfort of the unknown for a better, different future.   
   
   
10. We seek through creating time and space as well as prayer and meditation to improve our consciousness of our truth to lead the different life that we dream of.
    
    
11. We vision a better life and future and accept the struggle of transformation to realize who we really are.
    
    
12. Having had an awakening as the result of these changes, we carry this message to others who suffer and we can help.

Is it time for rehab?

Each one of these steps is addressed in the BOOMM 1.0 Course with questions for you to answer, exercises to perform on your life, books to read and goals and vision to set so that you can recover and enjoy the growth and journey that your amazing life deserves to be.

Are you ready to admit your addiction?  

What is it?