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In the whirlwind of your normal week, just notice all the roles and responsibilities you don't remember taking on—you you don't remember saying YES, but you know for sure you didn't say NO either.
In this lesson, you'll discover the superpower of DECOMMITMENT
How to recognize and release these roles quickly and respectfully and get on to focusing your life and your practice on the things you really want.
Let me show you a simple way to decommit from places where you've been overextended mindlessly and get back to what's really important in your life.
Connecting to Your Ideal Job Description
Hello again. Dike Drummond here with a quick blog post that follows on from my last post where I taught you how to create your IDEAL JOB DESCRIPTION.
Now, please don't stop right now. Carry on through this lesson because you can learn how to decommit without having your ideal job description completely formulated.
But when you're done with today's lesson, go back one lesson to 130 and make sure that you delineate your ideal job description as clearly as possible.
It becomes the target you're going to aim yourself at, and the key to satisfaction and ease and grace going forward.
The Value of Clarity: Aiming for Your Ideal Life
Hey, Dike here again with the first of several lessons I'm calling Ninja Lessons. These are superpowers you can develop now that you have an ideal job description!
Ideally, you have a clear focus on your Ideal Job Description and perhaps you've extended it out to some clarity on your ideal Practice, Career and Life.
In the process, you've refocused your awareness from simply avoiding the things that you don't want ... to deciding what what your Ideal Job would look and feel like. A job you would run towards rather than run away from.practice, and we're going to start marching you in that direction.
Your Ideal Job Description is a target—a bullseye—you aim yourself and your practice at. Now we can begin to head in that direction
Recognizing Overload: Too Many Hats
Now, one of the things that happens very frequently when you finally flesh out your Ideal Job Description—is you can recognize: holy moly, I'm doing all sorts of things that don't have anything to do with my Ideal Practice or Job Description. You may be in that boat right now.
I'm working with a bright and talented young female physicianleader right now who told me she had too many hats. I asked her to count up exactly how many roles she played for her organization over the course of a month. Turns out she wears 16 different hats and doesn't remember saying yes to any of them. OUCH.
Introducing Decommitment: A Ninja Art Form
In our next episode, I'm going to teach you how to say no, but we need to unload you—and her—right now. So today is about how to decommit when you recognize the overload.
Let me teach you a ninja art form called decommitment.
Now in healthcare—where the patient comes first and you never show weakness—if somebody asks you to serve on a committee or do some sort of task (interestingly enough both at work and outside of work), we almost always say yes.
- It's flattering and feels good to be asked
- It reinforces the feeling that people like you
- And feeds your status as the one with all the answers
- And you never learned how to say no because you couldn't as a resident or medical student - it's a part of our programming.
So you end up with a boatload of commitments that don't make sense now that you can compare them with your Ideal Job Description.
Step 1: Make a List of Your Roles
Let me take you down a checklist to help you decommit so that you can take these components out of your whirlwind and give yourself some space, bandwidth, spare energy, and breathing room. You've got your Ideal Job or an idea of what it might be.
Grab another piece of paper right now and write down all of the roles that you play everywhere that you play them—either at work or in your home life.
- What committees are you on?
- What meetings do you go to?
- What things have you volunteered for?
And on that list, circle the ones that don't make any sense now that you're clear on your Ideal Job Description.
Step 2: Rehearse Your Decommitment
Once you've made the list and prioritized it, pick one role and rehearse how you're going to decommit from it. Rehearse what? Well, rehearse something you've probably never done before—telling somebody you're not going to do that anymore. Decommitting is foreign to most people who are healthcare workers—doctors, nurses, and such. Let me mock it up for you.
Example: How to Decommit Gracefully Script
This is how it might sound. Listen to how I do it and adapt it to work for you. Then rehearse it until it feels fluid.
EXAMPLE:
Let's say I'm on the tumor board at the hospital—which is a useless thing for me because all I'm going to do is point out that all the tumors were preventable (I actually have been in that situation before). What I've decided is I'm not going to be on the tumor board anymore. I'm going to decommit.
What I would do so I don't leave them hanging is identify the next tumor board meeting and prepare myself to tell the head of the tumor board that's going to be my last meeting.
It might go something like this:
"John (the Chair) , it's Dike—do you have a minute?"
"Sure."
"Over the last couple of weeks, I've been looking at my life priorities—the whirlwind of all the things that I do—and getting clear on responsibilities I really want in my life: what I enjoy; what I feel comfortabled doing, what I feel skilled at contributing to, those areas where I can participate at 100%, all in.
And what I found is that the tumor board is outside of that list.
Thanks for inviting me on the board; I've enjoyed serving on it. I want you to know I'm going to decommit from the tumor board, and my last meeting will be this next one in February. After that, you'll need to find somebody else to fill my role. It's been a pleasure—let me know how I can help find someone else—but my last meeting will be the 14th."DONE (one down, how many to go?)
Step 3: Practice and Take Action
Review this example; modify it; write it down if needed; make it yours; practice until it's natural— I encourage you to do it in front of the mirror as well and then go decommit from one or two or three roles. Just DO IT.
The Benefits of Decommitting
I’ve seen doctors decommit from three major roles in a single week—and here's what they tell me:
"You know, I was a little nervous—but ever since I decommitted from those three roles, it's like...the lights are brighter; the food tastes better; I'm relaxing with my patients; I'm a nicer person."
It can happen for you too!
Every time you decommit, you remove something from your whirlwind—you free up energy, time, spirit—to focus on your own ideal purposes.
Final Reminder: Take Control
- Make your roles list.
- Prioritize it
- Pick one role
- Practice your script
- Decommit
- REPEAT
Thank heavens—you now have an Ideal Job Description. (that lesson is here)
That's it for now! Keep breathing—and have a great rest of your day.
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PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT
What is the first "hat" you will let go of?