213. What Happens When You Stop Arguing with Reality

So the first thing I've stopped arguing with is this.

Not everyone has to understand my decisions.

And this one admittedly took a long, long time.

Many of you know that before I became a coach, I practiced family medicine.

And if I'm being completely honest, when I first left clinical medicine six years ago, it was really hard for me to even answer a very simple question.

What do you do? Because answering with, I'm a coach, felt super uncomfortable.

And it wasn't because I didn't believe in coaching, and it wasn't because I didn't enjoy it.

It was because I knew not everyone would understand and people would have opinions about it.

Because medicine is a profession filled with opinions.

And the notion of physicians becoming coaches is definitely no exception.

Some people think it's great.

Others think it's a terrible idea.

And for a long time, I found myself wanting people to approve of my decision before I even fully approved of it myself.

I spent a lot of mental energy wishing everyone would understand why I left medicine and chose this path instead.

And honestly, I spent a lot of time arguing with the fact that not everyone was going to understand it.

But eventually, I realized I was waiting for something that was never going to happen.

And that is the hard part because not everyone is going to come with you.

Some people will not understand your choices.

Some won't agree with your priorities.

And that's actually okay.

It is not your job to convince everyone else that your life makes sense.

It's your job to make sure it makes sense to you.

Because if you spend your life trying to make sure everyone else is comfortable before you're allowed to move forward, you are going to spend a lot of time stuck.

And I think that's why I misunderstood what it meant to be confident in my decision.

I thought confidence would come once everyone understood my decision.