Rethink Your Thinking

In dentistry, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and find your mental state suffering as a result. There’s often an emphasis on your physical health because if your hands or back don’t work, you can’t practice, but your hands and back can only go so far. Your brain, however, has infinite potential, so focus on getting rid of your stinkin’ thinkin’ and start working on creating a positive mindset. Maintaining a positive mindset is not just important for dentists—it’s important for everyone. You’ve got to keep a mindset that’s happy and not depressed all the time, and that starts with making better choices over time. 

Mind Your Surroundings

I often hear people say, “Garbage in, garbage out,” but that’s not entirely accurate. I think Kirk says it best: “Garbage in, garbage stays,” because whatever you’re feeding your brain is sticking around and informing your mindset and behavior. This is one of the dangers of social media—whatever you’re clicking on is what you’ll get more of, so when you click on hateful things, hateful things will show up more frequently. If you’re feeling negative, think about what’s around you and what’s going on in your brain. Who you surround yourself with can fill you with garbage—because misery loves company—or help buoy you up by providing positive energy that lets you feed off of one another and maintain your positivity. 

Simply having another person to talk to makes an incredible difference in itself. If you’re just talking to yourself, that’s a terrible conversation, because 80% of self-talk is negative. You need someone else to come in and point out all the great things that you’re doing, and whether that’s a coach, study club, or mentor, the positivity will have a strong impact on your mindset. You become the average of the five people you hang around most, so find a group that will help you change your mindset and grow.

Your Response is Your Choice

Throughout your life, you will come face-to-face with various obstacles, but that doesn’t mean you have to gravitate toward the negative. Within those obstacles lies the solution, because out of adversity always comes opportunity—your challenge is to find it. In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey wrote that “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” That’s really the secret to life—things will happen to you, and how you respond to them is what’s critically important. 

One of my own personal core values is Contagious Enthusiasm, so I always make every effort to choose not to let negative influences push me away from positivity. For example, whenever I get a message containing bad news, I have a couple of options. I can sit there and really complain about it, or I can reflect on it and think about what I can do to be positive moving forward. No matter the obstacle that presents itself, YOU get to decide how to deal with it. 

Positivity is always possible, but it’s not always easy. It can be difficult to find it, but a great place to start is with gratitude because gratitude cuts off the air supply to all other emotions and makes it difficult to be angry or frustrated. If you know anyone who’s survived something incredibly difficult like cancer, their hearts are filled with gratitude and they’re much more positive. When you feel yourself getting frustrated or upset, take a step back and try to remember what you’re grateful for to drown out those negative emotions. 

Though challenges and issues will come your way, that’s just a part of life; it’s how you think about and approach these obstacles that determine their impact. You can take the glass-half-empty perspective, have knee-jerk reactions to adversity, and find yourself slipping further into depression; or you can look at the glass as half-full, take time to choose your response, surround yourself with positive influences, and maintain a healthy mindset. When you practice positivity, it has a ripple effect, because just as you are the average of the five people you hang around most, so too are the people around you, and they will be impacted by your actions. Choosing positivity isn’t an easy thing to do on your own, so reach out and schedule a consult with our coaches or join our To The Top Study Club and start surrounding yourself with the kind of people who will help you create a Better Practice, and a Better Life! 

Heather Crockett is a Lead Practice Coach at ACT Dental