A client doing my seven steps to happiness and success ecourse wrote in saying,
“I am not sure if you respond to emails, but I am puzzled. I understand what you are saying,(Stop protecting yourself from people who aren’t attacking you) but I am skeptical about letting people in. I understand that when people disappoint you it is the expectation you had of them that has disappointed you, but when someone is downright inconsiderate do they not have to be accountable for their actions?
I am a dental hygienist and single mother and not able to find consistant work due to the fact that the number of hygienist has double in the last few years. Now dentists have a large pool of hygienists to choose from, sorry for being bitter and opinionated, but the dentists I have encountered have been fickle and evasive. Hence, I find it hard to trust again.
After being burned a few times, I have decided that I need to wait for the right position to come up that is a good fit for me. Somewhere that makes me happy and staff/boss is happy with me. I also want to be confident, which is a challenge for me. I do, however, worry that as I wait I will not have money to pay my bills/rent.”
Your point is well taken. Your industry is more competitive now and that puts the dentist in the drivers seat and you in a position of having to offer more value. The value you can bring is two fold. 1. Be great at what you do. 2. Be a great person to work with. If you are jaded and guarded, then you won’t be much fun to work with and people will treat you poorly. The drunk monkey says “because I have been burned before, be careful it migh happen again”.
First you must examine the degree to which you are telling yourself the truth. When you say burned what do you really mean. I suspect that your expectations were broken. You wanted one thing to happen but instead another thing happened. You must discipline the drunk monkey and don’t let it get away with dramatic explanations of your situation. You said the person was inconsiderate. What you really mean is that they didn’t communicate the way you see fit. It is so important that you recognize that everybody is taught a different set of communication tools by the family they were raised by. In one family you call the person up and apologize for not meeting their expectation and in another family you simply think the person should get over it. Neither is right or wrong. Just different styles. You can’t hold people accountable to your preferred style. If you want to be happy, then you must practice giving people the benefit of the doubt. Not easy but very beneficial to your emotional health.
Second you must get aligned with the way that life works. What you focus on you get. If you are focused on being causions not to get burned again then you will operate in a way that is suspicious. This will put others on guard around you. They will think you are doing something sneaky and try to get you before you get them. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
If I were coaching you I would ask you to make a list of all the qualities and characteristics of your perfect dentist, the set up, the people, the pay, the hours and the culture in the office. Then I would ask you to make a list of what you want your dentist to expect from you. Before bed every night spend a few minutes reviewing the list and then go to bed dreaming about it.
Within a few weeks the perfect situation will drop into your lap. Your job then is to drop your protection mechanism and just embrace it fully like it is the dream scenario.
While you are waiting for this perfect situation to show up, take what ever work you can get to keep paying the bills. Practice appreciating the aspects of the work that you like. And practice seeing the aspects of the work that you don’t like in a more neutral way. In other words; practice bing at peace with what ever comes. This will speed up the process of landing the perfect job.
On Thursday, April 21, 2011, Maggie Wilson wrote:
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> From: jill Date: April 20, 2011 10:49:08 PM PDTTo: info@matthewferry.comSubject: Re: Seven Steps to Happiness and Success – Lesson Number Two
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