159. Boundaries and Better Habits With Community

What is your community asking you to do, encouraging you to do? And what are they celebrating? Or what's the norm? And if that's not a great community for you, and who are those five people you're spending time with? I would say go find some 5 healthier people to be around.

Are you a woman in medicine? Feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from the personal fulfillment that you desire? You're in the right place. Join doctors Joanne and Erin as they rewrite the rules for women in medicine. Let's begin.

If you become like the five people you spend the most time with, who's quietly shaping your habits, your energy, and your sense of what's normal? And I'm using air quotes in medicine right now in this episode, we're talking about something that quietly shapes everything, even your habits, your energy, and how you experience medicine. You've probably heard the idea that we become like the five people we spend the most time with. Yes, we have to listen to that again. But for women physicians, that's not just a cliche. It's neuroscience, psychology and burnout research roll together. This is information that we really need to pay attention. We will be exploring how the people around you influence your habits more than willpower ever could. And how joining the right community can help you set boundaries, reclaim time, finish notes earlier, and actually flourish in medicine. Yes, that is possible. I am here with my Super Co host, Dr. Erin Hurley. And so let's start with the basics. Erin, when we talk about creating new habits in medicine, especially for us women physicians, what do we actually mean?

Well, so much of our day is on autopilot, and we need to ask ourselves, is the autopilot I go into healthy, hopefully, or is it not? And that's where bringing intention to the habits, making them habits. We choose to go on autopilot in a good way. And so that's where I like to help my clients create more segments of their day where they're on autopilot. How do they start their day? How do they end their day? How do they start their workday? How do they end their workday? And when you can make those big chunks of your life in the right autopilot, right? Where does your meditation go? Where does your movement go? Where does your, your hydration and your nutrition go? And can you bake those in so they become a healthy habit? Instead of a habit where the alarm goes off, and because you went to bed too late the night before, the habit is, you snooze, you snooze, you snooze, then you race out of bed, and then your whole morning is trash, and then that makes your whole day trash. So shifting from habits that derail your day and putting more intentional habits in instead. And so that's where small repeatable changes, where it's like, okay, when the alarm goes off, I don't snooze. I put the alarm across the room so I have to get out of bed. And once I'm out of bed, the rule is I stay out of bed. And from there, then I go to the next and the next. So that's where something tiny like I'm going to stop having snooze as my habit. You can reap tons of rewards for that. Then your brain's not trying to go back to sleep on you as you try to get your day going and you get up on time and your sleep is less disrupted. So there's all these benefits because you made one intentional choice and how to do that. And then I'm going to show a visual for those of you on YouTube and it's, you know, when we're overwhelmed and exhausted as a coach and I'm asking you to do one more thing that's different. And you just don't even have the ability or the capacity or like, I just can't do it. So that's why I talk about lower the bar right next to the floor so it's right on the floor and you just have to step over that tiny little bar. It's a couple inches, right? Tiny little micro change in your habits. And with time, that can build up. So the, the drawing that I'm showing, if you start in this linear line, it's going up and down in the same place. And if you do a 1% change and now you move forward now you end up in a different trajectory. Think of it. You're going across the ocean in a ship and you change your course by 1%. You're going to end up maybe in England instead of Ireland or something like that. I don't know my geometry that or geography that well. And then you do another 1% course correction and another 1%. What's going to happen is you're going to end up in a completely different place then you started. If you continue doing those tiny little incremental changes, you don't have to get there all in one course correction. It can be tiny little course corrections, one tiny little habit. I'm going to go to bed 15 minutes early. I'm going to not hit the snooze alarm. And just those two Tiny little changes in your day can completely morph your energy.

I am thinking at the time of this recording, it's towards the end of the year, and I just recently completed a workshop that I usually offer this time of the year that it's re. It's kind of goal. It's sort of like goal setting, but it's. We. We go a little deeper than that. And it's kind of checking of where you are, where you want to be, like, what's working like, and really have that awareness. And I.

It.

It was for women in medicine, and we tried to focus and we review several areas and then we narrow it down to three, and then we narrow it to one. And I always have to say, and I include myself in, I know that you want to work on all the areas and do all the things for all of it, because that's how we are wired. And just because we can, in terms of our capacity, it doesn't mean that that's what would be helpful to us. That's not necessarily what would serve us. And it is not easy for us to just pick one or two areas of improvement and even that narrow it down to what Erin is saying of what is one tiny micro step that you can do. Do one is it that you need to do to lower the bar? And it's not that you can't. It's to make it very consistent to keep those promises to yourself, because that is how you rewire your brain. So thank you for mentioning that, Aaron, because I know that that's something that I have to remind myself all the time, because I'm of course, right. Like, we all have that same programming. My lists are always super long, and I have this superwoman idea that I can somehow do it all. And I have to remind myself, Joanne, your hours also have 60 minutes. And you also just need to focus on one or two things. And then I'm like, okay, okay. And guess what? I am more successful. I am more consistent. It's easier to stay organized. It's easier to stay disciplined. I'm not saying that it's easy, but that is the work that we need to do. I love how you said it, Erin. Thank you so much. Let me ask you something else. Talking about what we were talking in the introduction. So it's something that we hear a lot of. We take on the habits of the five people we spend the most time with. And what does that look like in real life? And what do you see in the women that you coach?

Well, maybe our listener has heard about Mirroring, right. So if I come in and I'm in a good mood, I'm likely to influence those around me. If I come in in a negative mood, I'm likely to influence. We pick up on other people's energy and moods and behaviors, and we're no different. And I remember going to a get together with other women in medicine that I had worked with, and it was supposed to be this lovely spa day, and I'm surrounded with all these people I care about, and all they could talk about was complain. And for me, I had started doing personal growth and development. I was taking control. I was empowered. I wasn't feeling like a victim or trapped in my life. And it was very difficult for me to enjoy myself because it was focused around complaints about the circumstances. And I think medicine has gotten so much more complicated and more people are burned out. Now, that was probably 10 or 12 years ago. And so when we think about who are we around if more than, you know, or close to half of the people in medicine are burnt out? You are already like, you know, the frogs in the pot of water. Like the water is really cooking you simply because you work in medicine and there's so much burnout. And so then when you think about who do you intentionally spend more time with? Maybe at your work, there's some people that gravitate to more positive things. If there's not, where can you go looking for that? Maybe outside of work. And so with Joanne and I, we've both created group programs, group coaching programs. And when I was hosting earlier this week with my group, oh, it was beautiful because we were doing a reflection exercise. How are you doing now compared to where you were a few months ago or before you joined this program? And one woman had given up a big responsibility role of leadership in a statewide organization, and she said the old me would have filled it up with something else, another position, another position of leadership and responsibility, even though she had such a full plate already. And here she was in this group of supported women, not challenging her. Yeah, go for that. Next thing they were celebrating because she had chosen to fill that space on her plate that was. That was cleared off with connection with her spouse and family and with self care, going to the gym. And I was so proud of her. And I had just seen this growth, her realizing, as you said, Joanne, just because she could, maybe she was the best person to take over a new leadership role, but that doesn't mean she should. And it was just this beautiful, safe setting that she was in where we were able to celebrate not taking on something, but the ability to let something go. And so when you think about what is your community asking you to do, encouraging you to do, and what are they celebrating or what's the norm? And if that's not a great community for you and who are those five people you're spending time with, I would say go find some 5 healthier people to be around.

That is important inventory that we need to take with a lot of honesty and compassion, but it is so important. And some people we love and they're in our lives and we might not just be able to completely knock them out, but we can have this awareness and create boundaries and we don't always have to say it out loud. We can control how often or how for how long we're around those people and what conversations we're going to have about them. And then also add people to your life and they don't need to be physically next to you. It's the Erin and I, we, we've been in groups together and we gravitate towards each other and now we're building community and hopefully you're all joining us because even if it's just hearing us in a podcast or even if it's in a zoom call, when you have people around you that inspire you to be better, that's what you're going to like. Erin is saying, gravitate towards. And actually there's a lot of research around this of how if you think of friends groups, they're usually have similar health habits, they have similar income, they have even similar vacation styles, number of kids, way that they dress, what they eat. It's incredible. And this is not random. We can actually very in intentionally design the people around us. And you can have, like I say, right? Like you get, we can have our friends who are in our life for a long time and our work people and our family. Right. Like we might want to keep those people. And then we can also sort of even make it better by adding role models, people that we aspire to. Like they say, don't be the smartest person in the room. If you are, and you frequently are, make sure that you are also in other rooms that get you inspired, where you can learn and create, expand possibilities. That's something that I know Erin and I have in common and we have each other too. So hopefully we can be that as well for other people. So good, Erin, in this work of coaching that we both do and that we're helping so many women in medicine. And I know because of the Things that I know that you do specifically. So if there's women listening, who feels behind on charts, overextended or stuck in survival mode, what are one or two habits she can start shifting even this month. And. And you can add also how community can be very supportive as well.

Yeah. As we share so often on this podcast, the first step is awareness. If you simply raise your awareness and look at what are those things that are getting in my way? Maybe it's, you can't have a positive mindset because of the people that you're surrounded with. How can you set better boundaries? Even if it's family members. Right. Where you limit how much time you spend because you just can't handle the negativity or how they derail you. So looking at awareness, what is having an effect on what's getting you behind? What's getting you overextended or stuck? What's a needle moving action that you can take? But first be aware and then say, okay, what's the one thing? What's the first thing I need to do? And maybe again, that's, I need to set better boundaries. Okay, who do I know who sets better boundaries and what can I learn from them? How can I role model? How can I practice setting boundaries in a safe space? So maybe you practice setting boundaries with your spouse or with your kids. So test it out. And then what's that language that you need to have? Practice a script. What's a new way? So we've talked before on episodes about if your go to answer is always somebody asks you to do something and you say yes, maybe your new script is. I'm going to need to think about that. My plate's pretty full right now. Can I get back to you? And so now you've got a new script instead of the default. Yes. That your new default is going to think about it. And then how can I say no and make sure if I'm going to say yes, that it really can fit? But awareness, just pay attention and then say, okay, now that I understand, what are the things that are in my control? And you'll be surprised. There's probably more in your control than you think there is. And so now what little 1% change can you make to now start getting closer to where you want to go? And then as we shared before, the power of community is if your community's not supporting you going in the direction that you want, find a community. Find a women's group. Find a parenting group. You know, Joanne and I both have group coaching. Get some direction. If somebody's doing a good job, ask them. Get curious. What is it that you're doing? Who do you surround yourself with? And it's that recipe of what do I need to add more healthy community and my close five people and what do I need to subtract or limit? So with that, hopefully you can find something that you can move forward to to try to get you to building more healthy habits while also building that community that's not going to make it so you're just relying on your willpower.

This is such important information, especially when we're feeling inspired and any time of the year is a good time to set goals, but especially at the beginning of the year when we feel like this year is going to be different and we know that to reach certain goals we need to add different habits and having the awareness of where we are, where we want to go and what are the patterns that we're following and who is around us, motivating us, setting being role models and setting examples for us and how we can intentionally create that community to move forward, forward. So I know I'm always inspired even when we're here recording, I'm like, yes, I'm going to start putting this into action as well. So this is so important in talking about connection and community. If you haven't yet, go visit us in our YouTube page. You'll see the link in the show notes. Unless you're watching us on YouTube and leave us a comment, we would love to hear more. What is that new habit that you want to start and do you need a little bit of support? And with that, stay tuned because our next episode is coming right up.

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