Dr. Don Deems, the Dentist's Coach - Free Newsletter: Fear, Anxiety, and Anger: Ruling (Ruining) Your Life

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Fear, Anxiety, and Anger: Ruling (Ruining) Your Life
November 01, 2009

Fear, anxiety, anger: three states of being I hear often from dentists. What are they scared of? Anxious about? Angry about?

Oh, there's a lot, you can bet. Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the fear that was pervasive in the American culture as our country was trying to recover from the Great Depression, noting that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat to advance". He went on to say in that famous speech that it is the knife's edge that separates failure from success in life.

I would say that it is the knife's edge that separates a dentist's success from failure in practice.

What is your knife's edge? Where do you teeter on greater success? Where do you not dare approach the knife's edge?

For many of us, it can be the fear of doing something we're not 100% confident about doing. It could be taking action to fire an employee who is just not contributing to the team fully. It could be setting standards, boundaries, and protocols in their practice - and sticking to them. It could be the risk of telling someone the truth - anyone - whether it a patient, staff member, or even a friend. It could be a thousand things.

A worthwhile point for you reading this is to figure out where you are holding back.

Where is it? How have you rationalized, justified, and convinced yourself to not take action and stay in your current situation? Are you thinking that something outside of you will change to allow change to happen so you don't have to take action? What is taking place in your practice you're struggling with? What have you been banging your head against the wall about for so long?

Lawyers, consultants, dental school instructors, and even our colleagues have told us that we should not do this or that. The media has hood-winked us into practically believing the world is coming to an end soon - with or without Obama at the lead! The sad thing about ALL of this is that we believe it. It's not just sad: it's sucking the life right out of everyone. It has to stop!

If you want to start some real change in your practice and your life, consider the following:

· What have you believed as truth that has kept you from taking action?
· Where could you take bolder actions?
· How will you stop fear from dictating your decisions?
· Are you willing to run your practice on solid business actions and not your emotions?
· Where do you need help?

It's often been said that fear is all in our head, and my experience is that it's mostly true. All of us have experienced fear at one time or another, but why do we continue to experience fear when there's no real reason for it?

I have personally felt like there were concrete walls that I could never break through, that I was doomed to live inside a smaller and smaller space. I was scared. At times, I didn't even know why I was scared. In fact, there was no reason to be scared, but I didn't know it! Once I broke through those walls - usually one at a time - life changed, a little at first, then faster and faster. I looked back to see those walls, and I couldn't even find them! I knew they were once there, but somehow they vanished into thin air ... once I gathered the courage to make change.

You can do the same. I needed help, and maybe you do, too. Gather that courage, look inside for your answers, and be bold in your actions.

You can do it, no matter what anyone tells you.

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