Episode 3 - Getting off the Treadmill to Nowhere

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Hello, hello, and welcome to the Emotional Millennial. My name is Annie, and I'm so excited that you're here with me today. I have gone through an immense amount of personal growth throughout the past year, and I'm no longer not talking about it. Our world needs more authenticity, honesty, vulnerability. And with this podcast, I am simply doing my part.

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So let's get into it.

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So today, what I want to talk about is the way my outlook on my life changed after I went through what I went through this past year. And I also realized that the life that I was living was not necessarily what I personally wanted for myself, but it was more so rooted in what I thought I should be, what I thought was the definition of success based on the people around me and what society sets as that standard. I knew I wanted to become a doctor from a very young age. I think it was actually in middle school that I decided and kind of set my mind to it, and that's how my personality is, you know, when I set a goal, like I'm going to accomplish it. And so back in middle school, I set that goal for myself.

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And here we are today, and I officially am a doctor. The only thing is, I thought it would come with, like, this Superman coat and all of this endless happiness. And I'm a doctor now, so it's all good. Spoiler alert. It wasn't all good.

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I just realized that what I envisioned for myself and what I thought that my future was going to hold, it absolutely did not match up with what my reality became. And that was really challenging for me to not only experience, but to realize about myself, because in a way, what ended up happening was I was grieving the loss of a future that I had dreamed up in my brain at the same time as, like, grieving the loss of what I thought my life should be.

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My journey of self reflection or, like, really deep self reflection and introspection began after I found out I didn't match into OB. And at first I was like, oh, I got to do OB again, you know? But once I finally gave myself that space and that ability to step back and be like, okay, wait, this is an opportunity to change direction. You don't need to do anything. Your life is all about you and what you want.

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And I think that I spent a lot of my life making decisions based on what I thought at the time it was what I wanted. But looking back now, I was making these decisions because I thought that's what other people wanted, or at least like, I knew that's what the other people wanted around me. I knew that's what they would applaud, what I would get a Pat on the back for. And so me making decisions, achieving goals, getting on that route to becoming a doctor and becoming an obja and becoming a surgeon. Like, I wasn't doing that for myself.

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I was doing that for other people. And so I told myself, like, okay, let's start over. What do you want? And I was thinking about it, and I was like, I actually have no idea what I want. I don't know who I am right now.

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I was having, like, a complete identity crisis after I didn't match because I really felt like I wasn't good enough to be a doctor or to be going into the field of medicine. So after I was like, okay, I don't know what I want, what makes me happy, what sparks joy in me, what are my passions? Where do they lie? And at that time, I really didn't know either. It took a couple more months before I was able to pivot and actually decide what it was that I wanted to do with my life for me, not for others.

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So living a life that's authentic to yourself first starts with you having the ability to look inward and really question what it is that you're doing and what you have done in your life up to that point. And that's terrifying. Okay? It's really scary, especially if you're like me and you realize what you have been doing is, like, totally not aligned with who you are. Because then it feels like, what am I even doing anymore?

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The good thing is there's always time to change, and there's always time to start making decisions that are for you and for what you truly want for yourself.

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Success is whatever you define it to be. It took me a really long time to learn that my value does not lie within my productivity or my ability to stand out against other people or getting praised for hard work. Because for so long, that's where I thought my value in society did lie. I thought, work harder, work harder. And this is what's going to give you happiness, right?

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And I realize now that this is so twisted, but genuinely, that is what I thought. And so that is exactly what I was doing. And I was pretty good at it because I was burned out by the time I finished medical school. And the craziest part about all of this is I worked myself to death, right? I was definitely not in a good place, mentally or physically.

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Honestly, my relationships were struggling, too. I was reaching that full on peak of burnout. The part that gets me is it still wasn't enough, which now is a blessing. An absolute blessing. And I'm so grateful that I did not match.

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But the amount of anger, disappointment, grief, embarrassment I felt after not matching, despite giving it every freaking ounce of my being, that was rock bottom for me. My entire identity was being a physician. And suddenly I didn't have that anymore. Or at least I felt like I didn't have it. That was my perception at the time.

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And so I was convinced that I was worthless. And that's really kind of what sent me downward on that depression spiral. There are so many of us that are on this exact same cycle of working, working harder, trying to be better, and just like, slowly eating away at who we are and what makes us happy, what makes us uniquely and authentically ourselves. And those are the parts of us that we should be really letting out into the world, not the parts that we should be minimizing to try to make up for our value in other external ways.

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I like to say that I got off the treadmill to nowhere instead of running sprinting. I suppose, as I have been for my entire life, I just decided to step off.

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I now realize my value lies in who I am, the relationships that I form, my ability to connect with other people, and my ability to be vulnerable and honest when it comes to talking about my feelings and my emotions. If this is something that you can relate to, if you feel like you're working so hard to just burn yourself out and you don't really feel like you're living a life that lines up with who you are and what your values are, I encourage you to step off the treadmill too. I did everything I could throughout not just medical school, but honestly my entire life to make sure that my residency application was perfect spotless. And trust me, it was really incredible. Yes, I made mistakes along the way.

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It wasn't absolutely perfect, but it was pretty close. I worked very hard to get it there. But guess what? It didn't even matter. It did not matter.

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And now I wish I could tell myself, go back in time and say, Honey, do what makes you happy. Do what you want to do. Because even when you get to the finish line, it's not going to change the outcome. It doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, despite my application being as great as it was, it still didn't work out.

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It still wasn't enough.

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And that kind of goes back to the idea of not being good enough based on other people's standards and others perspectives. And the real problem lies in the fact that I thought I wasn't good enough because I didn't get a residency position, which is completely not the truth. We are all good enough in our own unique ways, and no other person has the ability to tell you whether you are the best version of yourself or not. They can F off.

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Do what makes you happy, do what lights you up and screw what other people think.

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The treadmill to nowhere is straight up, not a good time speaking from firsthand experience, and I feel much happier now that I've gotten off. And if you want to join me, please do.

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I was so set on becoming a doctor for so long that I lost sight of other aspects of my identity. This forced me to explore other avenues and other passions and allowed me to see what I really do want in my future. It was during this time that I realized medicine as my soul career simply was not going to cut it. Medicine wasn't or isn't what I thought it would be. And this is really sad, but I'm happy I found this out sooner rather than later.

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My goal with this podcast is to help people better understand themselves and better understand people around them So that we can all feel a little less alone. I think at the end of the day, what we all really desire is to be seen as our most authentic selves and to be loved as that person. I always thought becoming a doctor would come with a sense of elevation. Like, you feel good about yourself that you're a doctor, but literally, I am a doctor right now And I feel like I'm lying about it. Talk about imposter syndrome.

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I asked myself one time after I introduced myself to a patient, can I do that? Like, am I going to get in trouble for this? Which is so ridiculous because I earn that degree? Like, I am a physician? But the other part of this that's confusing is I'm a doctor, but I'm not, like, glistening and shining in the clouds among the Angels like I thought I would be.

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I'm literally sitting on the ground in my basement, a mess and a half working through some super cute mental health stuff and just barely having my feet on the ground. It really doesn't seem right that I could be this way if I were a real doctor, not the doctor that I thought I was going to be. I thought I would join all the others and we would all just be smiling all the time? With a stethoscope around our necks? I never really considered my happiness or how I would be feeling when I would graduate medical school or how I'd be feeling how many years down the road in my career.

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My perception of reality was just altered and I didn't see the whole truth of that future and what it really had in store for me. Realistically, I had no idea what I was getting into. So screw the life you should be living and live the one that you want to live. I'm telling you, it's way better I got off the treadmill to know where? And I hope you do too.

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Thanks for tuning in. I'm so happy that join me today for another episode? And I'll see you next time. Bye.