Eyebrows and Autopilot: Small Wins for Big Weeks
I got my world rocked on service this week. Our census is an epic three-headed volume, acuity, and complexity monster. Even with my New Year’s goal to simplify, I had no extra time, energy, or free brain space.
Realistically, these times will happen despite our best intentions. I do not control the flow of patients into our unit, and sometimes, I can’t wholly control their course (try as I might). In times of chaos, having a consistent minimum baseline for myself gives me a sense of agency and sets me up for a reasonable amount of success. This sense of control is invaluable in our high-stress environments. What is my minimum baseline?
Clothes laid out the night before
Breakfast and lunch sorted the night before
In bed by 8:30p every night
Eyebrows filled in every morning
That’s it. Making sure those three things happened every day took a grand total of 15 minutes, put part of my mental load on autopilot, and helped me feel that I wasn’t showing up as a total disaster despite what was happening around me. Laying out my clothes the night before wasn’t hard - all of my scrubs “go together,” so I grabbed a pair of pants and a top and moved them to the end of the rack in my closet so they were easy to find the following day. Planning my breakfast and lunch didn’t even mean making something on most days. On Monday night, instead of setting out one protein bar for breakfast the following day, I grabbed enough for the rest of the week and threw them in my work bag. For a couple of days, instead of packing leftovers for lunch, I just decided to get a sandwich from our coffee counter at work the next day. Getting to bed early didn’t work out every night; we started a Severance re-binge in anticipation of the next season, and I didn’t call it a night until 9:30p (and completely felt it the next day, vowing not to do that again the rest of the week). Filling in my eyebrows every morning took away the “I look like a constantly surprised naked mole rat” feeling. Busy days are no time for appearance-based self-flagellation. I suppose no days are a time for appearance-based self-flagellation, but that’s for those more highly evolved than me (and probably a discussion for another time).
The super cool thing about having a minimum baseline is feeling fantastic about yourself when you exceed it. Despite my week, I went to the gym before work twice. I wanted to cancel both times, but I showed up anyway. I am Superwoman. Despite rounds being horrifically long, I made time to teach. I am an exemplary clinician educator. When I set my mind to it, I can find all sorts of ways I exceeded my expectations for myself last week. I’m not letting my brain argue that the expectations were too low (they are admittedly my “minimum baseline”). I’m choosing to think in black and white, ones and zeros. Did I meet my minimum baseline? Yes. Did I exceed it? Hell yes.
What is your minimum baseline? Drinking 64oz of water a day? Getting up just early enough to miss the snarl in the parking garage? Having dinner with your kids every night? Choose one and work with it for a while before you decide you’re being too easy on yourself. It doesn’t take long at all to figure out if you’re setting your minimum baseline too high: you don’t meet it every day, or if you do, you feel like absolute garbage in doing it.
In medicine, we hold ourselves to exceptionally high standards when it comes to caring for patients but then fail to hold ourselves to any standard when it comes to caring for ourselves. Start small, so small you have no chance of failing. Get some wins. And when you tell me about them, my eyebrows will be filled in, so you’ll be able to appreciate my reactions to your success.