Lies My Brain Tells Me Part 3: It Won’t Be That Bad
Whenever I start to consider myself a master at something, the universe intervenes to put me back in my place. If you’ve read my process for having a good service week, you know I have a deliberate practice of not having two things in the same spot on my calendar. I used to over-commit and trust that if one of the things in a place with multiple things on my calendar did not get canceled, I would choose which one to attend at the moment. When I recognized that practice was not making me more productive but was just leading to overwhelm and decision paralysis, I committed to looking at my schedule for the week ahead every Sunday and choosing, right then, which of the multiple things I had scheduled during any given time, I would attend. I’d delete the rest.
But new commitments slip, as they sometimes do. About a year ago, I started double (or triple) booking myself again. I felt the overwhelm creep in quickly, and I shut down my reflex to overcommit. To remind myself that I was never going back to my old ways again, I put the above Post-It note on my monitor as a visual cue to stick to one meeting per timeslot.
But repeat commitments can slip, too. I had the opportunity to host a grand rounds speaker, who I was very excited to have at our institution. And he was scheduled to come during one of my service weeks. “No big deal,” I thought. “He won’t be here until the afternoon, and I’ll be done with rounds by then. I can rely on my PICU colleagues to keep an eye on my patients while I spend time with the grand rounds speaker and get him from place to place. It won’t be that bad.” And then, I needed to make a telehealth doctor’s appointment, and the earliest it could be was the second day of our guest’s visit while I was still on service. Though I was nervous about being double booked two days in a row, I thought, “If I move things, everybody will be inconvenienced. I can figure it out. It won’t be that bad.”
As the days approached, I got more and more anxious. I prepared as best I could: I drafted all of my service notes so I wouldn’t have that hanging over me while I was hosting our speaker and getting to my telehealth appointment, and I gave all of my team members the heads up that I would be tied up those two afternoons. The mornings went great, though I was fidgety, anxious, and distracted by email and texts the whole time, lest I get an update on something concerning our speaker or my telehealth appointment. And then the wheels started falling off.
I asked the person bringing our speaker over from his hotel for a text when they were on their way so I could minimize the time I spent out of the unit waiting for her to drop him off. That didn’t happen. The first text I got was from our speaker, saying he was waiting for me at the entrance of our emergency department; the driver had simply left him there. I hauled down to meet him, and he was fantastic and lovely through all of my apologies that I had missed meeting him as soon as he’d arrived. We did a little tour of the hospital, I deposited him at his first meeting, and the rest of the afternoon went off without a hitch. The next afternoon, getting his lunch to where it needed to be was an issue. However, as one of the service attendings, I was running our division’s weekly situational awareness meeting. Not expecting this complication, I snapped at my two administrative assistants that I couldn’t help; they just needed to figure it out. They did, of course, because they’re fantastic. But as soon as I snapped at them, I fell down a shame spiral about how rude I was to them. During my meeting, when I should have been absorbing my colleagues' suggestions about how to get my patients better faster, I was again fidgety, anxious, and distracted by email and texts.
Our grand rounds speaker comfortably at his post-lunch meetings, and me having just finished our divisional meeting, I logged into my telehealth appointment. Not wanting to “waste” any time, I pulled up another window on my computer and set to work while waiting for my provider to get on the call. Engrossed in work, ten minutes passed before I realized my telehealth visit should have started already. I toggled back to that screen and found my provider had logged on, waited for me, and then ended the call: I’d had my speakers muted, so I couldn’t hear her trying to get my attention when the window she was in was hidden behind the window containing the work that I just had to do.
So what did I get by double booking myself two days in a row? I ended up a distracted and possibly ineffective host to the guest I’d been involved with bringing to our institution, a jerk to the people who were helping me organize his visit, a preoccupied and harried pediatric intensivist, and a rude patient who then had to go through the rigamarole of rescheduling a telehealth visit. Was it that bad? Yes, it was. I only figured some of it out (and what I did figure out, I did so badly) and ended up inconveniencing people while driving myself crazy. I believed my brain when it said, “It won’t be that bad.” Which was actually code for, “Don’t inconvenience others; you’re just being lazy if you don’t make this work.”
Breaking Free from the "It Won't Be That Bad" Trap
If you find yourself frequently uttering (or thinking), "It won't be that bad," it's time to pause and examine what's truly going on. Here are some strategies to help you listen to your intuition and avoid the potential carnage your body is trying to save you from:
1. Acknowledge the Underlying Fear: "It won't be that bad" is often a way to avoid confronting the fear of disappointing others or appearing incapable. Dig deeper. What are you afraid of? Is it saying no? Is it admitting you can't do it all? Once you identify the fear, you can address it directly.
2. Challenge Your Assumptions: When you hear that little voice saying, "It won't be that bad," ask yourself: What evidence do I have to support that? Are you minimizing the potential consequences? Are you relying on hope rather than a realistic assessment? Be honest with yourself.
3. The "Worst-Case Scenario" Exercise: Take a moment to visualize the absolute worst-case scenario if your concerns materialize. This isn't about catastrophizing; it's about preparing. If the worst-case scenario is genuinely detrimental, that's a strong sign to re-evaluate your commitment.
4. Listen to Your Body: Stress often manifests physically. Are you feeling anxious, restless, or having trouble sleeping? These could be signs that your "It won't be that bad" is a lie. Your body is often the first to know when you're taking on too much.
5. Trust Your Gut: A variation on listening to your body, that nagging feeling in your stomach? That's your intuition talking. Don't dismiss it. Your gut often knows what your brain is trying to ignore. Pay attention to those intuitive nudges.
6. Prioritize and Set Boundaries: It's okay to say no. In fact, it's essential. Learn to prioritize your commitments and set clear boundaries. Protect your time and energy. If something doesn't align with your priorities or boundaries, decline it.
7. Reflect on Past Experiences: Have you found yourself in similar situations before? What happened? What could you have done differently? Learning from past experiences can help you avoid repeating the same mistakes.
8. Be Kind to Yourself: It's easy to be hard on yourself when things go wrong. Remember that you're human. Mistakes happen. The goal isn't perfection; it's learning and growing. Forgive yourself, have some self-compassion, and move forward with newfound wisdom.
By practicing these strategies, you can break the habit of ignoring your intuition and make choices that align with your well-being and priorities. It's about choosing wisely, protecting your peace, and acknowledging that sometimes, "it will be that bad," and that's okay. The point is to be prepared and not be caught off guard by a situation you could have avoided. If I could do those two days again, I would have traded out of my service days to be fully present to host our grand rounds speaker. I would have acknowledged that it would have been nice to have my telehealth appointment as soon as possible, but it wasn’t essential and could be delayed until I was off service. And then for the self-compassion: it seems I haven’t learned my lesson about overbooking myself yet, but that’s okay. Every time I re-learn it, I’m a better student for having learned it before. I’m knocking off the rust instead of starting from scratch. Maybe all it will take is more reminder Post-It notes.