No matter how successful, good-looking, or happy you may be, there is undoubtedly someone else out there who has found more success, looks even better than you, and smiles even more often.
No one is perfect, not even you no matter what your mother tells her friends about you. And that’s OK. Your job is not to be perfect. Your job is to be you.
As physicians and other high-income professionals, we tend to be perfectionist types. It’s important to be reminded that sometimes good enough is good enough and that perfection is the enemy of good.
This Saturday Selection, penned by Dr. James Turner, was originally published on The Physician Philosopher.
When your life happens in three to four year epochs until your early to mid thirties, happiness and contentment can be hard to find when everything is said and done. After you finish training, that’s it. There really isn’t another “step” in the same way there used to be when we looked forward to finishing undergrad, medical school, residency, and then fellowship.
Ironically, your unhappiness can peak after finishing training, because – as Teddy Roosevelt famously said – “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
In private practice, after you become a board-certified partner, that’s it. You are currently living the dream. Until you look around at what other people are doing with their money. Comparisons can steal your joy.
In addition to this, I would argue that comparisons not only steal your joy. They have the potential to catalyze your road to burnout. It’s another factor that can steal your identity, increase financial stress, and worsen your situation.
Climbing the Ranks
It’s an unfortunate consequence of hanging around other people. Because we mirror and brain-couple with other people, we can often assume characteristics from other people, including their goals.
For example, in academic medicine, it is an expectation that your job after finishing is to climb the academic ladder. You might start as a clinical instructor until you receive your full board certification. That will allow you to become an assistant professor. Hopefully, after some diligent work, you will have tackled the standard for applying for promotion to the rank of associate professor.
With the promotion comes additional money, possibly some more vacation, and more notoriety within the institution. The same phenomenon happens in corporate America.
This all sounds well and good. Unless, of course, progressing through the ranks is not one of your major goals. Maybe you only want to research things you are passionate about, and you don’t want to publish at a rate that your hospital requires for promotion. Perhaps you don’t want to do research at all. Many people go into academia because they love teaching and practicing clinical medicine.
Yet, when we look at our current station and compare it to others, it can steal our joy. Will we be okay staying at an assistant professor rank 20 years later when our colleagues are progressing up the ladder?
Cars, Houses, and the Lot
Of course, this phenomenon is not unique to academic medicine. It is human to compare your current situation to that of others around you. Maybe it involves comparing houses, cars, outfits, your children’s education, purses, or work out bikes.
In fact, comparisons are the reason that many doctors end up poor. They feel like they need to keep up with the Dr. Joneses around them who have a lot of stuff (but usually lack a lot of wealth). There are certain societal and personal expectationsthat we have for living the Doctor’s Life.
Whether it’s the number of publications, a Tesla, Peloton, fancy watch, McMansion, private school, or the number of page views on your blog – comparisons can make you feel like you and your family are lacking.
Finding contentment is key, but it can prove challenging when we are surrounded by people who have lavish spending habits. Unless you are very clear on your goals.
Setting Your Own Goals
The answer to avoiding comparison stealing your joy is two-fold.
First, we must determine our life goals for ourselves. We should not depend on other people to set them for us, though seeking wise-council here will prove helpful. The point is that going through the motions that others expect of you can lead to a lot of discontentment. Instead, you should spend some time figuring out what is important to you in this life. Then, you should design a life to chase after it.
Second, your happiness and contentment should be determined based on your goals. Not someone else’s. This can only be done, though, when you are crystal clear on your purpose and passion. When this happens, your temptation to continually compare yourself to others will begin to dissipate.
Even after going through this exercise, you’ll find that one other key piece is required – knowing when to say yes or no to something.
Hell Yes Policy, The Anti-Thief of Joy
After sitting down with my wife and discussing what is important to us, I realized that I am involved in a lot of things that are not helping us work towards our goals. This included unnecessary committees, projects, and working more than I want.
All of this was created by a desire to live up to other people’s expectations for me. I was previously known for having a drive and determination to get stuff done. It seemed like I had an infinite amount of time and energy. In the end, this might have been my Grave’s disease. Who knows?
The point is that I was following someone else’s design.
The answer was to institute a Hell Yes Policy where I said no to absolutely everything that I wasn’t so passionate about that it made me say, “Hell Yes!” In other words, I only say yes to things that define my purpose and passion – which includes supporting my wife, being there for our three kids, educating future physicians, and practicing regional anesthesia.
Take Home: Avoiding “Comparison is the Thief of Joy”
Comparison does not have to be the thief of your joy.
Once you crystallize your goals, base your contentment on those goals (and not the goals of others), and institute a Hell Yes Policy – you will find that you are able to find contentment even when you seemingly have “less”.
Of course, this is a round about way to encourage you to be happy with one of the key steps in reaching financial independence – frugality.
This contentment with less has proven to be a super power for many who have found early financial independence. And, financial independence is the escape hatch to physician burnout.
Today, sit down and design your life. Be intentional. Don’t let other people dictate the direction of your career and life.
Have you created a specific list of your goals? Are you working towards them, or towards someone else’s? How did you get on the right track? Leave a comment below.
6 thoughts on “Don’t Let Comparison Be the Thief of Your Joy”
Dr Turner, I enjoyed this post and I am glad PoF featured it. The post reminds me quite a bit of a lecture Alan Watts gave years and years ago about climbing the ladder that society prods you to continually ascend. Here is a snippet from that lecture.
Shout out to Feeling Good Feeling Great for transcribing this text here.
I feel like comparisons is a great way to get depressed. There’s always someone out there better/stronger/faster/richer or whatever than you would be.
I think the only comparisons we should do is compare ourselves to what we were able to do a few years ago, and appreciate the progress we’ve made over time.
This comparison culture propagates through Instagram / social media and I feel like these things are good for inspiration, but also makes people really depressed. I’ve a business partner, for example, that likes to compare our business with other business that are overnight successes. But…why even do that? It accomplishes nothing and just creates a demotivating atmosphere, which then drives poor decision making and it becomes a negative spiral of self-fulfilling prophecies of “I’m not good enough” kind of mentality.
I used to think the most important reading in personal finance was some kind of “how to invest” manual, or something from the investing canon, Benjamin Graham-ish. After watching colleagues splurge for ten years, I’m convinced behavioral finance is way more important, Morgan Housel-ish.
Thief is spelled incorrectly in your graphic! 🙂
Thief stole my spellchecker!