The Personal Story I Rarely Share.
We all have moments when all of a sudden, we lose track of our purpose, become less inspired and stray from our sole inspired vision. These are the moments that challenge our thoughts, our beliefs and the true essence of who we are as individuals. While I could sit here at the computer and make you believe that my life has been perfect and I that have figured everything out, I would be outright lying to you. I writing this post, I hope to fill with hope, the hearts of every chiropractor who is struggling to manage life and practice and tired of being one person at home and another in practice.
Back in 2010, I lost complete control of my life. I was extremely busy in practice and achieving every single goal I was writing down. I was everywhere people gathered, laser focused on growing my practice and achieving what I was defining as success. Meanwhile, I lost sight of every other aspects of my life, including my health and my relationship with my wife. Knowing too well what my values were, I was starting to have resentment over how I was neglecting these other areas of my life and how chiropractic was becoming the only thing on my mind. I was depressed and lying in bed every night wondering what I could do to be happy again. I was a successful chiropractor, hating practice, struggling to keep it together on a personal level and wondering if tomorrow was even worth it.
After going through a divorce that year, I had plenty of time to reflect on how I had attracted this in my life, work at seeing the hidden blessings and being grateful it happened.
The number one thing I did was read a book called The Passion Test by Chris and Janet Bray Attwood and figured out my top 5 passions. After reading this book, I realized I had lost sight of what I was passionate about. My life was no longer in line with my passions. I was simply going through the motions, always saying yes, leading with my head and not my heart. Once I figured out my top 5 passions, I became militant at delegating and saying no to anything that did not align with my passions. I created an environment conducive to my passions that allowed my true essence to shine brighter.
With a beautiful wife, two kids and a thriving practice, I have to say my life has come full circle. Life brings a constant source of valuable lessons that we must first recognize, acknowledge and then be willing to do the work so we can evolve as deeper more conscious human beings. As much as we all want thriving practices, focusing solely on this goal creates a life that is out of balance and a universe that is unwilling to give you more when you are already out of control. That said, having more balance in your life is the only way you will achieve more and sustain high levels of success in your practice.
Align your life with your passions and focus on having balance in your life. Your family and friends and your health may not wait for you to live out your illusions that everything will be perfect once you achieve success in practice.
Just a thought!
-Clayton