How to thrive in your dentistry profession and life?! 17 Februarie 2021

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Roxana Borcsa, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

Dentistry is a tough job.
It is very demanding and stressful and challenging to perform highly technical, intricate procedures continuously on a daily basis. It requires a lot of time invested in yourself and in your business. It requires determination and integrity and dedication.
Do you feel that somewhere along the way you stopped improving? Did you then asked yourself how can you be better at what you do? Or Do you want to thrive in your profession and life?
Dentists usually find themselves consumed with running their practice and dealing with the unlimited demands that seem to surface daily. Because it is an isolated profession, most dentists have a solo practice, they’re constantly second-guessing what they’re doing, trying to identify market trends, trying to keep up with changing technology and knowledge, hiring, firing, managing—you name it.. and in the same time trying to have a life outside dental practices…

Going back let`s say 20-30 years ago, some dentists looked to each other for support, morale boosting, and friendship, which is something that is almost MISSING from our profession these days. Those intangible, difficult, hard-to-describe elements have a huge impact on our feelings of success and fulfillment as dentists. They all but elude us in these days of perceived competition, economic recession, now even more having to deal with the lockdown or the pandemic, increased threat of malpractice, and the difficulty in finding qualified employees.

It seems that our problems, feelings, concerns, and emotions end up taking a back seat to working in our practice each day. In reality, the connection between “who” we are in our profession as dentists and our feelings of success and fulfillment come about when we are able to reconnect to our identity as human beings.HOW?
It happens when we acknowledge our wants, our needs, and concerns, our insight thoughts and feelings about that and begin to develop this relationship with ourselves that has all been lost in today’s business world. Being connected to our “inner self” is essential, and a personal coach is most helpful in navigating that quest.

By now, most dentists have heard of coaching, of course, they all have friends in different careers, but many really do not know how these professional services can help them.

The coach’s main objective is to assist the client in designing a life that is consistent with the client’s values, goals, and dreams.

What coaching can do for you?
Dental coaches ask questions rather than give answers. They are observers. They take us inside ourselves and assist in our development as business owners, or employees and more important as persons. They inspire to draw out what is already within and empower us to take action on it. Working with a coach, dentists have the amazing opportunity to work on their business, instead of inside it. They have the opportunity to reflect on what they’re doing, to identify their interests and values, and have an objective partner who can reflect back and listen attentively and provide feedback so important to have a balanced life and a fulfilling business.
Because a coach can give you a whole new level of awareness!
Unlike consulting, the coach is not the “expert” who tells the client what to do, but explores to see what the client wants to do, determines what is possible and what may stand in the way, and then supports the client in staying true to what he or she really wants. Coaches have the privileged role to assist clients in finding their personal truth, and then to live it.

Unlike therapy, coaching is not concerned with resolving past issues. The coaching objective is forward-looking and action-oriented. The important objectives are to identify what the client wants, determine the steps to get there, and act on it. So far so good, and yet I have discovered that by now only a few dentists use coaching to improve their lives!! Why is that? We hear all the time people with less pressure on their workplace, with a more balanced life, using coaching for years, and yet the one of the most difficult careers did not turn to that? for start, I understood that for a dentist to work with a personal coach is a relatively new concept ….. The use of a professional coach is a rare phenomenon. Why would a dentist use a professional coach? What is the benefit in coaching? So let me emphasize shortly what are the advantages of hiring a professional coach:

I have observed that dentists who develop a relationship with a coach are able to move more quickly and clearly toward their preferred future. They gain clarity and even in the most difficult times they can change the perspective and have the outcome desired.

Coaching as a Cutting-Edge Resource
Sometimes they listen. Sometimes they challenge. Always they support…. Coaches are asking questions to dentists, who are high performing people who already know what to do but feel isolated, or stuck, or imbalanced. They serve as the great observers because the dentist is usually too involved in the process to see all that is happening around them…they integrates the “who” of a person with the “what” they are doing—no matter the person’s professional and personal goals. Coaching draws on the client’s knowledge, intuition, innate wisdom, individual experience and skills, using those aspects to assist them to develop the practice of their own dreams—not someone else’s dreams. The possibilities are practically endless.. On a more personal level, because many dentists are so successful in the eyes of the public, they typically have no one to talk to about their own reality. What makes coaching so effective, is due to many aspects inherent in the coaching process. For example, accountability is critical. Once you’ve identified what you really want for your practice and for yourself, a coach assists you in keeping on track. Coaching is also highly valuable because it gives you a different perspective—which opens possibilities that may have been hidden. A coach is also a great sounding board for what’s working and what’s not…extremely valuable to dentists who are mostly isolated from one another.

Professional coaching is a golden resource available to dentists who want to thrive in their life and their practice. Whether you want to learn something new like to say “no” to your limited time schedule, clean out the clutter out in your life, reconnect with what’s most important to you, find meaning in your work, or more balance in your life, a personal coach can help you do it.

If you’re looking for someone who understands what you face in your practice from day to day, to be listened, to be acknowledged, understood and supported there are coaches available who are practicing dentists and there are professional coaches. I am both. So if you are looking to experience coaching let`s chat..