Creating change in your life and career can feel like an impossible task.
If you’ve been unhappy or managing the status quo for a long time, you probably feel overwhelmed because many areas of your practice need attention. You may even feel a bit hopeless, like no matter what you do you won’t make a dent. Or you may just feel that you don’t want to rock the boat, because your practice is tolerable.
Debt-Snowball Method
When you’re feeling this frustrated, one of the most effective ways to create change is to use the debt-snowball method, popularized by Dave Ramsey (Financial Author).
The debt-snowball method is a method of debt reduction that promotes paying off the debt with the smallest balance first, and then working your way up to the larger ones. You benefit psychologically from seeing results much sooner, and this keeps you motivated for the larger debts, and ultimately debt relief earlier.
To use this method to effect change in your life, begin by writing down everything that’s causing you frustration. Then order each of these items, beginning with the one that’s easiest to change and ending with the one that’s hardest to change.
A Few Examples
For example, the hardest thing to change might be a general dissatisfaction with life or the Affordable Care Act, while the easiest problem to fix might be a difficult commute or a few time saving steps in your EMR. In this case, you’d want to tackle the commute first and work your way up to the general dissatisfaction problem.
Your action item this week is to address one thing in your life that’s causing you frustration but isn’t too difficult to fix. I encourage you to stay accountable by posting the change you intend to make in the comment box below.