The Priorities Talk

What have I been told since I was a little kid….work hard, study hard, focus on your dreams and you can achieve anything. But they left out a key detail in that discussion… your priorities.

We don’t get everything all at once at the time of major life choices. Whether it be transitions from medical school to residency to fellowship to first jobs, we have key points in which priorities come into play with our choices. Without even realizing it, we start making a list of what we want vs what we need, and I have found, you can almost ALWAYS get your top 3, but numbers 4 or 5 or 6 are not a guarantee.

For example:

Do you want a job right away after training (no time gap waiting for a position)?

Is a location key?

Is it clinical based in your sub-specialty?

Do you need the highest salary possible?

Sure you can get a job which is high paying in a small city in the middle of nowhere, but it may not be available for 3 – 6 months. Or you could do a position for an insurance company with billing, not seeing any clinical patients.

I wish I had learned sooner that I was making these choices and lists without even knowing it:

1) get a position in the same city as my husband

2) get a position in clinical duties in the pediatric sub-specialty I was trained

3) not wait around extra time waiting for a better position.

Had I known, I would have felt less upset about the minimal offers, and more proud that I had achieved my top priorities.

Had I known, losing out on our 8th housing bid would have been less demoralizing. I would have thought “well…you are picky. You want a home/town home/condo with 3 bedrooms in the super expensive southern California, with a tight budget, and you don’t want to have to dump a TON of money into it for renovations…you better be ready to WAIT for the right place”.

Have you had these moments? Where you didn’t even realize you were aching over priority 6/7/8 when priorities 1/2/3 were already staring you in the face?