This blogpost is inspired by Jocko Willink, who was a Navy Seal commander and wrote several books.
His YouTube video: "Good" was the inspiration for this blogpost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdTMDpizis8

-Had a "difficult" patient? GOOD.

Through hard conversations, you become more resilient and stronger.

-Felt insecure about your explanation? GOOD.

You can practice your explanation and write it down and explain it more confidently.

-Felt beat down after a long day of work? GOOD.

You can focus on implementing self-care, which you can later explain to your patients to help them better.

-Had a patient who is still searching for the structural problem that causes their pain?

GOOD.

You can practice your influencing skills.

-Had a patient who immediately took his clothes of and laid down to get massaged?

GOOD.

Time to start a conversation about the other factors that influence pain and slowly feed him some nuggets of information and plant some seeds that could change his mindset in the long term.

-Didn't know what to do with that difficult clinical presentation? GOOD.

Time to study and learn all about that topic, which will make you feel more confident the next time you see that in your clinic.

Don't get frustrated and bummed out when these things happen in your clinic.

You have chosen a hard profession, but also an awesome one. You can get to talk with people every day and help them with their lives.

To improve their lives, and in the process it will improve your life. Because you are learning yourself in the process of helping others.

Especially if you say: "GOOD", whenever something "bad" happens. You will learn and become better and improve yourself.

Which will make your life better too.

Many people want to be comfortable, without the struggle. This is not what makes people happy or fulfilled. People become happy and fulfilled by pushing through hard times. When you have accomplished awesome things and you feel proud of yourself. When you have helped a person with persistent low back pain gain their valued activities back. You feel good about that, especially when you think back on the hours and hours of studying you did and feeling frustrated after many patients you have seen.

After hard times, there will be good times.

When there are only comfortable times, you become weak and anxious. Through hard times you become stronger and more resilient.

That's what we need to teach our patients.

We have to show them through our example. We have to do the hard work first, so we can show our patients how to do it.

Let's become better as a profession.

We do that by becoming better human beings and then you become better as a therapist.

Stay humble and keep learning.

Every day. 🙂💪