How Finding your Core Values can Change Your Life

When I was a kid and people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up I’d say something different depending on how I felt at the time.

I think the most common options that featured in my short list were:

• Video games developer
• Music producer
• Professional basketball player
• Doctor

I believed I could do anything I set my mind to.

Everything changed for me when I had my first sickle cell crisis at 12 years old. I spent a week in hospital being treated for severe pain in my hips and lower back.

I felt incredibly vulnerable, being completely taken out by something I didn’t understand or have any control over.

It was the wake up call that told me I had a chronic disease and would be at risk of illness and pain for the rest of my life.

I noticed at the time sickle cell was poorly understood by general medical staff and that concerned me even more.

Suddenly my 'what do you want to be when you grow up' shortlist was down to one option.

Its only now I can reflect and realise that I needed the security and safety of being able to take care of myself.

I also wanted to be a Doctor, I was naturally caring, empathetic and interested in science.

Also the health professionals that cared for me and understood me in my time of need left a massive impression in my mind.

It made sense to for me to become a Doctor so I dedicated my life to it no matter what I had to do I knew it would be worth it in the end because:

• I would have the knowledge to avoid painful sickle cell crises.
• I would be able to help others in their time of need.
• I would feel a sense of meaning and purpose.

So I was on this journey that I’d started because of all the things I thought I was going to get at the end.

But things didn’t turn out quite the way I’d hoped else I probably wouldn’t be writing this now.

You see the sense of security and control was an important value for me, it was my driving force.

But just as it drove me into medicine, it also trapped me inside it.

If I’m really honest with myself, I experienced very little happiness or joy as a Doctor.

Of course there were moments that I’m grateful for, but overall the reality of the job was pretty bleak.

I remember in my first year as a newly qualified Doctor one of my fellow F1s joked that the best thing about the job was that she actually HAD a job.

I agreed full heartedly and laughed it off, but thinking about it now hits me deep. That job security kept me going for a long time.

I was fully subscribed to this attitude of ‘I hate my job, but its okay because so does everyone else, I’ll make up for it by having as much fun as I can on days off’

But this work hard, play hard mentality was damaging my health.

I had 3 hospital admissions in my first 2 years as a qualified Doctor and other smaller crises at home. Then I had to start on a regular medication called Hydroxyurea to reduce the frequency of crises.

I felt like I was just waiting all those years to complete training and then finally my life could begin.

But the more experience I gained the more I became aware of how f***d up the system is and how doctors and patients both suffer from it.

Once I was a fully qualified General Practitioner the dilemma became glaringly obvious. I could either provide good quality compassionate care and destroy myself emotionally. Or I could suffer the moral injury of neglecting patients needs due to the constraints of the system. Either way I felt set up to fail.

All the messages were to be ‘resilient’ and tough it out for the sake of the patients.

So I was then in a position where I was conscious of the fact that as well as hating my job:

• My physical and mental health was suffering
• In the grander scheme of things I wasn’t helping anyone
• I had lost all meaning and purpose

I really needed to get out but I couldn’t get past the mental barrier that the 12 year old child had installed to feel secure and safe from pain.

Knowing Your Values

Its so important to know what your values are because they determine every decision you make in life.

Remember everyday that you stay in a place that causes you harm is a decision you’re making.

You always have a choice to stay or leave, however fixating on the worst possible outcome makes you believe you don't.

When you find yourself making decisions that don’t appear to be serving you--

You have to look deeper inside yourself and figure out the part of you that is benefitting from those decisions.

Then it’s just a case of having an honest heart to heart discussion with yourself.

My value of security and safety wasn’t going anywhere, it was there for a reason.

But once I understood it was there, once I acknowledged it, then I could say to myself--

Okay you want security and safety I get it in someways continuing down this medical career path will give you that...

But actually we have other values we need to consider like:

• Independence
• Freedom
• Enjoying life

What we need to do is work together to find a way that all of our values can be covered because the GP life just isn’t doing it.

So this essentially meant that I had to find a way of leaving which made me feel safe and secure.

I realised all I needed was to have a plan A.

I'd always have a plan B.

Just because I stop working as a Doctor doesn’t mean I stop BEING a Doctor. So not only did I have a plan B, I still had all the medical knowledge to take care of myself and others.

My inner 12 year old was reassured that safety and security would always be there. I wasn’t losing anything, all that stood before me was a mountain of gains.

• I can still do GP update courses,
• I can still do out of hours sessions
• I can still do the occasional locum session if I really need the money.

Starting your own business will be hard but so is learning medicine and working as a GP.

If you can do that then you can do anything you just have to put you mind to it and know you won’t fail.

It all comes down to choice. You have to choose to create something that considers all your values and not just fix on one of them and ignore the others.

And the thing is, when you have a dream or vision so strong that you know you can’t fail, it feels like you already have it right now in the present moment.

All the hard work, all the learning, all the grind is giving you that exact same sense of fulfilment as if you had your grand vision this very moment. 

Discovering your values and realigning your life with them is the key to fulfilment.

Thats all for now

Lewis