Always consider secondary gain. Not for your patients but for you.
What are you getting in addition to what you’re getting? What’s the bonus? What’s the cherry on top?
If this goes bad for me, how will it still be a win? What am I learning or becoming? What skills am I going to get even if this doesn’t work out?
Getting a paycheck shouldn’t be the only thing. Learning and gathering skills should be high on your list. How are you getting better?
Case in point:
A few years ago, I was training for a marathon when all of sudden I was no longer training for a marathon. I went from running 18 miles at a clip to zero. I was out on a 20 mile run and feeling great. Somewhere about mile nine my left knee started bugging me and, by mile eleven, I was done. I limped home.
It turned out to be my IT band. I never really recovered. I used a roller, I stretched it, I took Advil and it’s better… but I can feel it if I get near the five-mile marker.
But here’s the deal. Even if I never run a marathon, that training was a total success. Yes, I was bummed, but I still go a ton out of it.
What?!?
I wanted to learn about how much time I could squeeze out of my weeks. I learned that I could take an extra 10 hours of training per week and make it happen. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.
I wanted to learn how I would treat a project like this. I’ve been successful with similar things in the past, and I wanted to “watch” myself do it to learn how I work. How I create success with a focused project like this. What habits, demands, and self-talk I used. I wanted to take all of these techniques and learn to apply them to other projects I’ve started and lost momentum on.
Even though I didn’t run my marathon, I accomplished those secondary goals. I learned a ton about myself. I learned a ton about my family.
Completing the marathon was the primary goal, but not the only goal. I get to keep everything I learned whether I ran the race or not.
An example for your world…
When you go in for a job interview, SEE the bigger picture. Getting the job is the primary goal of course, but not the only valuable thing in the process.
Even if you don’t get the job, you have gained interviewing experience and skills. If you’re smart and persistent, you could make bigger, faster gains by going back and asking why they didn’t think you were the best candidate. Take that information with a grain of salt because they might not tell you the truth, but you can still learn and improve for next time.
When you start a new job, you get paid, but you also get to learn. The paycheck is great, but if you’re not growing and learning it may not be worth it.
When PAER started, I knew I was going to learn new skills. Even if it totally flopped, I’d walk away learning about podcasting, web page design, writing, and on and on.
The primary goal is to get a paycheck. But choose the job where you can grow and learn, over the job where you make a little more money.
Another example is the programs and the books I write. When I wrote The Final Step, I was preparing for my PANRE. I wrote those questions so that I could review. The book has sold great and has helped hundreds of PA-S get through school and pass the PANCE. But either way I was going to win. I passed my PANRE and I was doing 75% of the work anyway.
Brian Wallace