In advertising, there is an expression to indicate high and unquestionable quality – Satisfaction Guaranteed. This phrase tells the consumer the manufacturers are so confident in their product they are willing to refund the purchase price if it doesn’t meet expectations.

In real life, there are rarely, if ever, any explicitly stated guarantees of satisfaction. There is however, a general assumption that once one has invested a certain amount of time, money and effort into an endeavor, it will bring fulfillment. It only seems fair.

That’s why a sense of disillusionment arises when we find ourselves walking around with coveted jobs, advanced degrees, picture-perfect partners, precocious progeny and a distinct absence of expected satisfaction. There is a general feeling that somehow you got got.

How you process this letdown has the power to shape your life’s trajectory. Using my experience as a guide, I want to share some suggestions on how to proceed when you realize satisfaction is not guaranteed with your success. How do you go from continuing to perpetuate the myth to forging your own path towards satisfaction in the seeming success?

Be brutally honest with yourself.

If you don’t like your life, at least admit it to yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to pull a Jerry Maguire, roll out of your job and burn every bridge in sight. It does mean you need to notice what isn’t working for you so you can get closer to what does.

Within my first six months out of residency training, I realized my life as a physician had to change for it to work for me. One particular weekend of call that covered the gamut of everything good and horrible about practicing ob/gyn was a turning point.

I knew that every job has its set of grievances that can’t be avoided. I also knew I could put strategies in place to make me tolerate them better. That’s when I began to take action on mitigating the lows that drained me and increasing the highs that kept me going.

Be willing to go against the grain.

One of the reasons so many of us stay unhappy in our lives is we assume what we have is as good as it gets. We are often surrounded by a bunch of similarly disgruntled individuals with whom we commiserate, complain and keep on truckin’.

Breaking out of that cycle requires a willingness to be different. I am not an attention seeker, so standing out from the crowd is not my natural tendency. However, I am also not a crowd follower. I am totally down to break away from the pack when I think it is endorsing some nonsense.

Much of the work I do now around self care advocacy for physicians is in stark contrast with the norms from when I trained. Authenticity and well-being are more important to me than preserving traditions that are rooted in undermining both.

Be clear about what success is for you.

We earn degrees and certifications with the intention of being successful in our chosen fields. Ironically, we often don’t have a clue how the experience of true success will be for us when we get it.

It is often not until we’ve checked all the boxes off our achievement list that we realize we have fulfilled someone else’s idea of success. The quality of being we experience is not what we expected from these accomplishments.

The ego is fed, and the spirit not so much. We still don’t know what our success really is. When I had this disheartening insight after passing my final examination to become a board-certified ob/gyn, it made me dig deeper to define my own success. Now I know success for me means freedom to design a life that allows me to do what I enjoy inside and outside of work while maintaining my well-being.

Outward success and genuine satisfaction are not inextricably linked. No matter how much education, adulation and altruism are in our lives, satisfaction is not guaranteed. It doesn’t always automatically happen and there are no refunds. Even so, it is totally worth the extra effort to achieve it when we realize it is absent.

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Dr Jattu Senesie is a physician well-being specialist, self care coach, speaker and retired obstetrician-gynecologist. She blogs about issues of self care and well-being in an effort to help her fellow altruistic high achievers find the strength to be as good to themselves as they are to others.