One thing I have observed in life is most people like to celebrate your success story. Very few people want to live it with you. To be fair, many people don’t know how to support others through the ups and downs of a success journey. What the supporters themselves often need is plenty of clear communication.
Like everyone, I sometimes feel like I’m not getting all the support I want during my most challenging endeavors. Because I am both a recovering pathological altruist and a believer in getting back what you put into the world, my reflex response to feeling unsupported is to find a way to be supportive of others.
While that is a perfectly lovely way of sublimating my disappointment, it doesn’t really address my actual issue. What works better is knowing what I need well enough to articulate those needs to others. It has taken me decades of adulthood to figure that out. Shout out to therapy and coaching!
One of the most empowering processes in my life was figuring out my unique life purpose. My very first session with my first coach involved identifying the fundamental priorities that make moments in my life meaningful. Very simply, my life purpose is to be peaceful in order to be challenged by myself and others. It helps me remember to prioritize how I want to be at all times as I do what I need to do.
When I start feeling whiny self-pity about a lack of support, I often realize there is a communication breakdown around my needs. I am usually focusing on my state of being while those around me are trying to come up with novel approaches to help me do things. I have cultivated a network of high achievers in my life, so they are much more at the ready with tactical strategies for addressing a challenge than simple support for maintaining my peace.
Those of us physicians in Generation X are only recently coming to terms with the idea “peace” isn’t some sort of fantasy or profanity. That goes double for us children of immigrants. Because these are my people, it requires me to be vulnerable enough to ask for what I want when what I want most is a positive state of being.
The benefit of clear communication is knowing who is ready to take on, or decline, the manner of support I need rather than mentally putting it on them and being disappointed. Before I ding someone for letting me down, I do my best to be sure they knew how I expected them to hold me up. They may have some other unique brilliance to contribute to the success journey.
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Dr Jattu Senesie is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, certified success coach, physician satisfaction specialist and speaker. She blogs about issues of self care and well-being in an effort to help her fellow altruistic high achievers find satisfaction in their success as early in their careers as possible.
