3 strategies for choosing personal and professional well-being

Quincy Hawley, DVM, (left) and Renee Machel (right).

According to keynote speakers Quincy Hawley, DVM, and Renee Machel, everyone has the power to choose well-being. During their lecture at the 2021 Atlantic Coast Veterinary Conference (ACVC), Hawley and Machel, cofounders of Get MotiVETed LLC, delivered tips and tricks on how you can purposefully ensure you lead a life of well-being to reach your full potential.

"We can choose to be a veterinary professional that has a life of well-being personally and professionally,” Hawley disclosed to attendees, adding that you can tell yourself, “I’m going to experience veterinary medicine, and I'm going to be burnout free, I'll accept nothing less than that."

Take regular breaks

Machel explained that simply taking breaks at the clinic can significantly promote your overall wellness while simultaneously enhancing your professional abilities.

“If we don't take a break in the middle of the day, we think, ‘Oh, we'll just power through,’ and then [we] do make more mistakes," Machel said. "But if we take a break, we can come back more productive. That might just be something [simple] like go[ing] to the bathroom or eat[ing] more food."

Breaks are also great for helping you better process and retain information along with boosting overall productivity. Additionally, this form of self-care can promote healthier habits both in and out of the clinic by allowing you to prioritize your mental health and personal needs.

Change your perspective

According to Hawley, changing your perspective is one of the most important things to adopt and can help you curb burnout and achieve positive well-being. He implored attendees to understand that perspectives of situations can be subjective. A few examples of this include a good day versus a bad day, a good case versus a bad case at the clinic, good weather versus bad weather, etc.

“At the end of the day with no matter how difficult that day is, I can be bitter from the things that happened, or I can be better. I can just get through every day, crawl through the day. Or I can go home and consciously choose to get something from that day,” Hawley said.

“Well-being is a lane, it’s a way of life, it’s a constant. It’s not something that increases or decreases with a good day versus a bad day, it stays the same even though our emotions can sometimes change,” he continued.

Transform disadvantages to advantages

Hawley got candid with attendees when he quoted Tony Robbins in saying, “Life is always happening for you and it’s never happening to you,” sharing that he has fully adopted this mindset. He then depicted a few personal anecdotes of how he transforms a seemingly disadvantageous situation into an advantageous one.

“Even with things like [when] I'm stuck in traffic, I just assume that I'm supposed to be stuck in traffic and that there's something good that's supposed to come out of that,” Hawley added, “Maybe have a conversation with my wife, if she's a passenger in the car, or maybe I’m supposed to look around and be mindful of what's around me.”

He continued by emphasizing that there's an advantage in every disadvantage. “There's the opportunity hidden deep within all paths that we face in life…always look for opportunity, for the advantage. How is this happening for me? How was this difficult case or this difficult time? How can I get better from that? It makes a huge and grand difference.”

Take-home points

At the end of the day, you harness the power to experience personal and professional well-being. Doing so will benefit you immensely in all facets of your life and will positively impact your relationships with patients, clients, colleagues, and even your family and friends.

Hawley concluded the talk by reminding attendees, “Anyone, in my opinion, can choose to be well. Regardless of any combination circumstances, conditions, and life events they face at any one given time.”