The Word For 2024

As 2023 is coming to a close, I am grateful for a year of challenges and achievements. I am grateful for new friends I get to know. I am grateful for where I am. I am grateful to be alive.

It is fun to come up with a word for the year. It gives you a direction and some sort of a guideline as to how you are navigating through the new year.

The word I chose for 2024 is breakthrough. I do not mean a big discovery or an invention. When I hear the word “breakthrough”, I imagine a little bird in its egg, slowly moving and chipping away the shell. At some point, instead of being confined to a small space with darkness or dim lighting, with the shell partially open, it will experience brightness and be connected with the world outside. A whole new world for the little bird. It is scary and exciting at the same time.

Breakthrough is achieved through overcoming challenges and obstacles. You keep at it and you do not quit. It is scary sometimes especially when you do not know what the result looks like, and you do it anyway. You have a direction. Although it is not clear what the other side looks like, you set your goal and you are going for it. Even when you do not feel like it, even when you do not think it is working, you are doing it. Even though you think you are “failing”, you are gaining more knowledge from your experiences and taking a different approach to tackle the same problem.

You are in the process of breakthrough when you want the result to be different and you are working toward it. You believe that a different outcome is possible and it is in alignment with your values.

Breakthrough is a transformational journey. One of my biggest breakthrough journeys was the transformation of my typical work day. For years I was completing many patient charts after hours and in the weekends. I thought that was it unless I worked part-time or unless I quit. That journey of having the slightest hope for the possibility of change, to believing it, to working for it, to achieving it was an amazing experience. Without going through it, I would not be able to experience first hand what it was like to have no life outside of work to having time with my family. Besides regaining my sanity, content, gratitude and joy, I also get to help and coach other physicians who are going through what I went through.

The breakthrough point for me with charting was when I started to be consistently going home at around 5 pm with all my work done instead of past 7 pm with charts incomplete. The breakthrough was increased efficiency and transformational. It was a process of assuming a new identity.

For 2024, breakthrough is going to be for myself and how I help others to breakthrough, and those two things are connected. Part of my own breakthrough is to help others through their transformation. As life coaching and self-coaching is part of my identity, I will continue to help my patients and connect with my patients in a special way. I will continue to take good care of myself, so that I can show up in my best way possible to serve. Setting nice and firm boundaries is a work in progress.

Coaching other physicians is the best way I know to help other doctors with their transformation, with their breakthrough. The breakthrough maybe for them to see that there is another way, or it is possible to be more efficient, or it is possible to feel better. Without the breakthrough of seeing the possibilities, you will not believe that it is possible for you. Without the belief, you will not work toward something you do not think you can achieve.

A breakthrough may sometimes be making a decision, because it is a sign of moving forward. You make a decision of what your goal is going to be. Sometimes the goal may only be a general direction and it may not be very clear. Do not let that stop you. As you go through the journey, as you gain more experience, your goal will be refined at different checkpoints. The breakthrough itself may be the ability to let yourself be curious, light-hearted and to let yourself keep things simple.

A breakthrough may be the point where you can see things from a different perspective and feel differently about it. A breakthrough may be when you switch from going through the motions to being and living the present, to experiencing the journey, to learning and growing from it – instead of blaming the situation.

Breakthrough in 2024 is hope to me. It is a brighter future, with new things, uncharted territories, and things I do not expect. Breakthrough is achieving goals I set. Breakthrough is helping more physicians to go home on time with their work done, so that they too can experience and enjoy the breakthrough.