Mid-Season Blues

I am going to be real honest.  This is a hard time of year for me as a high school athletic trainer.  We have settled into a routine.  Nothing is new.  The great things about my job are becoming overshadowed by the annoyance of the not-so-great things.  Each day of the week could be a ⌘C and then ⌘P for the next week.  Not to mention the typical things that annoy every AT, but we'll save that for another blogging night.  Here are some ways that I have instinctively started doing to help manage the mid-season blues.  If you face the same mid-season blues, I hope that a few tactics listed below help you out.

Insurance
Remember that if you are extended to your fullest capacity as a healthcare provider, that means that someone is having a bad day...a real bad day.  More and more athletic trainers are called to revive student-athletes every single day.  These situations are life-altering for the AT, the patient, the patient’s family, the team, and the witnesses of the event.  I think that it is safe to say that ATs are insurance policies.  If you employ an AT, you should really hope to never need one.  But, in hoping that you never need one, the AT is doing everything possible to keep it that way.  Enter into the scene:  Prevention.  Prevention pisses people off.  Not a single person likes prevention.  Otherwise, you wouldn’t need laws and regulations to enforce prevention strategies.  Think about it.

Meaning & Growth
Josh and I were having brunch with some great people the other day and I said something that surprised even ME!

I love this ecard

In not so many words I said that I do not feel challenged in my day-to-day- work.  I struggle to feel that I am growing and have meaning.  The challenges that I overcome each day come from life-balancing and managing a workload that looks like McDonald’s at lunchtime but is trying to be treated like a medical facility that it is.  But to be completely honest, my mind is not challenged.  My solution to not being challenged is to take on more responsibilities that satisfy the insatiable desire for meaning and growth.  So, I take on different and more responsibilities.  I volunteer for my church.  I volunteer for professional organizations.  I sign up for ridiculous things like marathons.

Yup, that's me!

I literally create things to do.  When I get involved in something non-work related I find that, although I am doing something different, I am still helping people.  I also begin to appreciate my career more as I realize that I had chosen the field that I most enjoyed.  When my job becomes more about Bandaids and ice bags, you will see me take on another project.  I describe my life as whack-a-mole or too-many-irons-in-the-fire.  This is because I feel the need to have meaning and growth, which is hard to always find in one place all of the time.

Having no Control
For anyone reading this that is not an AT, allow me to let you in on a little secret.  ATs have absolutely no control over anything.  We don’t have a say in practice schedules.  We don’t have a say in game schedules.  We don’t have a say in when and how medical emergencies will happen.  Head coaches can choose to end practice a little early for their kiddo’s birthday or for that doctor’s appointment.  This drives me insane because I have to make an announcement and a plan when I need to step away for a personal matter!  Planning the day is a challenge in itself that is successful only through large amounts of communication and God-shaped coincidences.  I find myself grasping on to the smallest things that I do have control over, like where the water bottles should be stored and that athletes MUST remove their shoes before entering the ATR.  So, I search for ways to have control over certain areas of my life.  Which, by the the way, it does not take long for me to realize that I have absolutely no control over any part of my life.  I am training myself to have no expectations for my day.  If I have no expectations, then I won't be disappointed.

Perspective
Remember that injuries are not as routine to your patients as it may be for you.  Telling a 12 year old that he/she has a grade 1 ankle sprain and should participate as tolerated can come across as invalidating.  For some of these kiddos, this is the first time that they have ever had an injury.  They have no frame of reference.  As painful as it may be for you as the AT, remember that this may be the most painful experience that the youngster has ever experienced, literally.
For example, I was able to attend Capitol Hill Day in Washington D.C. and talked with representatives and their staff about ATs and the legislation being introduced on behalf of ATs across the nation.  One of the staff members that I talked to was from north Texas and was a multi-sport athlete.  When asked if she knew her athletic trainer, she stated that she did (It was Tiffany McGuffin!!!)!  This turned out to be an excellent conversation and following up with her regarding our discussion was improved because of the care that she received from her high school athletic trainer!!!!  Wow!
Moral of the story, treat each patient with the care and instruction that you would want if you were in their shoes, cleats, ballet slippers...you get the idea.  The trust that you build with the athlete and the parent during this time will pay off.  Think about it.

I am interested in hearing how other ATs combat staleness in their careers; some seek more educational degrees, some seek other positions but the most sad of all is when ATs leave the profession that once fulfilled a purpose and passion.

STOP SAYING THAT YOUR PROFESSION IS YOUR PASSION

STOP SAYING THAT YOUR PROFESSION IS YOUR PASSION

First, a vocabulary lesson.

• Passion - a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm or desire for anything
• Profession - a type of job that requires special education, training, or skill 

I understand that the term ‘passion’ is ambiguous by definition, so, as with everything that I post about, this is my opinion.  But let me tell you why I think that it is important to distinguish passion from profession.

Consider passion to be your WHY and profession to be your HOW.
For example, my passion is helping and serving people.  How do I do that?  Through the profession of athletic training.  I also really love to celebrate other people.  How do I do that?  I volunteer on the public relations committee, which allows me to broadcast the great things that athletic trainers are doing across the nation.   

When you believe that a profession is your passion, that indicates that the said passion (and therefore, profession) will bring you joy, enthusiasm, and other strong emotions that drive and guide you along your career path.  Professions CANNOT do that.  Professions CAN be the avenue in which you choose to expose and impose your passion.

If you believe that your profession is your passion, then you will soon make an abrupt exit feeling scorned and underwhelmed because a profession will never give back to you what you pour into it.  However, if you can objectively think of your passion as a WHY, and not a HOW, then you will discover that the very work that you do everyday gives back to you.  Your patient's appreciation, their sooner-than-expected-return-to-activity, their milestone-reaching-moment in rehab, their trust in you…THAT, my fellow athletic trainers, is how I live out my passion.  The intrinsic rewards that I receive by helping people cannot be provided by a profession, it is provided by helping people.

I have as much joy returning a patient back to activity safely as I do when I serve as a volunteer in my church, or donating to the food pantry.  Why?  Because my passion is helping people.  How?  Through my profession, my church, and other service.

Once you take the pressure off of your profession to provide to you intrinsic rewards that you require to know that your passion is being fulfilled, then you may find that your passion is being lived out in every moment of every day, while at work or anywhere else.  Your profession will never give back to you what you give it.  It can't!  Professions are a man-made idea of the driving force of our world today which has morphed into a ranking system with correlated salaries based on what society deems to be worthy of such.  But that is a whole other blog post.

So, get on with your passion!  Focus on your patients, on helping those around you.  Isn't that why you got into athletic training to begin with?  Find the joy in your work that you had when you first started as a student and a young professional.  If you do this, you just might find that your joy and your passion will be infectious.  Others will take notice, especially your patients.  Heck, you may even see that the feeling of burnout disappears a bit.

But what do I know :)

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Decided to join in on the fun!  Be like Joe and Jane in the ATR...