In accordance with your philosophy and your critical reasoning process you will reach a point in your journey when you are confronted with the question of “how do I apply my philosophy to this situation”?
This brings up the question around what are your roles and responsibilities?
Whilst a role is a process for doing something, for example, adjusting, it has little impact or effectiveness on your results unless it is firmly tied to and congruent with your philosophy. A role that is fulfilled as just a role is no more than a job. Any worker doing their job is fulfilling their role. It is the extraordinary person who assigns responsibility to their role and creates much more for themselves and others in the name of their job. Many chiropractors graduate and go through their practice career doing a ‘job’ – this doesn’t cut it when it comes to fulfilment, success or having a major impact upon the world.
There must be responsibility associated with each role that you perform. Ownership in the role is critical otherwise it just becomes a motion that you perform.
There are key responsibilities that require you and your team’s attention that will ensure that you have every chance of success in line with your philosophy.
Having knowledge is a pre-requisite to an ever-expanding repertoire of skills, abilities and competencies. Ensure that you are on a path of constant learning and improvement in your philosophy, science, art and politics. Identify your knowledge gaps and make a plan to fill them. Make a plan for the acquisition of knowledge spanning your lifetime.
Remember, there is a season for everything.
The artistry of responsibility is when you can elegantly put your knowledge into order so that it is relevant and appropriately contextualised. I often observe chiropractors ‘dumping’ their knowledge pile in random ways on the people who they are attending to without respect for the order that the information can be assimilated by the recipient – it’s not a wise move. Attend to your knowledge dissemination with your practice members in a ‘drip feed’ fashion – a little at a time as it is assimilated.
So, have a respect for time. Everything takes time. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day so go easy, pace yourself and your expectations along with those of the people you serve. Don’t blast into the chiro-centric stuff that you think is neat (and necessary) before a practice member has the foundational concepts and principles in place.
Use your procedures to layer your knowledge and take responsibility for each role that you assign yourself. Having clearly defined systems assist you and your team in being able to move yourselves and your practice members towards the outcomes that you are after.
Remember, this is a journey and no journey is an absolutely straight line so be prepared to ‘drive responsibly’, sometimes you will be able to let it loose and get on a roll with your chiropractic knowledge and passion and other times you will have to apply the brakes and go really slowly to negotiate tricky terrain.
Mark
