If you’ve lost your passion for dentistry, feel uninspired and unmotivated, it’s a sign you’ve lost site of your purpose, your primary goal or aim -- the reason you decided to become a dentist, which was to help others. Helping people to look and feel better while helping them regain and maintain their health is highly commendable. Unfortunately, patient resistance, opposition from your team, insurance companies, labs, suppliers, and countless other forces can gradually wear you down. They divert you from your mission of serving others with the skill and healing gifts you’ve acquired. The result? You’re distracted. Your focus is on all the negative aspects of a dental practice and its patients. Sound familiar?

There are ways to re-focus on your purpose, and re-kindle the fire for practicing dentistry. The first step is to clearly define and write down your purpose. Then, make it widely known to your patients, your team, your associates – everyone.  People will agree with your purpose, and strongly support of you.  A good gauge for determining if you are on purpose is to ask yourself a simple question: Do you still enjoy talking about dentistry, all the time, all day long?  It’s amazing what transpires when your conversations are about what you love and believe in, rather than on what you dislike or what is superficial  (i.e., politics, the weather, the economy, etc.).  Remember why you chose to do what you do, why you come to the office each day: To make sick people well and prevent the well from getting sick.  Everything else is secondary and should not control your life.

A final suggestion is to seek coaching.  Having a strong and trusted ally in your corner, helping you overcome obstacles and barriers in your practice, can keep you on track, on purpose, which is a sure route to success.  A good coach will help you stay on your game, and remain enthusiastic. He/she won’t let you be content with your wins, and keep you certain that the best thing that could happen to a person is to come into your practice.