September 11, 2005

A Small Hospital Takes on a Big Job

Tim Bush, RN, is Administrative Supervisor, St. Elizabeth Hospital, Gonzales, Louisiana.

I can't begin to document the events of the days after hurricane Katrina made land fall in southeast Louisiana. I was reminded of recent medical mission trips to impoverished countries abroad, mainly because of the enormous need & the same unselfish acts I witnessed by those working beside me.

St. Elizabeth Hospital is  a small hospital just west of New Orleans, with an average inpatient census of 35. On Tuesday morning after the hurricane we were the closest fully functional hospital outside the city. We began receiving patients almost immediately. An ER that usually sees about 1600 patients a month saw over a 1000 in a few days! Our inpatient census more than doubled

Several adjustments were made in an effort to accommodate the influx. Triage stations were set up in our auditorium & PACU & clinical & nonclinical team members were used where ever there was a need.

Challenge

I was thinking about my life the other day, which I often do & about my observations of others.

I realized that I don't have any challenges in my life, compared to a lot of other people. By that I mean, my life is going along smoothly & the things I want pretty much come to me.

I was thinking "that's a good thing, not to have to work so hard for what I want."

But then another thought popped into my head :"Yeah but your life is boring. You don't have any challenges, that feeling of intense satisfaction you get when you have to give all you have to overcome a huge obstacle. There isn't anything better than that."

I started to think about overcoming obstacles & the satisfaction associated with it.

Then I realized, a challenge is just resistance to what you want. An obstacle is something you put there, in order to have a challenge. If you weren't resisting what you wanted, it wouldn't feel like an obstacle & there would be no challenge!

I started to think about that great feeling you get when you overcome the obstacle & demonstrate success. That feeling is just the lowering of the resistance you put up in the first place! I then realized, again, that you're your own worst enemy & your best friend.

I realized for the umpty-umph time that I create everything in my life.

Here's an example: 

Say you wanted to start a new business. You've never been self-employed before, so it seems daunting at first. There are 2 ways you can approach it: you can envision your new enterprise as something that will require a tremendous amount of work or something that will naturally fly right.

If you approach the venture with the attitude of hard work, you're already resisting all of the people, money & things which would come to you, thru the universal property of 'like attracts like.'

The more you work on your business with this attitude, the harder it gets. Now you're facing challenges every day, probably experiencing anxiety, worry & some upset along the way. But you persevere & eventually get it done. Now you're happy.

Or, you could approach the new business with a detailed vision, a vision in which you're expending very little effort & the resources you need come to you easily. The more you work on your business with this attitude, the more the universe matches you up with the people, money & things which you need in order to be successful.

The powerful universal property of 'like attracts like' immediately goes to work for you, just as it did in the previous example. But now, there's very little worry, anxiety & upset. Things just fall into place for you w/relative ease.

The business starts slowly but becomes very successful. In both cases, a business was created.

But in the first case, there were a large number of obstacles to overcome. You gutted it out, successfully overcame all of the challenges. Now, you talk to your buddies & they all say "great work! You really stepped up & battled hard. Now, you can enjoy your reward."  You feel good about yourself.

In the second case there were almost no challenges. Obstacles, yes, but these didn't appear to you as something to worry about. You felt good almost all the time & when you're done, you feel even better.

Now I ask you 2 questions:

Which scenario would you rather experience? And secondly,
Which business do you think will be easier to run & be ultimately more successful?

If you're like me, I'll take the 2nd experience. I'll leave the worrying, the anxieties & the upset to the other guys. It would seem to me that the guy who was in a good feeling place the whole time will have a more successful business, because  you can't get to a happy place by treading a path feeling rotten most of the time.

The law of 'like attracts like' will bring you more of the same, so you will likely experience a lot of difficulties operating your business, if you're a 'overcome challenges' kind of person

Lets analyze what happened.

The 2nd guy didn't have a lot of resistance to his goal. He did his homework & got together a really good business plan, one he was really excited & confident about. The he just went about executing that plan without a lot of worry about it.

Mostly he just had fun along the way.

The first guy also had a great business plan, but he worried a lot that maybe the economy would go into a recession. He wondered whether he'd be able to get good employees. He had doubts about his own ability to get it done. But he went ahead into action anyway, figuring he would 'accept the challenge.'

And that's exactly the experience he got!

The second guy had his energies almost completely aligned to his goal before he started. The first guy went into action before he had felt comfortable about his new goal.

All challenge is self-imposed. Obstacles & challenges come about from not completely aligning your energy to what you want before you start!

Of course, this example would be a little different if the goal were strictly a physical activity. Say you were a rock climber & you decided to go free-climbing that 500 foot mesa. Now you definitely are going to experience a little anxiety!!!

But the principle is the same.

If you approach your task with the idea that it'll be almost impossible & that you might get killed, I guarantee you will have a series of near-death experiences on the way up!

But if you're really clear on your vision of the climb, you'll probably take extra practice, working on your holds & your technique.

You won't attempt the climb until you feel excited about it, for when you have that excited feeling, that's the sign you're letting the life force energy flow freely thru you in regard to it. A feeling of anxiety is a blocking of that life force energy.

The better you feel about the climb, the easier it'll be, again by the property of 'like attracts like.'

If you feel good about the climb, you'll naturally gravitate to those areas where the holds are optimum, where the rock is solid & where there are a minimum of difficult passages.

If you're anxious about the climb, you'll be attracted to those areas where the holds are difficult, the rock is loose & you'll experience some difficult passages.

The first guy gets off the mesa & practically collapses. The second guy gets off the rock & is still excited. He is really tired, had some difficulties, but feels exhilarated at his experience.

The first guy goes to his buddies, after a week of recovery & starts bragging to them all what a monster he is. He tells them all about the time he almost fell off & all the rest. They look at him in awe.  

The 2nd guy goes to his friends & he tells them how much fun he had. He tells them about his anxious moments, but he describes how good the rock is, how the climb can be successfully negotiated. He shows them the route he took.

The 1st guy's buddies are scared to death to attempt the climb. They look at him like a minor deity.

The 2nd guy's buddies are all excited to try it for themselves. The energy of the whole group is really high & they all decide to climb it together with the 2nd guy leading the way.

The 1st guy overcame big-time challenges. The 2nd guy did as well, but his climb was marked by an excitement that comes from a lack of resistance to the goal.

Challenge is mostly self-imposed, regardless of the activity. Anything that can be done with resistance, can be done easier with a lack of resistance. And with a lot more fun as well!