Last week we discussed how important it is to change your environment and change yourself from within to create a sustainable shift. After so many years of wondering if I would ever really feel the changes from within, it was refreshing to see there was more to it. Now that I’ve experienced it, I’m convinced that changing both my environment and myself was the key. Let’s fine tune the concept even more: creating harmony with my environment allowed me to make more tangible progress.

It’s not just about changing your environment, but it’s about changing your environment so that it supports the change in you.

Thanks to Luke over at my new favorite podcast, One Idea Away, I’m beginning to better understand my own philosophy for change. In this episode, he interviewed author and licensed therapist, Ira Israel. I gained so many nuggets from this insightful interview (go listen, you’ll love it too,) and the concept of congruence stood out for me. I’ll come back to that thought in a minute.

Many elements of their conversation can relate back to us in the dental community. Ira describes how as children we learn to create “false selves,” so we can receive love from everyone around us. That makes so much sense on the most basic levels. This desire to please others must show up in many aspects of our lives.

I wonder how many of us have chosen our own careers for other people.

We train ourselves to believe we want it for ourselves, and then one day we end up wondering why we’re here. Why are we slogging through our days, often feeling bored or unfulfilled, when we specifically chose this path because we thought it would create fulfillment? How did that happen?

Maybe we don’t really know enough about who we are when we have to choose our careers.

It’s no wonder, considering we make these huge life choices when we are basically children.

The good news is now we have a choice. We can “suck it up” until retirement, possibly ending up feeling regret as we reach the end of our lives. Or right now we can begin to discover who we really are and what really drives us in life.

How do we discover who we are?

That process can take time, especially when we believe we are these false identities we’ve created. We may know very little about our authentic selves, so it takes some commitment to uncover it. I spent most of my life not really knowing what was important to me and ignoring my inner voice. I rarely stopped and listened to myself. I made most of my decisions for those around me, and eventually I had to get to know parts of me that I had ignored all those years.

I often see the light bulbs go on during the conversations I have with dentists who feel they are not cut out for their jobs. Whether they see themselves as people-pleasers, perfectionists, or constant worriers, they feel they don’t have the right constitution to do this work. They didn’t know this about themselves when they chose their careers. They believe they know it now. This realization is just one of many that may inspire us to get to know ourselves more.

This is where congruence comes in.

Ira outlines congruence as one of the five keys to building your authentic self. He defines congruence as “having our outer world match our inner world.”

That’s the sweet spot. That’s creating harmony in our lives.

That explains why my life felt like it was in such turmoil during my dental years. My inner and outer worlds didn’t match at all. I ended up in that career because I thought it was what I wanted, but I actually had no idea what it was about. I thought I wanted to help people, have flexible hours, have respect in the community, have fun, and earn a great living. I ignored everything else about it, creating an image of what I wanted dentistry to be. This false image of dentistry supported the false self that I began creating as a child. It worked. It did indeed bring love and approval from others.

But it wasn’t enough.

“It is better to be hated for who you are then to be loved for who you are not.”

In his book, Ira shares this quote by Andre Gide, and YES! That is it!

Once I began to learn who I really was and who dentistry really was, I saw how we weren’t aligned at all. Our false selves were congruent, but our authentic selves were not. I began to believe that maybe I wasn’t cut out for dentistry. Somehow I came to know that I had to start being authentic, and the love and approval from others no longer mattered. This freed me up to keep growing.

How congruent is your life?

Do your outer and inner worlds match?

There are many people out there that feel completely aligned and passionate about dentistry. We’d all admit they are the lucky ones. But if that’s not you, you can have that. It starts by knowing who you really are– not the persona you created for everyone around you.

It means beginning to understand what you love to do, what inspires you, what makes you feel like time flows easily. It also means understanding what creates the inner conflict within you that suffocates your own personal expression and creativity.

What do you love about dentistry? Is it the dental community? Is it meaningfully connecting and teaching patients? Is it a certain procedure, or maybe the business aspect? How can you get more of that within or without dentistry?

In contrast, what creates turmoil for you? Is it working so intimately with people all day long? Is it feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders because you take on too much responsibility for everyone and everything around you? Do you hate doing root canals, or extractions, or veneers? How can you learn to have less of those experiences, or how can you learn to manage those feelings?

Once we discover what causes us pain and what creates joy, we can then make a conscious choice. We can choose to have more of what we want and less of what we don’t want.

This will help bring more harmony into our lives.

What feels aligned for you in your life, and what does not? How can you make that world around you become more congruent and supportive to who you really are?