Are the wheels about to fall off?

Are you flirting with disaster? Is the secret about to come out because you can’t hide it anymore? Is life about to catch up with you?

Let me ask you this…

Is the pace you are living life sustainable? Can you look forward (as best as possible, my crystal ball is certainly broken) 5 years and believe that if you keep going this pace, all will be ok? How about 2 years? Several years ago, by all of the outward metrics, I was killing it. My practice was going well. We were doing some traveling. Kids were great. We were debt free after being, at one point, multiple 7-figures in the hole. The kind of stuff that keeps you up at night.

Life was great, right?

By all outward metrics- absolutely yes. Metrics aren’t the whole story. The rest of the story looked like this- I was smoked. Behind closed doors, I was fabricating a plan to sell my practice and walk away. This appeared to be the only way. Only a couple of my closest people knew about it because the rest of the world couldn’t know about it. My patients couldn’t know. My team certainly couldn’t know. I kept the house of cards steady but the winds were coming. It wasn’t ok.

The truth is that it hadn’t been ok…

For quite some time. I didn’t get there in a day. It had been a slow fade over almost 10 years as I refused to tell anyone about what I was facing. The sleepless nights, crushing anxiety, chest pains, heart palpitations, and now the panic attacks. It really wasn’t ok. Not for a long time. It was a weird sort of pride, but I gutted it out, refusing to raise my hand and call out for the help I so desperately needed.

The rest of the story looks like this…

The sale of the practice fell through. I realized all I was doing was trying to run away from my burnout and overwhelm. I hit ground zero on the floor of the server room in the basement of my office. What had been working, or at least partially working, wasn’t working anymore. It wasn’t ok.

At this point, I had no choice…

I had to raise my hand. It was time to admit, honestly and vulnerably, that I was not ok. Although it turns out I hadn’t been hiding it as well as I thought. It tore a hole in my marriage that took time to rebuild. Dishonesty is a terrible foundation for good relationships. I had to figure it out. Oh how I wish I had raised my hand sooner. This is part of why I wrote this book, to help people be honest with themselves before it is too late.

That was almost four years ago….

And it’s now ok. I won’t say it’s easy because it takes ongoing honesty with yourself and others about where you are at, what you are facing, and what you need. And it is a journey I couldn’t have walked alone. Through it all I have figured out the way. A way that will not be lost just on me, but rather is being used daily as I help others on their journey. So if you are holding up a house of cards and believing it is ok when it’s not, it is time to raise your hand.

It’s OK until it’s not ok.

Let me know if you need some help on your journey. There is hope and definitely good days ahead. It won’t happen accidentally, but it is out there for you. I go back to this- if you keep going the way you are going, will you be ok in 2 years? Remember- be honest. If you aren’t honest with yourself, the day is coming when it won’t be ok.