$11.00 an Hour?!

"$11.00 an hour?!"

This is what I said to myself in shock and horror after I finished calculating how much I made per hour.

Because I own my own practice as a licensed clinical psychologist, I am not an employee and I don't have a consistent salary.  So, I had to do math to figure out my average income per hour. I charge the same no matter what but the reimbursement varies based on a bunch a factors that are too boring to discuss in detail here!

The $11.00 per hour discovery sent me into a huge career crisis. I really expected that my bottom line would be better.

Me and the guy who balances the checkbook.

I was horribly disappointed and was in a huge funk all day long.

When my husband got home from work, I told him about my shocking discovery.

He looked at me like a deer in the headlights.

He has a work flow for these situations- situations where I am really confident and he knows I am way, way off base.

His first step is cringe, inwardly, because he doesn't want to alarm me, especially when I am already upset.

His second step is to identify the problem while also complimenting me.

In this instance it looked something like "I appreciate your work on this and you are very cute, but that can't possibly be true."

I can get indignant and generally I insist that I am right.  I'm also a pretty confident person and sometimes this backfires.  In this instance, I was relieved because, $11.00 an hour with a doctorate is absurd.

If I insist I am right, he tries steps 1 (deer in headlights) and 2 (identify problem and provide compliment) again.

Then usually I am ready to hear his input.  My husband explains his understanding of the situation, in this case where I went wrong with the math.

Usually I argue a few minutes (or more but I don't want to admit that, shhhh!) and he tries again.

(I'd like to take a minute here to express my thanks to the Universe that my husband is so patient!)

Eventually I can see the situation more clearly. And over time I have learned I have some persistent blind spots.

Math for example.  Despite doing poorly in nearly every math class and never, ever being able to balance a checkbook, I always assume my calculations are correct.

And then I make assumptions accordingly, which is why I had a career crisis.

I know I am bad at math, yet I frequently assume that my numbers are correct.  This, by the way, is the definition of insanity.  Doing the same thing over and over, expecting the outcome to be different.

I have finally learned to ask myself  "does this seem reasonable?" when I get some ridiculous number. Because this is the definition of good mental health, when you constantly run into the same problem, figure out different behaviors!

Don't get me wrong, confidence is a good thing. The answer isn't becoming insecure about myself in general. 

The answer is to pay attention to the feedback you are getting from the larger world.

Every action has a reaction. This is true of physics and this is true of behavior.

If I consistently screw up math it makes sense to change my behavior.  With math it is to be skeptical of my answers and ask for someone to go over my numbers.  (And also to brush up on multiplication tables! No, that's a lie, actually learn my multiplication tables!)

If I experience the same problem over and over in different contexts, that doesn't mean there is something wrong with everyone around me.  It means I am doing something to elicit a consistent pattern of responses from those around me.

I once knew a medical doctor that had the exact same complaint about every medical practice he had worked at. I don't remember the complaint, but he had worked at four or five medical practices across two states. The only consistent factor was him. This suggests that it was his behavior that was the problem, not the medical practices.

There are exceptions to this rule, I am sure, but it works as a good basic guideline.*

We all have blind spots and we can identify those blind spots when we take time to process the feedback we get from life, be that a calculator or loved one!


*individuals in abusive relationships need to ensure that the feed back they are getting in genuinely from many sources, not just their partner because abusive partners engage in gaslighting, which seeks to make the victim question their grasp on reality in all areas.  More information is available here.