Ep 122 Life Planning Update Hosted by Dr. Tatyana Reznik

I think life planning is one of the most powerful tools that we have for envisioning and building the life that we want. And as I always say, it's as helpful the 10th time as it is the first time!

This week's episode is from a recent interview that I did with Dr. Tatyana Reznik on her podcast, the Voices of Women Physicians Podcast. Dr. Reznik is such a wonderful and joyful presence, and it was a huge pleasure to chat with her about life planning.

If you've been listening to the Dare to Dream Physician Podcast for a while, you may have heard me talk about this topic and the three core questions that guide the life planning process. However, I think it's always helpful to revisit the topic, because life planning isn't something we do just once. It's an ongoing process that allows us to shape   and live our lives with clarity from the moment that we start doing it and onward.

I hope you enjoy this episode, and as you'll hear towards the end of this episode, Dr. Reznik and I will be back with a part 2 of this conversation. If you're interested in learning more about Dr. Reznik's work, please don't hesitate to check out any of the resources below:

Voices of Women Physicians Podcast  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-of-women-physicians/id1630624425

Joyful Success Life Coaching https://joyfulsuccessliving.com

Dare to Dream Physician Resources:

DM me on FB, IG, or LinkedIn to learn more about travel hacking with credit card points to get free flights, lodging, and more!

Get a bonus with Rakuten AND support the Dare to Dream Physician!
https://www.rakuten.com/r/NEODEN2

Dare to Dream Physician, Life Planning for Physicians
https://daretodreamphysician.com

DreamPhysician on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/dreamphysician/

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/weili-gray-md/

Transcript

0:01

Welcome back to another episode of the Dare to Dream Physician Travel Podcast. I'm so excited that you are joining us for the new year. Happy 2024. I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Dr. Tatiana Resnick on the Voices of Women Physicians Podcast. One of the things I shared with her audience was life planning, how life planning has impacted me. We just finished a year. And at the end of 2023, I really tried to reflect on, how that year went, what are the things that I so cherish? What are the moments where I felt like I was living my life fully? And then letting go of things that are not contributing to living life fully and going into 2024 with. More clarity with more ability to envision what it is that we really want in life. And so I asked Dr. Tatiana whether she would be okay with sharing her interview of me, because I feel like this topic is very pertinent to the new year. If you've listened to my previous episodes before, you've probably heard me talk about life planning. And life planning is as powerful the first time as it is the second and third and fourth and 10th time. And going over the three questions, which I've talked about before in my podcast, I think is also just important to keep asking ourselves those three questions and to keep adding to our answers to those three questions. And so without further ado, I'd love to share her interview with you. Also, especially if you're a woman physician, check out her podcast, voices of women physician, I had a really fun time chatting with Dr. Tatiana. She has such a joyful and positive presence. I'll put the link to her podcast in the show notes. And in the meantime, let's dive in. Mhm.

Dr. Tatyana 1:46

Welcome everyone to this episode of Voices of Women Physicians podcast. And today I'm so happy to have with us Dr. Valerie Gray, and we will talk about unusual, interesting, and life changing area. We will start with life planning. Dr. Gray, please tell us a little bit about yourself and about your journey.

Dr. Gray 2:06

First of all, Dr. Tatiana, thank you so much for inviting me. We've sort of been in the same circles for a while and I've known you indirectly through that, but it's actually so much fun, even in the first few minutes of speaking one on one with you, I feel all this radiant joy coming out of you. So it's so great to be in a conversation with you. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, so much. I'm happy to talk a little bit about myself. So I'm Weylie Gray, like you said. I am a sleep doctor practicing in a critical, rural critical access hospital in Vermont. And I am also the founder of Dare to Dream Physician Travel Podcast, where I also host a weekly podcast. And my mission through what I do through that is to to inspire physicians to live life to the fullest through fun, adventure and travel. Because as physicians, we know better than any other profession that tomorrow's not guaranteed. Life is not guaranteed and it's a privilege to live. Life is precious. And really we are the ones who can make the most of our life. today. And it was really a truth that I started resonating with about three years ago. As a lot of doctors in COVID, we have had a lot of crisis. For me, it was in retrospect, I called it the midlife crisis because I thought I was doing great. I thought I was in my dream job. I think it was about five years out of training. And we moved to where I live now to this rural town in and I uprooted my family several times because of my training and because of my job and we finally settled down and I thought everything was going well until things started changing at work and I thought, do I need to move again? That's really ridiculous. What is going on with my life? We work hard in school. We work hard to get to where we are and to just think, okay, every few years. If things change at work, do I need to uproot everything and start over? And that was absolutely a ridiculous idea. And so I started thinking about other options. And actually, at one point, I wanted to quit medicine because I was so mad at the system that we practice in. And that led me to go through a process called life planning. And a lot of your listeners may not be familiar with life planning. But life planning, in a lot of ways, they're familiar with life planning in a lot of ways. is like life coaching, except it has a very specific content. It's really aimed at what is it that's really important to us. And if our life were to end in the next 24 hours, what are the things that we would miss? And it's like quickly funneling down on the essence of what we find important to be alive. And so after a very short time of going through life planning, One, I felt really empowered because I was like, yeah, it's my life. I'm alive. Why should I let these circumstances or people that were maybe making some of the changes that I perceive to be negative at work affect the joy of what I do and the reason why I feel like I'm on earth? And so one of the things that came out of that was I realized that I love being a doctor. I'm a healer at heart and I just love my daily interaction with patients So I decided to say exactly about the same job and just really change myself change the way I Speak up and i've been happy wasn't like overnight, but three years later. I'm very happy at my job And I feel like I live this amazing, magical life. So yes, that's the intro.

Dr. Tatyana 5:25

It's very interesting. I would like to hear a little more about how lifelining helped you. What did you change in your job, which made the difference, which moved you from burnout to actually enjoying it and having fulfilling job, what

Dr. Gray 5:38

changed? Yeah, so I think burnout is such a huge topic, right? It's so rampant. I think 60 percent of physicians have at least one sign of burnout when they do these surveys. And for me, I think it was, there's a lot of things that I did that would lead to burnout, overworking, not drawing boundaries. Those are the technical things. But I think the core of burnout is also the lack of clarity on what's important to me. Why am I here? And then acting on that clarity. So life planning really helped me get that clarity. And then when you get clarity in this very vivid way, you start feeling energy to change yourself. And so that was the gift of life planning. And in life planning, we start with these three questions. And I love to share this with your audience. For me, the three questions in life planning are three of the most important questions that anyone can answer for themselves. So I'd love to share this with you. Yes, please. And then for the audience that's listening, feel free to pause this podcast and write down your answers or rewind and listen to it. These three questions are so central. So question number one, I want you to imagine that you are financially secure. that you have enough money to take care of your needs now and in the future. And by the way, if you are someone who is also providing financial security for your family, I want you to also include them in this question as well. So given that the question is, how would you live your life? So if you have enough money to take care of your needs and your family, if you're responsible for them now and in the future, how would you live your life? Would you change anything? Let yourself go. Don't hold back on your dreams. Describe a life that is complete, that is richly yours. And this is such a beautiful question. And for the listeners who are not driving, I encourage you to get your pen and paper out and even pause this if you want and just write this down. And what I love about question number one in life planning is It gets rid of one of the limiting beliefs that we have, which is we are afraid to dream. And that's why the name of my podcast is Dare to Dream Physician. It gets rid of one of the big barriers to us even giving us the freedom to dream, because even before we formulate that vision of what it is that we want, we already have this limiting belief that because of the money, we can't get it. So it's like, well, why dream if it's painful to think that I have a dream, but I can't get it. It's like, why bother? And so this question frees us from that. It allows you to imagine what if money's not an issue? What's the life that you really want? So question number two is this time you visit your doctor who tells you that you have only five to ten years left to live. The good part is that you won't ever feel sick. I love that part of the question because as doctors we're like, wow, that's That's pretty amazing. The bad news is that you will have no choice of the moment of your death. What will you do in the time you have remaining to live? Will you change your life and how will you do it? And so question number two actually does not build on number one. So in question number two, you're able to pause and answer this. We are actually just supposing our current financial situation. We are no longer financially independent. And it's just, Hey, right now, given everything that you have financially and whatnot, if you know that there's only five to 10 years left in your life, And you don't know when that last day will be. What would you change? What would you want your life to be like? And how would you make that work? Question number two is more of a gut punch because it's not as fun as number one. It gets a little bit more serious, but I think as doctors, like I was saying before, we see people whose life was taken away before they would expect, right? We see this all the time in our work. And even though it's painful and it's hard, if we let ourselves think that and just really accept that we are all mortal and we have finite years, and if that's only five to 10 years from now, it's a very empowering answer to see what is it. Cause the things that you write down are things that are really important to you. So the last question is life planning. Question number three, this time your doctor shocks you with the news that you have only one day left to live. Notice the feelings that arise as you confine your very real mortality. Ask yourself, what did I miss? Who did I not get to be? What did I not get to do? So that is a very serious question and it's not meant to be depressing But it's meant to really get you really soul searching and so I urge the listeners when they have a chance even if they can't do it right now to sit down and Write down their own answers to that question and don't get overwhelmed by it Even if you give yourself a minute to answer each question Trust the stuff that comes up, just let it flow out of your hand as you're writing or typing. There is something about just forcing yourself to answer this, no matter how uncomfortable and how unpleasant it may be, that is going to reveal something for

Dr. Tatyana 10:38

you. Very, very important questions to consider, yes. And something everybody probably should decide at some point. And based on those questions, if you can tell a little more, how life planning helps people to do what's important for them, what's failure.

Dr. Gray 10:55

Good question. Yeah, so coming up with the answers to that question for each person, you start looking at the questions and then you really give yourself the chance to answer honestly and stuff that's like afterthoughts. So like a lot of people are probably going to answer, I want to spend time with my family. I want to have a good relationship. Maybe if they've had bad relationships, they want to mend those relationships, things like that. And then the stuff that may come up when you think a second time, that stuff is important too, because a lot of that is. The repressed answers like we're afraid to answer those. And so one of the things for me was I actually went back and looked like two years later. I'm like, Oh, I wrote that. I want to travel the world. I had no plan to travel the world at that time. And pretty amazing that it was like that was there. But even the answer that was a little bit urgent for me at the time when I was doing this. was my dad at the time was maybe like two or three years into dealing with stage four colorectal cancer. And I'm an only child and I live in Vermont. My parents live in Maryland on a good day without traffic. It's probably like an 11 hour drive. And so I felt this huge burden that I want to be there for my parents, for my dad at the end of his life. That was so important to me. It wasn't just how they felt, it was like what I wanted for myself. And I had no idea how I was going to do that because I'm a doctor. We have limited time off. And not only that, even if we could take the time off with our PTO, you just have like a clinic full of patients that you have to cancel. And so literally when I wrote that answer about my dad, I really had no clue how I would accomplish it. But there was some value about just writing it down and really reflecting on it. Because when I wrote it down, when I shared that with someone, I like started crying and I thought, wow, that must be important to me because I wasn't really a big crier at that time. And I thought, wow, there is something there. And it was a scary thing, but when it did happen, when it was clear that my dad was at the end of his life, and this was probably two years after I wrote down this answer, I made it work. I was there for my dad. I actually went and spent six weeks with him at the end of his life. And I uprooted my life. I took my kids with me and my three kids and I, and a lot of time, my husband was also there at home with my dad. And the thing is, I didn't know when he was going to die. I just knew he was not doing well. And so it was just amazing that I was able to do that just because it started with writing down that that was important for me. Yes, it's

Dr. Tatyana 13:13

very important. And so sorry to hear about your dad. It's very difficult, especially when you're far away. And in addition to everything else to take care of, actually being there and distancing.

Dr. Gray 13:25

I think that this is a very common struggle for doctors, right? I mean, we uproot our lives so that we can practice medicine. We can train to practice medicine. You don't necessarily get a choice of where you get accepted into medical school or residency. And then we find like our ideal job, but that may not be near family. And so So it's very common, this geographic turmoil. It's like, I love my family, but I also like my job. And so it's a very common struggle that all

Dr. Tatyana 13:49

physicians have. Oh, yes. It's very common. Yes. And let's now talk about more happy times in life. How did it move you to your travel journey?

Dr. Gray 14:00

Yeah, I love that. Thanks for that question. So actually, it was after my father died. Very shortly after that, I was grieving. We were all grieving, but part of me felt like I could have a new chapter in my life now. And it's funny because, again, when you write down the answers of what's really important to you, I keep it in a place, but I don't, I mean, it would be good to always look at it. I, personally didn't because I'm not as organized. Some people have a journal and they just keep looking back at it. I just had it stuffed in some folder somewhere, but it's amazing. I just had this feeling like, yeah, I think we're ready to start this new chapter in our life. And at that point, my passport had expired probably at least five years ago. I had not gone anywhere out of the country for 15 years or more. And my kids at the time, there were five, eight, and 12, don't call me on the exact ages, but around then, and they've never had passports. because it's not something I didn't want to do. It just, we never felt the bandwidth to do it. So when I had that little inkling of a thought, and at that time, it took a long time to get passports, as it probably is still now. So I went ahead and I applied for passports for them, and I just started looking to go somewhere where it was a little bit out of our comfort zone. At that point, as a family of five, we did fly twice right before the pandemic, but that was it. Like, we had only flown twice as a family of five. Other than that, we'd just go on car trips. So it was a big deal. So the U. S. Virgin Islands was the first place that we went because it didn't require passports, but it was outside of the continental U. S. and it was really just out of our comfort zone as a family. And so it started there and it was a really amazing experience. There was a lot of growing experience. And then from there, we started going in from November 2022 to November 2023, we ended up going on seven trips outside of the continental U. S. Four of them were outside of the country, and three of them were to another continent. And it's just amazing knowing that a year prior, we didn't even have passports.

Dr. Tatyana 15:49

This is really amazing. And for our listeners, in our next episode, we will go deeply into travel hacks and how to make it happen for a family of five to go on seven trips in one year. While still working as a physician, while still taking care of finances and everything, and how you take this time off, how you organize all of this, how you actually have financial part covered, and how you help your children, even if they like or don't like to travel, how to make it fun for them and fun for everyone. What are the hacks and tips to make such sort of year happen? It will be our next episode. For now, I would like Dr. Gray to tell us a little bit about her podcast

Dr. Gray 16:31

and what she does. Yeah, thanks for asking. So I put out an episode on the Dare to Dream physician travel podcast on a weekly basis. Sometimes, like, this week, I'm doing two episodes. And like I said at the beginning, my mission is to inspire physicians to live their life to the fullest. And even if you don't have as bad of a travel bug as I do, I think there is something about travel for each of us that just helps us imagine what life can be like. And just, it's something about taking yourself to another place where you get so much more clarity about what you really want in your life. So whether it's Travel inspiration. I often will share details about where I went and I interview doctors that have gone to these Amazing places in the world and the things that they get out of their travel experiences. So it's about personal growth It's about daring to dream and it's just about living our best life now So I love for you to subscribe to my podcast since you are already listening to a podcast Go and look up dare to dream physician travel and subscribe. We are on all the podcast platforms

Dr. Tatyana 17:37

This is so inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and for sharing such important parts of your life and for sharing about your inspiring travel podcast. I'm listening to it already and I would recommend our listeners to listen as well. And all of those three questions are so important. I actually, as a life coach, often ask my coaching clients and I ask myself, if we win a lottery today. And have a lot of money and no more worry about financial part ever again. For you, for your children, this part is covered. What would bring you joy? What would you do? Like, you deposit in your bank huge amount on this lottery. And it's actually, it's such an important question that opens up what otherwise you kind of, uh, it's impossible. There are no impossible things. So sometimes we just need to open the door. It's true. It's so inspiring. And thank you so much for coming on this podcast. And we will meet in the next episode.