What can I do with my medical training if I’m not a doctor? The secret to figuring out your options and making a career change.

Are you stuck in a loop of “I don’t know what I want to do” and struggling to figure out your options outside of clinical medicine?

If you’re feeling trapped, unfulfilled, or simply unclear about your next career move, this episode is for you.

You’ll discover:

• How you can figure out what your options are outside of clinical medicine
• A 2 min exercise to help you think outside the box when you are feeling stuck
• how to generate 20 potential ideas about what you want to do next in your career.

Don’t let indecision hold you back any longer—listen now and start creating the career you’ve always dreamed of!

If you want to create a viable exit strategy and find work you enjoy that doesn't burn you out. You can grab this free training, go to coachchelsmd.com/pivot so that I can help you plan your pivot.

Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

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Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

Transcript

Chelsea: 0:00

In this episode, I'm going to teach you how to use your imagination and think outside the box to identify what it is you want. after listening to this episode, you will never say the words, I don't know what I want to do ever again.

0:16

Welcome to Life After Medicine, the podcast helping millennial health professionals leave the system, find their purpose, and turn it into their paycheck. I'm your host, Chelsea Turgeon. In 2019, I quit my OBGYN residency. I had this gut feeling there was something more for me than 15 minute patient visits under fluorescent lights. Now, I'm a six figure entrepreneur, podcaster, and career coach. I get to do work I love. On my own terms, all while traveling the world. My mission is to help you follow your pull towards something more so you can find work you enjoy that doesn't burn you out. Don't worry. It's not a pipe dream. I'm here to show you exactly how it's done.

Chelsea: 1:09

Welcome to another episode of Life After Medicine. In this episode, you'll learn how you can figure out what your options are outside of clinical medicine because I know you're asking that question. You'll learn a two minute exercise to help you think outside the box whenever you're feeling stuck and how to generate 20 ideas about what you want to do next in your career. Trust me, after listening to this episode, you will never say the words, I don't know what I want to do ever again. One of the most common questions that people come to me with is, what are my options? I don't know what my options are. I don't know what I can do outside of medicine. When I hear you say, I don't know what I can do outside of clinical medicine, or I don't know what my options are. What I'm hearing is. Because I don't know how to use my imagination. I don't know how to dream. I don't know how to connect to what I truly want. going to say something that's going to be really annoying, but hear me out. You can literally do anything. It's not about what you can do. It's about what you want. Your options are infinity, like to the power of infinity. It's not about what you can do. And it's not about what your options are. It's about what you want to do. It's about what you can imagine for yourself. And it's about what you're willing to do. So in this episode, I'm going to help you connect to your desires and to your imagination so that you can identify what you want and you can create your own options let's start with connecting to your desires because that might feel foreign to some of you. You might say, I don't know what I want. I don't know. I don't know. You might get stuck in this loop of, I don't know, but the truth is you actually do know what you want. I've worked with hundreds of people and every time I drill down, there's always something there. It may feel vague. It may feel unrealistic, but there is this bud of a desire of a something that you want deep down inside of you. And you do know. So let's start with that. What do you want to do? And you might say, well, I don't know. Like, I don't know what my options are. What do you want your options to be? What do you want to be doing? One of the questions I love asking my clients is if you were in charge and you could make up any option, what would it be? Because the thing is you are in charge and you can create any option. What do you want your options to be? What do you want to be doing? If you could choose anything for your career, what would you love to be doing? There's going to be something there. And even if at first you keep saying, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I need you to halt that loop that I don't know, thought spiral. and ask yourself, what do I know? Sure. There's always going to be things you don't know, but what do you know? And if you're having trouble with this, then it's about time we start priming your brain to use a process called divergent thinking, which is one of my superpowers as someone who is neurodivergent and has ADHD, all of us have this ability, but some of us are using it more often than others. It's like a muscle. And so I want to help you guys start priming the pump using this muscle. Divergent thinking is essentially this way of creative brainstorming. It refers to this ability to Brainstorm to come up with all different options, all possible solutions to get everything out there on the table you have one starting point and you branch out with all of these different possibilities from that single starting point. This is in comparison to convergent thinking, which is taking sort of one train of thought, and it's linear, and it's moving towards one solution in this logical progression. Divergent thinking is more free flowing, creative, it's non linear, it helps you really create ideas and possibilities. They're both really important and necessary, but they each have their different place within the career change process. So to get you started with learning how to divergent think in, in something that's like a non threatening setting, I want you to take a moment and picture a brick. And if you're not driving, then maybe even close your eyes. And what do you use this brick for? If you're like most people, you probably said something like building. You can build with it, right? Cool. Yes, you can build with it. But now what I want you to do is to take this brick that you pictured and spend two minutes Coming up with as many possible uses for it as you can. What are all the different ways you could utilize this brick? And go ahead and press pause on this episode. And just brainstorm how many different things you could do with this brick. If you are in a car with somebody, press pause. Talk about it together. If you're at home, press pause, write it all down on a list. And if you're walking, then just press pause and maybe put it on the notes app on your phone. Or just say it out loud to yourself, brainstorm. How many different things could you do with this brick? What are all the different ways you can use this brick? Okay, did you press pause? Did you brainstorm? If not, you are dooming yourself to a life of in the box thinking, and I don't think we want that. So, go ahead and press pause. Give it a try. Let's do it. Okay, now let's talk about it. What are all the different ways that you could use a brick? Yeah, you could use it to build something. You could use it to prop a door open as a prop. You could use it as a weapon to, hit somebody with it. Not recommended, but possible. You could turn it on its side and use it as like a stepping stool to help you get somewhere higher. You could Use it as a decoration, so maybe you could put little plants in it, or you could just do something creative to kind of decorate with it. You could use it as a paperweight, maybe you need to hold down some papers. Or as a sort of a tool, if you need to like hammer something down, you get like a nail and you gotta just like hammer something, If you've got a table that's like wobbly, you could potentially put the brick under there at the right angle and fix the wobbly table. You could stand on it and use it for balance exercises, like a little balance beam. So there's so many different ways that you could use a brick, and that's me just thinking of really the normal ways. You could also just start to like it. drill holes in it, and there's just like so many different things that you can do. Right? And this is a little mind exercise just to get you warmed up and start practicing this skill of thinking divergently. Because it really is actually a skill. And now that you're in this space of possibility and thinking a little bit more creatively and outside the box, Now I want you to start using this momentum to start brainstorming ideas for your career. One of my favorite brainstorming prompts, and I got this from Marie Forleo initially, is the wouldn't it be cool if. And this is a great prompt because it allows your brain to just think in a more nonchalant, casual way. It's like, I'm not saying this is real, but wouldn't it be cool if this could happen? And this is something I use with my clients all the time to just help get them thinking. from a place of possibility. Um, and so we're going to do a brainstorm of two different types of these. Wouldn't it be cool if prompts, number one, wouldn't it be cool if I could make money by blank, and I want you to do this 10 times. So with 10 different things, just let these ideas flow. Wouldn't it be cool if I could make money by. By napping, wouldn't it be cool if I could make money by blinking my eyeballs, they can be a little nonsensical at first, as you start doing this, you'll also start to come up with ideas that actually feel a little bit more real. When I initially did this in the initial workbook that I had with my clients, I didn't have any specifications and I just had them say, wouldn't it be cool if, and one of my clients If you didn't have to be pregnant and babies just popped out of you. Like, people have some crazy things that they were thinking about, which is great. I do really appreciate brainstorming. Um, but in order to make it a little bit more specific to career, then I started attaching some specificity to it, such as, Wouldn't it be cool if I could make money by blank? Wouldn't it be cool if I could help people by blank? this could be, wouldn't it, wouldn't it be cool if I could help people by singing to them? Wouldn't it be cool if I could help people by telling them stories? Wouldn't it be cool if I could help people by hugging them, right? You can just let your mind run wild and brainstorm and just let it all out there. Having the wouldn't it be cool if at the beginning really helps to get your brain out of that rigid thought pattern of I have to problem solve in this really serious way it just makes it a little more light hearted so that you can loosen up you can open your mind and you can start to really experience the power of brainstorming it's like Glennon Doyle talks about in her book Untamed. She talks about the truest, most beautiful life that you can imagine. Go ahead. Because we have to be able to imagine something to create it. There's no one else out there making a set list of rules and options for your career. Like there's no mayor of careers who's telling you what you can and can't do. You get to create your options. And so what are the truest, most beautiful options? There's this amazing quote by Glennon Doyle. In the book Untamed, she says, There is a life meant for you that is truer than the one you're living. But in order to have it, you will have to forge it yourself. You will have to create on the outside what you're imagining on the inside. Only you can bring it forth. So I hope this podcast episode has helped you start turning those wheels of imagination so so you can start creating the life and career that is truly meant for you.

11:50

if you're feeling burnt out and disillusioned and want help planning out your next steps, I have a free training called plan. Your pivot. This training teaches you how to create a viable exit strategy and find work. You enjoy that. Doesn't burn you out. You can grab this training totally for free. I go to coach Chels, md.com/pivot. So that I can help you plan your pivot