He proposes that our optimal experience, what he calls “flow,” occurs between these two emotional extremes. Athletes call it “being in the zone.” It’s when creative insights occur, and we are doing something not too easy (boredom) or not too difficult (anxiety). It’s where work seems effortless, and time flies because we’re engrossed in the moment.

Seen another way, Prof. Csikszentmihalyi’s continuum could be broken into four sections:

Unconscious incompetence is the place where many chiropractic students find themselves at the beginning of their chiropractic education. A new staff member on the first day of work may also exhibit this.

When you are unconsciously incompetent, you don’t even know what you don’t know. For most, it produces an uncomfortable, lost feeling that creates a sense of anxiety — clearly not a “flow” experience!

However, if you persevere, the point comes where you transition to the next level called conscious incompetence. Now you know what you don’t know!

Able to see the boundaries of what will be needed to practice, few chiropractors linger here, and race headlong to the next level: conscious competence.

Conscious competence occurs when you know you are up to the task. Problems are within your abilities to field, and you know what to say and what to do. You may not be masterful, but you are proficient — and it feels good.

Before you know it, you enter the most dangerous place in your career, relationship, or learning process. This is where you do what you do so well that you don’t even have to think about it. Most people drive this way. In fact, after driving for a couple of years many people can talk on the phone, balance a cup of coffee, and spread cream cheese on a bagel without giving it much thought!

In chiropractic, unconscious competency usually shows up between the seventh and tenth years of practice. By then, you have seen just about everything:

After 10 years, not much is left to create anxiety.

That’s when boredom sets in and you ask yourself, “Thirty-five more years of this?”

Then slowly, little by little, you slip into a funk — a depression. It starts as resignation, often blossoming into full-blown cynicism. Tragically, by the time the tentacles of burnout have reached this deep, extracting all joy from practice, most burnout victims complete the downward spiral and finally hit bottom.

When you are at that place, it takes a massive dose of pain to get your attention, such as a divorce, the death of a parent, the suicide of a child, cancer, bankruptcy, losing your business, or a car accident. The wake-up call shows up differently for everyone.

Then the climb out begins and you face those demons you were ignoring. This is also when you confront yourself and find the courage and strength to crawl out, broken enough, shamed enough, and humbled enough to change your ways and to submit to your true purpose.

If you are on the road to bottoming out, try to practice these disciplines:

• Get real. Fess up. That thing you’re so ashamed of? That thing you spend enormous amounts of energy attempting to hide? Put an end to the cover up.

• Let go. Give up trying to control what you can’t — in particular, patients. Investing your life spirit in outcomes you have little or no control over is the mainline to burnout.

• Know your purpose. Your purpose isn’t to adjust patients. That may help advance your purpose, but it isn’t your purpose. Find out what it is!

• Learn. Enjoy a perpetual state of wonder. Once you stop growing, you become bitter and brittle. Force yourself regularly to become unconsciously incompetent about something.

I had two bouts of burnouts, and I consider both to be so precious I wouldn’t want to deny anyone the experience. If you’re already charred or crispy around the edges, hang in there! Life on the other side is better and more fulfilling than you could ever imagine. I’m living proof of it.

SIDEBAR:
Take your temperature

William D. Esteb has been a chiropractic patient and advocate for 25 years. He is the creative director of Patient Media, Inc., a patient communication resource company for chiropractors. Review his materials and request a free 64-page New Patient catalog by visiting www.patientmedia.com or by calling 800-486-2337.