What You Need is Internal Autonomy
We think we need external autonomy, control of our surroundings and activities (and other people) in order to be happy, but what if awakening internal autonomy is all we need to shift to a more positive mental and emotional state?
I had a recent blog post on autonomy, or rather the lack thereof, that so many physicians experience at work and even at home. It reminds me of a great scene in the movie “Parenthood(1989)” where Steve Martin’s character exclaims “My whole life is HAVE TO!”.
When I first watched the movie, I was a married orthopedic resident with two stepchildren, and that line really resonated with me, in a way that was both affirming and aggravating. But if my whole life is “have to” it’s because I’m letting it be that way.
When the Autonomy blog was posted on KevinMD I attached this quote from Atomic Habits by James Clear, “We don’t rise to our goals. We fall to the level of our systems.”. It was a quote I wanted to put in front of every single medical administrator in the country and jab my finger with it.
But here’s the thing. That quote also applies to our internal systems and our internal autonomy.
Because the truth is that’s where real autonomy and power lie. And always has been.
It’s not out there waiting for an administration or boss or spouse to give them back. Autonomy lives inside you and you can either feel like your whole life is “have to” or that your whole life is “choose to”.
Autonomy ultimately isn’t something you're given. It’s something you make and you take. And it starts by changing your internal systems.
You can choose. We all have parts of our jobs or life that aren’t our favorite, but we do in fact choose to do them, because we don’t choose to do something else.
Quitting the job is an option, leaving the profession is an option, refusing to do certain things is an option. Now when we argue and say, “I can’t quit because of X, Y, Z”. When that happens, realize that there has been a choice not to quit. We chose not to quit because the quitting option doesn’t look so great either.
There has been a choice. You have chosen to do the thing by choosing not to quit.
You get to decide if “you have to” or “you choose to”. When you choose to (or choose not to), that’s where your autonomy lives. Try out this new language with something you “have to” do today and see how it feels.
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