Please note, transcription may not be 100% accurate.
00:00
Just ask yourself, when is enough enough?
00:10
This is Dr. Meenal and welcome to Uncover Your Eyes, where we uncover reality. As a mom and eye doctor, I want to know it all. When is enough enough? That was a question I recently asked myself at a conference I went to. So I bumped into a friend at a conference and I think we were both just venting about our work, our life, just being tired. How many things do we have on our plate?
00:40
you know, especially work-wise, I’m going to say, and just feeling exhausted physically. And we literally looked at each other and said, so when is enough enough? And I was like, seriously, when is it enough? How do you know when enough is enough? I don’t know if I have the answer to that one. I don’t think I’ll ever have the answer to that one. But it’s a question that I feel we don’t ask ourselves enough.
01:10
As healthcare providers, as perfectionists, as humans, we want more all the time. It’s almost like this sugar-coated sense of greediness. We want more, whether it’s our career, whether it’s our families, whether it’s expectations from people, from friends, we want more, but when is it enough? When can we just be satisfied?
01:40
Or when can we say to ourselves, that’s it, I’m good, I’m happy. I’m definitely not somebody who can say that I’m there yet. I still feel like I’m trying to figure out that balance of when enough is enough. But one thing that I think that conversation with that friend at the conference made me realize is I definitely have now started to recognize that I’m in a place right now where.
02:07
I should not take on more than I can take mentally, physically, stress wise, family wise. I think as a human, I want to be a great healthcare provider. I want to be a great educator. I want to help with the community, but I also want to be there for my family. So these are all things that I have to learn how to balance. And I’m slowly starting to learn it, but I think the number one step is recognizing. Do you know when enough is enough?
02:37
And do you know when to stop wanting to do those things? Some signs that I feel, you know, I’ve experienced or I’ve seen friends experience how they know when enough is enough is when they are unhappy, stressed out, their physical or mental health is deteriorating. They feel like they’re sacrificing their wellbeing, their values, their family time. They are not making progress towards their goals and they’re feeling overwhelmed or burned out.
03:07
These are all signs that I have seen people experience where we need to be asking ourselves when is enough enough. This can happen in our relationships. If you are in a toxic relationship or you’re in a relationship you are just unhappy with, thinking to yourself, when is enough enough? How much can I tolerate? When should I stop harming myself in this relationship, especially mentally? Work wise, when is enough enough?
03:35
When do you quit a job that you are just unhappy with? And you can probably never be happy with because you are not motivated. Maybe they’re not great with you and you just don’t like your colleagues. Whatever the reason being, when are you going to make that move for yourself to be happy? Most of our hours in a week are spent at work. So, we need to find a job that we are happy with. Otherwise, we have to say to ourselves, enough.
04:05
And the same applies to work with employers. When is enough enough being around employees who are just not motivated, just not dedicated or abusing the system or the protocols. When do you let them go for your sake and their sake? When do you just let them go? And our personal goals. Like I said, when is enough enough? When are we going to be satisfied with what we have achieved? I don’t have the answers to any of these.
04:35
I just have suggestions based on my personal experience. I have let those employees go that I feel need to move on and they’re going to be happier in a different place. And I have had people quit on me who are not happy with the way that we work, the way we manage things, the office that we are. So I have experienced relationships, whether it’s with family members.
05:02
friends that are toxic and we need to cut the cord and we need to move on. So how much of a relationship, a work life or personal goals are we going to take that’s going to affect our life, our livelihood, our family? When is enough enough? I do realize that I have the right to prioritize my happiness, my wellbeing, my goals.
05:30
And I have tried to prioritize them, but I think for me, what I’ve moved up the ladder is my wellbeing and my health. Those were two things that sometimes were coming under my goals. I’m still striving to do so. I don’t, I don’t think I’m, you know, it’s all, I’m all the way there, but I’m constantly reminding myself and I surround myself with people that constantly remind me to take care of myself, whether it’s my health, my mental wellbeing, just to help me.
05:59
move past the stress, the anxiety, the life, and realize that I don’t need to achieve everything. I don’t need to be the perfect mom. I don’t need to be that perfect human being. I don’t need to be that perfect sibling, the perfect child, the perfect everything to everybody. I can just be me and take a back seat and focus on myself.
06:25
The other thing I’ve kind of realized with time is I’m gonna focus on the things that I’m passionate about. I’m gonna focus on the things that I love doing on the side. Something a lot of people don’t know about me is I love making jewelry with my children. So that’s something that I do focus on, you know, in the evenings, me and my kids, you know, try to make jewelry and we do things like that. And for me, it’s like the color by number or the painting that a lot of people take up as they get older and it just helps relax.
06:54
all of us, including my kids and myself, and it’s something I’m passionate about. On the flip side, I’m also passionate about my work and certain things, so I focus on the things that I’m passionate about versus on the aspects of work or life that I’m not passionate about. So next time you feel stressed, next time you feel overwhelmed, you just wanna give up, just ask yourself, when is enough enough?
07:22
And that might be different for you, that might be different for a friend, that might be different for a colleague. So don’t compare yourself, whether it’s as a mom or as an employer, an employee, as a husband, as a wife, as a parent, as a child. Don’t compare yourself. What is enough for you may be different from what is enough for someone else. So when is enough enough for you?