66. Dr. Dena George on Editing Your Life Story

Jul 21

Are you still telling yourself the same stories you did when you were a kid? No matter what they are, they’re probably limiting your self-belief and stopping you from doing what you really want to do. Dr. Dena George talks about how to edit these life stories and start changing your life.

How to Edit Your Story

See how you define yourself
See who you serve and how you can change their life
Own the challenges that you’ve had
Develop and support your new strategies

Listen to Episode 66 Here

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About Dr. Dena George

Dena George is passionate about serving physicians. She combines mindset, strategy, and messaging/marketing to help physicians build or grow a successful business. She is a certified StoryBrand Marketing Guide, Business & Life coach.

She is also a lover of learning and a collector of experiences. She has lived abroad, worked with AmeriCorps, served as a Family Physician in the US Army with a deployment to Iraq, and completed a fellowship in Hospitalist Medicine. She works part-time as a Hospitalist and lives in Texas with an amazing husband and son.

Why Your Stories Limit You

The stories you’ve been telling yourself for years are limiting you from reaching your full potential or doing what you really want with your life. To edit that story, Dr. Dana George says to look at who you are and see how you define yourself.

It doesn’t matter where you are in life, it’s not too late to edit your story. The blueprint you had at 18 or 16 or 30 doesn’t matter; the only thing that does is the here and now. What do you want to do? Who do you want to serve?

As high-achieving women and physicians, we all probably feel extremely constricted in our stories. But Dana explains how you can rewrite your blueprint to practice or not practice medicine any way you want.

The Benefits of Editing Your Life Story

The beautiful thing about rewriting your story is that you’ll uncover a lot about yourself. What’s holding you back, your fears and shames, and also your strengths. It’s in your strength that you’ll find forward movement.

You’ll also inspire others to edit their lives. Simply by witnessing your strength and change, others will feel inspired to make positive changes and impacts in their life - and they’ll inspire others, too.

Dana also talks about the importance of sitting with and feeling your emotions. Emotions and feelings are only moments - you can choose what you do in the next moment and how you move forward from them.

Homework for Women Physicians

Get back to the root of who you are. What are your values? What defines you? How can you use this introspection to edit your life story? Let me know in the comments below!

In This Episode

How to start changing the stories you tell yourself [3:30]
How telling yourself stories limits your worldview [5:00]
How to define what your story is now [8:00]
What happens when you start to edit your life story [12:00]
Why you need to get back to the core of who you are and define your values [15:45]
Why recognizing and identifying your emotions is an essential step [18:00]

Quotes

“What happens if we take a step back and ask ourselves, ‘what if everything I think isn’t true? What if everything I think isn’t necessary? What if everything I think is creating the results and those could change based on how I see myself and my influence on the world? And see my value to the world?’” [3:49]

“At any point in time, you can redefine yourself. The blueprint that you had at any point in your life is not the same blueprint as July of 2021. You can write a new blueprint and it can be amazing, and generous, and you can be a physician, and you can practice or not practice medicine in any way that you want.” [6:29]

“When we get stronger, others get stronger. Either by viewing our strength or by taking some of our strength. Our strength is not finite, it’s infinite. Others can have as much of my strength as they want to build their own. It’s like a belief; others can borrow my belief as much as they want because our lives can get better.” [14:23]

“It changes our whole life experience to continually work and refine our mindset. What I believe is that it’s getting comfortable in our own skin. To know that no matter what, I’m going to be okay. No matter what, I’m going to make good decisions. No matter what, I’m going to figure it out. Even if the worst things ever happen, I’m going to be okay. I don’t have to rely on the world around me to be different. The world around me can be the same and I can be okay. I can be better than okay, I can thrive.” [22:48]