At the beginning of the hour (my "elephant"), I feel a sense of dread ... how am I going to endure this long, hard sixty minutes?

At the end, I leave with a sweaty inner glow and a sense of accomplishment that surprises me. 

I now understand how this works. How I am forced/encouraged to accomplish something that is outside my comfort zone.

I'm not required to do anything for longer than two minutes - two on the treadmill and two at each station. The routine includes two minutes alternating on the spinning bike but since my back doesn't encourage that position, I opt to stick with the treadmill ... at ... my ... own ... pace! 

I can manage anything for two minutes!! These are my "spoons".

How is this relevant to you?, you may ask.

Think of the tasks you have been putting off -- all those moments of procrastination (like writing those blog posts, or doing that bit of networking, or tackling your billing and account books!)

Can you break the task into two or maybe five minute intervals? Can you really push yourself for that brief spell?

My startling discovery after doing a few of these classes is that they have become easier. I still don't sprint on uber-energetic command, but I do go a little faster, try a little harder. Something in my physiology is responding. 

I have learned that even the tasks we dread can be handled, in small bites.

Confession -- I have yet to complete all the abdominal exercises at the end!

Time to get back onto that horse and ride again!

So, how should I do this?

I am fascinated by what it takes for children to succeed in life, since I have a kid and want good things for her. In addition, my clients are seeking great results and wondering how they can create invigorating new careers or businesses at later points in their lives. My quest to understand these challenges has led me to some fascinating research, mainly coming out of the field of education.

One prominent researcher in this area, Angela Duckworth PhD, writes about Grit -- Perseverance and Passion for Long Term Goals in which she tells us that the more "grit" (she defines this by her subtitle) we demonstrate, the higher the correlation is with success.

Yet another inspiring education-related story (which references Duckworth and her grit research) comes from writer and speaker Paul Tough. The New York Times ran a story some time ago, written by Tough and titled "What if the secret to success is failure?", that fired my imagination sufficiently that I bought and devoured his book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (A). 

The third reminder comes from Rule 9 of "The Intelligent Entrepreneur: How 3 Harvard Business School graduates learned the 10 rules of successful entrepreneurship" (A) -- remember, it's Persist, persevere, prevail.

All this is a long way of saying that, if I am to be successful in maintaining my blog as a short term goal and keeping my business soaring (the bigger goal), I too must show grit. I do have the passion. But what if the secret to my business success is this failure, and others, and that it's perseverance that is being asked of me?

I'm getting back on that horse today!

How about you?

This blog post is for my women physician readers - or for you to forward to any woman physician you know!

As the host(ess) of the Women Leaving Medicine blog and physician coach owner of The Entrepreneurial MD here, I would love to get your opinion.

I started this Women Leaving Medicine blog over 2 years ago, with an initial post expressing my philosophy and a manifesto. Almost immediately, the blog took on a life of its own as women began finding it and contributing their stories spontaneously. They also began generously supporting one another.

Week after week, I read the posts that appear, and while I am grateful that these women physicians or medical students/aspiring physicians have taken the time to share their stories  -- stories filled with pain, despair, loss of hope, determination and even occasional successes - I am disheartened by their depth of their anguish and size of their struggle.

I so badly want to help women doctors feel better about their lives and professional choices AND find workable solutions.

While I realize each of you has your own unique story, situation and set of needs, I believe there are themes that are emerging: survival; finding joy; embracing your own identity whether you choose to practice medicine or not; balancing the demands of motherhood, spousehood and work; dealing with demanding work environments; coping with deep disappointment as to how life as a physician has turned out for you.

I would love to create an inspiring, affordable, self-paced home study program to provide comfort, inspiration AND solutions, based on my own insights and skills as a physician coach, a working mom (working steadily from home) and as a former practicing family doc who also burned out.

I know you are way too busy for a lot of chit-chat, so this program will not be a big old lecture thing that you'll have to slog through. Instead, I want your input to help me design and offer you exactly what you want.

If you identify with this struggle in any way:

• Do you want concise nuggets that challenge you to experience and savor your life more deeply?
• Do you want to learn new skills to help you discover for yourself that next experience that will bring you deeper fulfillment and satisfaction in your professional and personal life?
• Do you want me to share a ton of resources that point you to non-clinical opportunities?
• Do you want a bit of everything?

Here is a link to a brief 5-question survey to help you answer these questions (it won't take longer than 3 minutes):  Women in Medicine Survey

Once again, how can I REALLY be of service to you, and help you with your often very difficult choices?? 

No 2013 resolutions for me ... no siree!!

However, I do have a desire to fulfill a promise I made to myself over 6 years ago ... to reach out to my Entrepreneurial MD reading community via my blog and share thoughts, ideas and questions. And to listen for and learn from your responses.

So I am going public with my 2013 Commitment.

I have found it increasingly hard to sit down regularly and write a short article for this blog. On closer inspection, this lack of activity has come about because I have fallen victim to a form of laziness --- "I'm too busy", "I don't have anything to say today", "I've got this deadline to meet and I must attend to it first" etc..

Sounds like many of us with exercise, correct?

My commitment is to get back into the habit of writing regularly ... as I was doing earlier in the year.

Keeping a commitment feels honorable; sticking to a resolution feels dutiful. Since I generally pride myself on keeping my word and following through (unless my memory fails me, which it does from time to time!), I can live comfortably with the idea that my regular blogging will represent me keeping apromise to myself ... and now to you!

[And guess what? - this only took my 15 minutes to write]

Are you a Resolutions or a Commitment person?

What choices do you want to make for 2013?

Here's to a wonderfully festive, enriching, life-affirming New Year and beyond!! 

Starting out as a newly minted internist and then surgeon, he was invited to work in Dr Jonas Salk's lab. With a bit more time on his hands (no night or weekend call!), he reflected on what he really wanted to accomplish with his life. His chief insight at the time was that, as a practicing physician he could impact several lives, one at a time. But, inspired by role models like Dr Salk, he quickly recognized that his desire to make a real difference to many more people could only be realized using leverage as a businessman. Finding ways to funnel his medical training and experience into businesses that made things and delivered services to hundreds if not thousands!

From there evolved his career as a serial entrepreneur - and his philosophy of social business that has increasingly sought to improve the quality of life for millions of impoverished people in the world.

Listen to his inspiring story and shared wisdom in our informal conversation. Please then add your comments here.

His email address if you would like to contact him is James.Bernstein@EniwareSterile.com and you can join his Global Ambassador Corps here.