Steel on Target and Chemical Warfare

These last few weeks have absolutely flown by.  I finally finished the COT guide and am seeing patients in my AEGD.  Here are some thoughts so far about the experience.

If you don't want to be in the military, the HPSP is not for you.  The "military" things die down a little after you finish in-processing to your base but you have to wear the uniform every day and operate in the understanding that you're doing dental work on members of the military to further the mission. 

Air Force dentistry is awesome and frustrating at the same time.  Having specialists and people who genuinely care deeply about the work they do is awesome.  The paperwork can be confusing and redundant and sometimes you'll wish you could "experiment" a little more.  By experiment I mean try some more cutting edge things.  My base does have a CEREC machine but you won't see us throwing CAD-CAM crowns on any tooth we feel like.  Everything the Air Force does is backed heavily with research because they have to do what is going to be the absolute best for airmen and soldiers in deployed situations.  A posterior composite may work for a patient on a yearly recall, but amalgam has the better long term track record so you'll see much more of that on posterior teeth, for example.

The military community is special.  People understand each other and get that the mission is crucial.  There's an overarching feeling of teamwork that is really cool to feel every day.  Some things about the Air Force are frustrating when it comes to dentistry but it's hard to ignore how important the dental work is.  

Financially the Air Force isn't as lucrative as private practice but as a new clinician, I'm happy to be where I am to further my skills and training for free (and getting paid!).  The compensation is more than enough without having student loans and you should be able to live comfortably if you are budgeting and planning correctly.

All in all, I'm really happy with my decision.  I've had a few late nights but the weekends are always a welcome time to relax.  I try to get absolutely everything done during the week so I don't have to come up and work on weekends.  So far it's working out!

If you're about to head to COT, check out the COT guide on the Additional Resources page!

[The title of the post is somewhat of an inside joke but just know that they're very corny jokes about using burs to cut teeth (steel on target) and fluoride (chemical warfare)]

And Now Everything is Different

In a few short months, seemingly everything in my life is different than it was.  Here's a quick rundown of everything that's changed in the last few months:

May:
Graduated dental school
Set up my move to Colorado Springs

June:
Wife quit her job in Oklahoma City
Actually moved to Colorado Springs
I left for COT (at the tail end of June)

July:
Wife got a new job in Colorado Springs
I did the COT thing in Alabama for 5 weeks

August:
Flew home from COT
Wife actually started her new job
I started my new life as a resident at the AF Academy


Dang.  That's a lot.  It was a lot, still is a lot, and definitely feels like a lot.  I'm not going to get super deep into any of these things in this post for a couple of reasons.

Reason 1: It would be a novel
Reason 2: I started a new tab called "Additional Resources"

In the "Additional Resources" tab, I'll be posting full documents of various experiences I've had.  When I started this blog in 2010, I was chronicling my dental school and Air Force journey.  As I've gotten older and time has moved along, some of these things have actually ended.  That's awesome because that part of my life is now in the past and nothing about it can change again.  This means I can post full documents detailing every little thing I want to talk about in a place that you can access and refer to without having to jump on my blog to read!  For example, I'm almost done with my full writeup about COT which is a very common topic I receive questions about.  I'm also planning to do one about dental school in general as well as one about what it's like to be a student on the HPSP scholarship.  I'm technically active duty now so my HPSP days are over.  I've also done a full move with the military so I can definitely give you some start to finish information on that as well.

Here are just a few thoughts I have about the last few months.

When change happens in life, embrace it.  Understand that it is temporary but very necessary for us to move forward.  Think of it like a rocket on the launchpad.  It will never fly without a fast and abrupt change.  The fuel must be ignited and that can be very scary.  Eventually the rocket reaches outer space, does what it needs to do, and now a whole new thing has started because of that.  Just like our life, we can't sit on the launchpad forever.  Talking about doing something and doing it are very different actions and if you want something new, something has to change.

With that said, let me talk briefly about a few things that I'll dip into more detail on later:

Moving:  This is really nice because the military will move all your stuff for you for free.  You can move part of your things and that's totally fine.  I would definitely take valuables with you in your own car (if you are driving).  They are efficient up until you want them to deliver it.  Expect delays of up to several weeks in the summer.  Call the moving company and keep tabs on the progress of your move.

COT: This is not an easy month but it was worth it.  You will learn fast and you don't have a choice.  It's a 5 week flood of information and you'll feel like you're in some weird Air Force blender for 5 weeks while you sweat and march all over Maxwell Air Force Base.  Be prepared to be sleepy on a daily basis but keep a good attitude.  When you're being yelled at, ignore the volume and listen to the words.  Keep a good perspective and it will go by quickly.

The Air Force:  In-processing involves getting an ID card, making sure your pay is correct, doing computer training, etc.  It's a long process but embrace it.  The military is a massive system and it's a wonder they keep things as straight as they do.  Respect those ranked above you and enjoy the process.  If your mindset going in is "I can't wait to do my time and be out" you're going to hate it.  Even if you are planning on getting out, you can't for a few years so make the best of it!

Time to run but hoping to keep the blog a little more consistent this year!  Starting to see patients in a couple weeks at my AEGD so that should be a blast.  Be sure to check out the "Additional Resources" tab in the coming weeks for a whole new set of awesome information!

Cookies, Willpower and Life Systems (How to Do More and Not Hate It)

As some of my frequent readers will know, I was the president of my dental school class for 3 years before we recently graduated.  One of the ongoing jokes among my classmates was that I had more hours in the day than anyone else.  I was often the first one in, the last one out, and the guy working on stuff while everyone else was relaxing.  (Note: This did not give me the best GPA or make me the best student in my class, but I had a reputation for being highly productive.  Do not get those confused!)

Now don't misunderstand this as me bragging about myself or trying to put others down in any way, because it's not.  I view leadership as a service to others that I take very seriously, not as a hierarchy of importance, just a hierarchy of service.  But that's a topic for another day.

How is it that I had the ability to work so hard and long while seemingly getting things done that others hadn't yet started or make study guides (with the help of many wonderful classmates) and flashcards for test after test after test?

Let me preface this by saying that some people are simply high energy while others are not.  I consider myself a high energy person but I think that comes from playing to my strengths and who doesn't like doing something they're good at?  I'm not, however, an extrovert that always has to be the center of attention and accomplish things to boost my ego, quite the opposite.

This post is about something else, something we commonly call "willpower".

Willpower is the ability to muster up the energy to do something that we otherwise might be inclined to put off until later, put off forever, or substitute something simple and more fun in its place.  It takes great willpower to workout every day.  It takes willpower to eat healthy.  It takes willpower to save money. Why?  Because there are a thousand other simpler and more intriguing options at our disposal.

Instead of working out we could:
Sleep in
Get to work a little early
Not go out in the dark cold morning

Instead of eating healthy we could:
Have some more chocolate (yum)
Eat the rest of the steak right now even though we're full
Go out to eat with our friends

Instead of saving money we could:
Get that new MacBook Air
Buy the TV that's just a little bigger than the one we wanted
Take a vacation now

What if you could hijack your own willpower and change your patterns?  What if you could say "no" to good now so you could say "yes" to great later?

The following is a synopsis of a study I've read about countless times that changed my life.  It taught me one of the most valuable lessons in my life: willpower is like a battery, it can and will eventually run out and must be recharged! (Read: Ego depletion). We can circumvent this by setting up systems in our life that don't force us to use willpower (or use far less than normal) so that we still have willpower for later.  Here's the study, in summary:

2 groups of students are taken to a lab and seated at different desks in the same room.  1 group is given a bowl of cookies while the other a bowl of radishes.  After each group is allowed to eat from their bowl, both groups are given a puzzle to complete.  The group that ate the cookies worked on the puzzle for an average of 20 minutes longer than the students over at the table with the radishes! (Side now: the puzzle had no solution).

What does this mean?  Essentially, it takes almost no willpower to resist cookies so these students had plenty of willpower saved up to work on the puzzle.  Eating a radish is no fun and takes much more willpower and thus these students gave up easily on the puzzle since they had used all their willpower to eat the radish (and resist the cookies).

Link to full study description: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/01/self-control.aspx

There are some more details to the study that you can research yourself but I won't get into those today.  Hopefully you get the take away and that is that willpower is a limited resource!

So what can you do about this?

In my life I've set up systems around me that allow me to use as little willpower as possible on the daily mundane tasks so that I have more willpower for later.  Here are some things I do that help me waste less willpower:

-Leave my keys, phone, and wallet in the same spot every day (no willpower spent thinking and searching)

-Set out my workout clothes each day (when I wake up I just have to walk in, put on my clothes, and leave)

-Do a budget at the beginning of every month (I don't make daily decisions about finances)

-I keep my computer very well organized (no willpower wasted searching for lost items)

-I have a separate to-do list of things that need to be done later, that I cannot do today, in a separate list with an alarm set for the date and time I can actually do that thing (no willpower thinking about things I can't do anything about) [example: I have a form I've completed that I can't submit until July 1.  So set an alarm for July 1 and forget about it and don't put it on your normal to-do list!]

-I cook chicken once a week and put it in a container so I never have to settle for junk food when chicken is ready-to-eat in my refrigerator

-Sunday is a pretty relaxed day, so this is when I plan ahead on my week and double check that my calendar is right and that I have all the food I need for the week (during the week, no willpower wasted thinking about all the stuff I have coming up or if I'm going to run out of something mid-week)

This kind of thinking, what I like to call the "Life Systems" approach, allows your free time to be much more productive than ever before.  You haven't wasted your willpower looking for keys, stressing about how much is in your checking account, forcing yourself to dig out your workout clothes from 3 different drawers, so you have plenty of willpower left to tackle all sorts of other things in your day that do demand your attention.  These tiny tasks that drain us little by little can be the difference between getting something done at the end of the day.  I enjoy coming up with ways to automate those things in my life that are necessary but not that fun to do so that I don't waste my willpower (and time) on them.

I hope this post has helped you get an insight into my productivity and allows you to search your own life for ways you are accidentally sucking away all your willpower and wondering how hyper-productive people are able to get so much stuff done. If you'd like to read more about this idea, and other concepts that have helped me be more productive, here are some books I highly recommend:

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big - Scott Adams
The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth - Chris Hadfield

Another secret to willpower is that we will always tend to default to things we know we can do!  It's easier to get things done when we know what we're doing and adding skills to your life opens up new doors.  Setting up systems gives you time to focus your willpower to learn and grow to become better at whatever you desire.  Webucator, an online eduction company that recently reached out to me as a part of their "Most Marketable Skills" project in the Webucator Asks Project, offers many self-paced courses online including Microsoft training courses (Word 2013 course is FREE for a limited time!), as well as many others, to help you expand your knowledge and succeed in today's world.

Hope this was informative and as always, feel free to email me with any questions you might have!