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Mark Kargela: [00:00:00] I've spent six months pouring my heart and over 20 years of experience into a project I truly believe in. Yet every day I'm battling that voice that says, you're not good enough. This is gonna fail. Does it sound familiar? If you're stuck in self-doubt, scrolling your life away, instead of creating something that matters, you're not alone.

Let's talk about how to break through the noise and finally bring your ideas to life.

Announcer: This is the Modern Pain Podcast with Mark Kargela.

Mark Kargela: So one of the most helpful things for me was recognizing I had a lot of mentors and been fortunate to have a lot of great clinicians in my life that have really helped me grow. And not even just clinicians, but just folks in my world, be it managers at different jobs and things that just had some wisdom of life, right.

And one of the most helpful things for me is to recognize that they have these exact same voices as well. I think when you're putting something out there in the world that's going to receive a little bit of judgment, know, be it a presentation at a conference, be it a research article that you're putting together, be it something you're putting together for your workplace, or maybe a presentation you have [00:01:00] in the community, those voices of you're not good enough, this is gonna fail, you're gonna embarrass yourself.

In ACT or acceptance, commitment therapy of talks about how our brains are really evolved to be very protective and tend to want to go to the worst case scenario, probably out of an evolutionary survival instinct.

So it's been helpful for me to understand that a lot of people deal with the same voices, even the most successful people. If you listen to them on podcasts or you read some of their biographies and books, you'll hear that they deal with some of these very same thoughts. So if that's you dealing with somebody such just no, you're not alone.

the One thing we also need to understand is these voice show up. For many of us, especially when we're working on something we care about deeply, know, the project I'm working on is something I've really feel like fills a hole that we need in clinical practice. It really addresses some of the things that I think will really, truly help us not just give psychologically informed care lip service, but will actually embody it and deliver it and integrate it into all the great things we already do in clinical practice.

The big issues for me though is when these [00:02:00] voices come on board, and I'd be curious to hear your responses or how your body deals with this or your mind deals with these difficult voices. 'cause for me, I. How those thoughts when they show up, it leads to massive amounts of procrastination

and I honestly would catch myself picking up my phone, scrolling on Instagram, TikTok, and all these areas just as an escape measure, right? We talk about experiential avoidance. Not able really take action on the things I know I need to do. Like I know I want this project to get through the finish line. I have all these tasks um, that of listed out, and it almost felt so overwhelming to where I almost feel paralyzed to where just didn't feel like I could take action and do anything.

So it an eye-opening experience for me. I, I've drawn parallels to maybe how it feels for some patients in pain where you feel like you're almost so overwhelmed by the experience that you can't take any action. And I've had to practice some of the mindfulness stuff that we teach our clinicians to teach your patients when they're dealing with chronic pain issues.

know, Those factors we all with with this is this overwhelm, this fear of failure, this fear of judgment. We talk about this thing as imposter syndrome, and I recently listened to a [00:03:00] podcast with Gary Vaynerchuk and he talked about how this just us being self-conscious and we may be termed it something new to make it some sort of new issue, but we're of self-conscious a little bit, and it's normal and many people are gonna struggle here, especially creating something new.

know, It's especially hard when there's nothing to compare to. We really have something that can give us an idea if we're doing something that's of in line with what's been in the past. And I honestly think to be innovative, you have to be willing to do something that's not been done a little bit, that's not continue to be the next continue education course that know, teaches someone how to crack or poke a needle or do these things, which are ample amount of people doing that.

And again, I'm not completely against those courses, but I think. We have to recognize that that still isn't getting things over the finish line. When it comes to persistent pain, we have a lot more we can do, and I think if we get stuck in those courses, we honestly greatly limit ourselves as clinicians.

So how do we move from stuck to action? I'm gonna give you some of the things that I've been doing to try to help myself get into a, some more action mode versus inaction. Feel like [00:04:00] my feet are stuck in cement and just struggling with anxiety and all the things that come with those difficult thoughts that we spoke about.

The biggest thing is I built a concrete plan for finishing a project. Laid it out in not just massive project looks like this insurmountable or insurmountable mountain of activities to like smaller chunks that I feel like I can break off in small pieces and start making myself feel like I'm making some progress in this.

I'm using a brick device, which is a device that basically you use an app that's tied to this device where when you, you engage that device, it completely bricks your phone from social media apps, messaging apps, various other apps. 'cause I have plenty of them on my phone. it. And this have that experiential escape route that allows me to, know, get away from the discomfort of this difficult project, but again, keeps me not making the progress I wanna Another app I installed is Cold Turkey. There's other ones, I think there's Rescue Time and a few others online, but cold Turkey crosses across Windows and Mac, which I have Windows at work and Mac at, my home. So it [00:05:00] allows me of have this ability to block certain websites when I'm on my computer, blocks, certain apps on my, uh, computer so I don't get distracted, right? Distractions are so easy to come by and it's. I've actually found AI to be a significant distraction. So I've had of temper my use of ai. 'cause sometimes I get nerdy into prompting and doing different things to see how I can leverage it to better help my work life, home life, and other parts of my, know, fitness uh, pursuits as well. The other thing I've been doing is scheduling tasks and making sure I always prioritize the number one thing in my life, which is time with my family. I don't you all, but I've had points in my life. And God bless my wife 'cause she's put up with this stuff. And we've had some discussions and some challenging discussions at that.

When I would lose sight a little bit, I'd get a little bit to where the, I was not engaged with the family. If I was engaged, my mind was scrolling or I know, really checking emails or doing things that just didn't have me present with, uh, my family. So I've had to really. Step back, and this has probably been going on [00:06:00] for two years, where I really recognized that this was unsustainable.

Some of the similar things I do for productivity to also with my family. Like when I'm with family, I am with family. I am not with phone, I'm not with iPad. Although there's still times where I've, not done the best with that. But I'm working to make sure that's not part of my regular family thing.

So I think in the end too, I think you have to be careful not to make these big, massive 180 changes. Like when, when our patients are. Trying to make changes in their lives. Like we're not gonna make them try to do 14 things in these big, massive, one eighties in their behavior.

So I'm, some of these things stepwise been adding into my day-to-day routine just of help.

One other thing that I've been doing that I'd be curious to hear if any of you who listen here on the podcast could comment on in the comments is using Pomodoro timers, which is like a 25 minute deep work break where you schedule a timer with 25 minutes on it and during those 25 minutes you're to dedicate yourself to a task and then you can like a five minute break after that.

So it helps you. Instead of trying to get engaged in these massively long work [00:07:00] blocks that can sometimes, again, feel way over ambitious and unsustainable, I guess you could say, or something that you obviously need to work up to. Kind of gets your work broken out into smaller chunks to where you can be successful, maybe get a little bit of dopamine when you actually get deep work done for 25 minutes, and then you can obviously increase your work blocks as you see fit and as you see yourself success with that.

The big keys I think is just making sure we take small steps, right? I, this is the same thing we tell patients. We don't want patients to try to make these massive unsustainable changes in their life that, know, might feel good and they might do well with it temporarily, but just doesn't line up for where they are in their life and their, their resources and what they have available to them.

So make sure we take small steps with that. It's the same thing with fitness, right? I think we've all, many of us, I should say, have probably. Had those fitness kicks where we're like, I'm going to eat well, I'm gonna do all these different things from a fitness, I'm gonna exercise five days a week.

And we've tried to make this drastic New Year's resolution, massive change in our life that. Occasionally some people stick with, [00:08:00] but I'd say the vast majority is, and if you look statistically at those New Year's resolutions, it's not a lot of them being kept, know, too far out from the New Year's resolution being made.

So making sure we make small steps that allow us to be able to engage with some of these changes and modes that we can start sustaining,

if this episode was useful for you, I just wanted of break the pattern of how we're just, talking about nerdy pain science stuff and we'll get back to those.

Of course, I got some interviews coming down the pipeline that I think you all enjoy. But I also wanted to be real, 'cause I think one of the things that's been most helpful for me is just recognizing and having these conversations with people that, hey, you deal with the same stuff. Maybe there's nothing severely wrong with me.

Again, I have my moments where I'm not doing as well as I'd like to , and probably struggling a little bit with some of the things, but as I've really worked with persistent pain people and then just seeing how acceptance, commitment therapy and related things apply to life is,

I think to recognize that in life we're gonna come into contact with difficult moments, difficult thoughts, and difficult emotions, and. We have to have some strategies to be able to [00:09:00] respond in ways that keep us engaged with the values that we wanna live by. I wanna live by somebody who puts positive work out in the world that helps people.

I want to be somebody who's a good dad, a good husband, somebody who's a good family person that embodies good family values, I think. When we really reflect on how we're behaving sometimes and take that step back, which is the perspective taking that we talk about in act.

It helps us kind of see are we doing things that are moving us towards, or are we embodying the values that we wanna live by? Or are we kind of embodying values that we don't wanna live by? For me, doom scrolling and doing all those things definitely aren't values that I wanna live by.

And being locked into my phone, trying to escape some of those difficulties in life. So if you're dealing with those difficulties in life, love to hear how you deal with them.

If you've ever wrestled with the same doubts or distractions, I'd love to hear about it. Drop a comment below or send me a message. Let's support each other in breaking through the noise.

If this resonated with you, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss future episodes where we tackle the real struggles and breakthroughs of putting yourself out there and changing the world around pain. Until next time, [00:10:00] keep showing up one step at a time.

Announcer: This has been another episode of The Modern Pain Podcast with Dr. Mark Kargela. Join us next time as we continue our journey to help change the story around pain. For more information on the show, visit modern pain care.com. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment.

Please consult a licensed professional for your specific medical needs, changing the story around pain. This is the Modern Pain Podcast.