We all have periods when we are just going through the motions, when things have become routine and we need something to make us stop and think. Our CPD should not only teach us new skills but also serve to help us evaluate existing ones. This site will hopefully perform that function and as we share ideas and help one another we may be thinking, ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ or ‘That’s a good way of tackling the problem.’
One gem which I learned somewhere and jotted down was that we cannot motivate anyone – they have to motivate themselves. We can only hope to bring them to the point of wanting to motivate themselves and give them encouragement along he way. Oscar Wilde once said, ‘Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.’ If we remember this wisdom we can save ourselves some of the frustration most of us experience at times.
People will not take advice unless they can see a reason for it. They won’t do something just because you tell them to; would you open a new bank account merely because your financial advisor said you had to? You would hopefully ask a few questions one of them being ‘Why?’ or, ‘How will it help me?’
When patients start asking questions they are open to the information we want to impart to them. If we pour out all we want to tell them before that point we may be wasting our time and energy. It’s better to feed them nourishing tit-bits until they show they are ready for the meat and two veg. bit. I have found this really hard to accept over the years and in the past went into too much detail again and again. I can’t teach you that, but it’s certainly worth knowing!
