‘You will inevitably feel under pressure’: Umair Afzal discusses how to manage low confidence and comparison at the start of your dental career.
As a young dentist, and throughout dental school, you will inevitably feel under pressure.
It can be easy to compare yourself to others and feel inadequate to your peers. Being at the very start of your career often means long hours, which can be tiring. You will often manage unexpected challenges each day because you are still learning.
Optimistically, working through these challenges can help our broader development as dental professionals.
Confidence is something that more experienced dentists often tell us to develop, but this isn’t always put into context as a young dentist. This isn’t about being ‘invincible’ or ‘never feeling stressed’. It is about having resilience, learning from setbacks, and avoiding comparison.
Below, I’ll reflect on how this can often be easier said than done and what I have learnt so far.
Comparison is the thief of joy
On social media, it can seem like everyone is rapidly progressing in their careers. It has become common for students to start their own ‘interview course companies’ to help A-level students get into dental school. Some students often ‘romanticise’ their time in clinics and revising, focusing more on their online personas than honing their clinical skills and knowledge.
It’s becoming normalised to announce ‘secret projects’ and even proclaim that ‘big things are coming’ to garner validation from the broader dental industry. Many even start podcasts or sell courses.
Without a doubt, these students contribute a lot to our industry. However, by constantly watching what others are doing and comparing ourselves to them, it is easy to feel we are behind because of the challenges we might face.
One example of where I felt this as a student was in the clinical skills labs. Whenever I worked on the phantom head, I was never as quick as my peers, who left on time for lunch after each session. I struggled with seemingly straightforward tasks like cavity preparations, amalgam placements and using matrix bands. I often felt I chose the wrong career because I took so long. My work on a phantom head was helpful, but regardless of how quickly we all finished, these simulations did not fully replicate working with real-life patients and natural teeth.
Looking back, I learnt that only you can access the behind-the-scenes struggles of doing your work. Whenever you compare yourself to others, remember that you’re seeing their highlights while you are feeling the pain of each step of the process. It’s not a fair comparison by any means, so don’t use the difficulties you experience to base your judgement on whether you’re doing great work or not.
Even if you’re not seeing the desired results immediately, remember that you’re slowly building yourself toward future progress. If you can view your endeavours through the lens of decades and not just days, you can continue working on the things that make your life meaningful.
Each of us is multifaceted, and by avoiding comparison we can enjoy more of our life and the wonderful career we have chosen.
Using positive self-talk to build confidence
Clinical confidence is easy to erode but much more challenging to regain. I vividly remember how I felt right before I saw some of my first dental school patients.
I was incredibly nervous, but my tutor recommended that I use positive self-talk before each procedure. Instead of saying to myself that I wouldn’t be able to numb my patient, I used visual imagery to imagine myself providing the anaesthesia and manifesting that it would go well. Positive thoughts led to good clinical outcomes, and over time I was beginning to feel like a ‘proper real-life dentist’.
By being more compassionate to myself, I proved to my tutors (and myself) that I did have the clinical skills to see actual patients.
After I left the clinic one evening, the impact of positive self-talk hit me. If you need to build clinical confidence, you should talk to yourself like you would speak to a friend or family member. When you need more patience to work on the phantom head during a clinical skills session, you should encourage yourself like you would encourage a child. If you must persevere through a long day of clinical placements, you should motivate yourself like you would motivate a sports team.
Self-talk is a fundamental part of developing confidence, and I couldn’t have proved this to myself without the help of my mentors.
Final thoughts
Life isn’t a race, and the challenges we face will inevitably shape us for the future. It’s easy to think that those we admire are perfect and have never struggled, but this is often untrue. It is worth taking a moment to realise how far you’ve come and appreciate the trajectory that you have set yourself on.
By developing the skills to navigate these situations, you will better recognise and handle these situations – not just now, but for the rest of your life. Support through mentors or coaching can be helpful, too.
Above all, this article is a reminder to myself that there may be times when you might not be where you want to be, but you’re also not where you used to be.
Read more from The Dental School Handbook:
- A brief overview of tooth wear
- How to get top marks in dental school finals
- Mastering communication as a dental professional
- Sleep and routine: the key to success in dentistry?
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