Moments of Clarity

We've all had those days. You know, the ones where we wonder why we ever thought it was a good idea to become a Speech-Language Pathologist. You are overwhelmed with paperwork while still trying to find time to perform effective therapy. Your private-practice client just cancelled his session. Again. A teacher/principal/parent questions your therapy approach. You find out about an IEP meeting for one of your students the day it is due, 5 minutes before the meeting starts. 

It's no secret our job is stressful. (Well maybe it is to our administrators or insurance companies- who seem to think we can handle adding bus duty and lunch supervision into our schedule or who deny every claim we submit and force us to somehow think of a clever way to get our claims accepted, all in our spare time.) Burn-out rate in our profession is high, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to be scouring the internet for "jobs for any other profession but speech pathology". 

So how do I stay motivated to keep doing what I do every day? Focusing on moments of clarity. Moments where I am reminded why I wanted to become an SLP in college. Moments where I realize that I am making a difference. 

I was having a rough day in therapy this week. Two clients cancelled on me the day of their session. One session was spent more on managing behavior than performing therapy. I didn't have time to eat lunch that day. My last therapy session of the day, however, was awesome! My client was requesting to play with many different activities, maintaining eye contact during communication,  and was making contextually correct comments (a big one for this little guy with Autism). 

When I got home from work that night, I found a Facebook status from my client's mother. Her words reminded me why I love being an SLP and reassured me that I made the correct career path. 

My boss loved the comment as well, she even posted it to the business Facebook page! 

So when you are feeling down and wondering why you ever wanted to be an SLP, find that moment of clarity. Once you find it-whether it is a card from a client, a few nice words said at a meeting, or even a client's mom's Facebook status- write it down, take a picture, hang it up. Do something with it. Display it where you can constantly be reminded of why you rock at your job.

Because you do rock. You are an SLP after all. :)