🩺 Scrub In: The Motivated Med Life

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write today—I just knew I needed to start writing again.

I took a much-needed sabbatical over the holidays. Even though writing is usually a relief from the grind of Step 1 studying, during that break it felt like a chore. The mental fatigue, paired with the fear of failing after genuinely trying my best last year, made me want a vacation from my own thoughts.

On top of that, the thought of starting my Step 1 studying again in a less-than-ideal environment felt like a looming nightmare, one that only increased in severity as the new year approached.

Sidenote/tangent: Studying at home has been difficult. I’m a homebody in a noisy house. Winter weather makes driving to campus inconvenient—sometimes even dangerous—and I’m trying to save money by staying in rather than burning gas or buying lunch on campus. All of this makes studying harder than it should be.

Back to my main point: I am scared to start, but I must.

So, I take several deep breaths, stepping back to remind myself of all I have done to get to this point—rather than all I have left to do or all I have not done yet to reach my end goal. I recognize why I find myself catastrophizing about studying: because it’s been hard, and it’s okay to feel like studying has been extremely hard. Being in a noisy, anxiety-inducing environment does not make it any easier. Neither does procrastinating in hopes that my fears and worries will go away. They don’t.

But in the midst of all the things I can’t easily fix right now, the one thing I can do is start.

This morning I brushed snow off my car, ran a quick errand, and started writing while walking on my treadmill. I’ve realized something frustrating but important: I need to keep relearning the same lesson—just start.

If I wait for the perfect conditions—the perfect night of sleep, the perfect plan, the perfect Monday—I will never start. If I wait for things to get easier—less worry, less fear, less fatigue—I will only look back and see all the time I spent procrastinating. Perfection on its own doesn’t make a plan successful, and procrastination rarely solves your worries or fears. But starting lets you begin again. Starting lets you see where the faults in your “perfect” plan lie. Starting helps you breathe, even when you are afraid and full of worry.

So if you took a break—because of the holidays, burnout, or life—I hope this is your sign to begin again. Not perfectly. Not transformed overnight. Just start. One day. One session. One step forward.

Thank you for reading, and welcome back.
How are you finding your rhythm again this year?