Overcoming - The Discipline of Staying

By DTM Dr. Kevin Rubia

In 2020, I left clinical medicine. The white coat came off. The stethoscope went into a drawer. The world was wrestling a pandemic, and I was wrestling myself. From the outside, it looked like a detour. Inside, it felt like standing at the edge of a cliff with a question echoing through my ribs: What next?

Overcoming rarely announces itself with trumpets. It arrives disguised as loss, confusion, or fatigue. It whispers, “Begin again.”

I had trained for years to become a doctor. In Kenya, that title carries weight. It feeds pride. It shapes family narratives. Letting it go felt like peeling off a second skin. Yet identity is not a prison cell. It is a workshop. I began a master’s degree in clinical psychology. I joined Toastmasters International. I stood in rooms where my voice trembled and declared ideas anyway. Overcoming, I discovered, is less about conquering the world and more about reorganizing the self. It is the quiet courage to say, “I am allowed to evolve.”

In Toastmasters, progress is visible. Projects are tracked. Speeches are evaluated. Leadership roles come with expectations. I served in clubs, mentored members, and eventually earned the Distinguished Toastmaster award in 2025. That milestone felt glorious. It also carried a hidden trap: the pressure to remain excellent.

Perfectionism is a charming tyrant. It promises safety. It delivers paralysis. Psychologically, resilience is not rigid endurance. Research on grit highlights sustained passion and perseverance toward long term goals. Yet passion must breathe. Endurance must bend. Otherwise, burnout creeps in quietly, wearing the mask of commitment. Overcoming burnout required me to practice what I teach about mental health: rest intentionally, seek feedback humbly, and detach self-worth from performance metrics. Excellence thrives in sustainable soil.

The fiercest barriers are often internal. The voice that asks, “What if you fail?” is ancient and persuasive. In therapy training, we learn cognitive reframing. A failed presentation becomes data. A rejected proposal becomes an iteration. A stalled season becomes incubation. Failure is feedback with rough edges. When I stumbled through early speeches, evaluators did not hand me condemnation. They offered structure, encouragement, and precision. I learned that resilience grows best in communities that balance honesty with hope.

That is why spaces like Toastmasters Clubs matter. They are laboratories of becoming and overcoming. Here, we rehearse courage in five-to-seven-minute increments. We normalize trembling hands. We applaud persistence.

If I could distill overcoming into one practice, it would be this: stay. Stay with the discomfort long enough to learn from it. Stay with the goal long enough to refine it. Stay with yourself long enough to outgrow the old narrative.

It is choosing growth when retreating feels safer. It is allowing setbacks to sculpt character instead of calcifying fear.

In our pursuit of excellence, obstacles are not detours from the path. They are the path’s curriculum. May we meet each barrier not with panic, but with curiosity. May we treat failure as a workshop, not a verdict. May we cultivate resilience that is steady, humane, and contagious.

Excellence is not handed to us easily. It is carved by endurance, refined by reflection, and sustained by community. Let us overcome. Together!