Do you try to motivate patients?
Motivate, as in “an incentive for action; to move.” It’s a classic outside-in technique for managing others. Motivation is like a drug that only temporarily changes a patient’s physiology. Discontinue the drug, and the symptoms return. Same with patient motivation. Not only do many patients resent your overtures, your unrewarded effort leads to anger that later manifests as burnout.
It would be healthier (for both you and the patient) if your objective were to inspire patients. Inspire, as in “to communicate with the spirit; to breathe into.”
Motivate is something you do. Inspire is something you are. It begins by being the change you want to see in the world; to show up in such a way that patients think, “I would like to be like him/her.”
Be that, and not only will you have the opportunity to change their spine, you’ll change the world.