Self-coaching

Last week we finished discussing the final component of the Integrative Health and Wellness Assessment – health responsibility. With that we covered a broad spectrum of interventions and lifestyle changes that can aid you improve the quality of your health. How do you move into the next phase of evolution and transformation? Well, coaching is a helpful part of this process for anyone looking to experience an increased level of well being. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to a health or nurse coach. We can only think about two ways to achieve this today and we can only thing about you being your own coach using both objective and subjective/reflective information. Objective data is very helpful in mapping out your journey, evaluating the effectiveness of interventions, and identifying future plans. For example, if you’ve recently changed your diet, you may consider a food diary or calendar where you list all of the foods you have eaten on a particular day over a series of weeks. You want to note information such as portion sizes and beverages that have contributed to increased sugar and calorie intake. While analyzing the evidence that you’ve compiled and simultaneously tracking your weight, blood sugar, cholesterol, or blood pressure (based on your particular goals), you can assess progress, regress, or sustained outcomes. Self-collected objective data requires courage and accountability. It calls for you to be an expert historian regarding the integrity of the information you compile and to be fully responsible for the changes that may or may not be taking place. Subjective/reflective information takes into consideration your thoughts, emotions, and feelings about the change process and the challenges you are facing in the particular health dilemma. You might think of it as journaling: It is your opportunity to record any personal difficulties being experienced, what events motivate or discourage you, which environments and people are encouraging or discouraging, and gives you the space to reflect on an action plan. Since we explored this past year that it isn’t just about the blood pressure or cholesterol; if you don’t feel good about the changes you are implementing or inspired by your accomplishments, or overwhelmed by the technical aspects of adopting new practices, it won’t be sustainable in the long-term. Self-coaching is not “one more thing to do”. But it is one way to bring together a whole-person approach to your health and wellness journey. Like anything else, it is a process that gets easier and more exciting with time. It is an empowering tool that brings together the evidence of your evolution and the personal story of what that means to you. It can be as detailed as you like and take as little or as much time as is convenient. Start by assessing the objective data that needs to be collected in relation to your goal; this means finding out how you will measure your progress. Secondly, assess all of the challenges and wins you’ve experienced and how you feel about them – this is the subjective aspect. Build a relationship with the self-coaching process and make it your own.