Health Hats, the Podcast

Health Hats, the Podcast


Setting Personal Health Goals

January 27, 2019

Episode Summary
We’re going somewhere with our best health journey. Destination: Personal health goals. If you’re well, stay well. If you’re acutely ill, get over it. If you’re chronically ill or dying, live the best life possible. There’s a difference between medical and personal health goals. Onward.

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I am the CEO of my health team.  Another way to look at it: If my health is a car, I’m the driver for most of the journey, most of the time. How do I become the best CEO, the best driver? Over the next few months I’m going to sprinkle my podcasts with episodes about some of the basics about being the best CEO and driver. Today’s episode is about setting personal health goals. I’ll add episodes about creating your health team, learning what works, getting from health goals to clinical decisions, and adjusting your personal health plan.

Today we're going to talk about setting personal health goals. People are on a health journey. Whether they know it or not, they're on a health journey. They're headed somewhere with their health. They may know they're doing that, or they may not. But they're doing it and it's continual. Sometimes we have a map. Sometimes we don't. GPS, yes or no. It's still a journey. It's important to know where we're going and we're going hopefully to best health. So, what is best health? To me, best health is living at peak capacity. It’s a purposeful activity. Being on a health journey towards best health. On any kind of a journey we have a destination. We're going somewhere. We're going to work. We’re going to the grocery store. We're going to go visit our in-laws or going on vacation. We're going for a night out. We're on a journey. A health journey is similar. We're headed somewhere. We're headed somewhere alone or with people. We're making decisions along the way. We're always making decisions. Do we need to get gas? Do we know the right way to go? Do we need to take a break? Do we make a left? Do we make a right? Decisions. It's same for the health journey. The journey is complicated. It's really important to know where we're going. Where we're going are our personal health goals. People who are on a journey have limitations. Everybody has limitations. I don't walk so well. I get tired really easily. People don't have a car. People can't walk. People can't walk more than a block. People can't speak the language of the people that are around them. People can't get a tune out of their head. People have kids that they're taking care of. They have a sprained ankle. They have a headache. There’re all sorts of things happening. So, it's really important to know where you're going to go. There's just a lot of noise and a lot going on in the health journey. So, it’s important to know where you're going, where you're headed.
Best health destination? Personal health goals
I have secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and so I have personal health goals. I want to progress as slowly as possible. I want to live at my peak capacity. I don't want to mess with my pathological optimism. And I keep I want to keep blowing my horn (I have a baritone sax. I play baritone sax). Now my whole health team, so my family, my doctors, other clinicians, my friends, my readers. They all know my health goals and they're helping me to reach those goals. So, what am I doing to reach my health goals?