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Posts Tagged ‘life coaching’

Resolutions Big & Small – for Better Health

January 4th, 2009

Happy New Year, one and all! I have been hearing much fervent relief at the passing of 2008 and perhaps more hope than usual at the launch of 2009. Between the economic woes of the past year, the death throes of the worst American presidency in recent history, and the ongoing struggles with pain and illness of so many of my compatriots, we are all very much ready for something new. And at this time of year, we express that desire and hope through resolutions.

As a coach, I’ve always done a lot of thinking and talking about resolutions. I have mixed feelings about them. One way of looking at a resolution is that it’s a goal without an action plan. We tend to make a list of the things we know we should be doing, or that we greatly desire to do, that would improve our lives, our world, or the lives of those around us. For most of us, having made the resolution, we hope that good intentions and will-power will carry us through. Without actually taking the time to create a plan, to see what might be in the way of changing from our current actions or habits to the ones we want to develop, to anticipate hurdles and strategize a way around them, good intentions and will-power will get us where they usually get us. Maybe to February 1st. If we’re lucky.

So resolutions are great if you craft them into goals, and goals are only worth more than the paper they’re written on if they are big and inspiring but also grounded in reality, with strategies mapped out to get you from here to there. And that’s what a coach helps you do, craft the goal, make the plan, and then stick to it!

The other difference between a resolution and a goal, is that the resolution is about action we can take, and the goal is about what we hope to accomplish by it. I’ll express a goal right here:

In 2009, to see my Migraine frequency go down to under 3 per month.

This is a pretty audacious goal, from someone who had 6 – 9 Migraines per month in 2008. The other thing that’s audacious about it is that I cannot control my Migraine frequency – directly. I can only influence it. So I need to resolve:

• to practice relaxation at least 4 days per week
• to keep up my health & Migraine diary daily, track and avoid my triggers
• to exercise regularly – at least 3 times per week
• to work with my Headache specialist on refining my treatment regimen
• to keep looking at what else I can do to improve my health & well-being

Why am I listing all this out? Because these are the things I can actually do something about! The goal itself, directly, I can do nothing about! If I only focus there, I just get discouraged, or I waste my time in fantasy.  It’s the same for my business goals – I need to make more money, to keep paying the mortgage and send a kid to college next year. If I focus there, all I will do is panic. If I focus on the actions that I can take that will connect me to the right people, get me exposure, eventually bring me work, the goal may be obtainable.

So reach for the stars. Make big goals. Put them in front of you and don’t forget them. But for your resolutions, keep your feet on the ground. Find small concrete steps that you know you can do. And make a plan to do them. If you need some help with that plan, email me from my contact page. Make it a great 2009 – let’s see out the decade in style!

– Megan

Conch shell image courtesy of Joshua Davis, wall jump image courtesy of Alex Roberts.

Tags: chronic illness, goals, life coaching, managing life with migraine, migraine frequency, New Year's resolutions
Posted in Managing, Tips & Techniques | Comments (2)

My Migraine Story

May 30th, 2008

What’s your Migraine story?  We all have one (all of us with Migraine disease, anyway).  Having a sensitive nervous system sets us apart from the majority of people around us, and we all go through a process of realizing or coming to terms with that.  With what it means to us and with how it impacts us.  That process  and story have become clearer to me as I have entered the on-line Migraine community, in this curious role of migraine blogger.

I have worked as a coach for many years now, helping people set goals, make choices, and live powerful lives, both in personal and business contexts.  In the course of that work I have had to make many accommodations to my Migraine disease, my chronic fatigue syndrome, and my recurrent sinusitis (to name the major culprits).  I have had the privilege of helping a number of other people with chronic conditions figure out how to structure their lives, businesses and careers so they can live fully despite their illnesses.  The moment of truth for me came when I realized, about 7 months ago, that my chronic illnesses are not just an impediment in my life.  They are an opportunity to share my professional tools and skills, and the wisdom I have accumulated, to help others manage their lives with Migraine.  I was already doing it, but I had one of those moments where perception shifts, and I saw that this could be a major focus for me.  Call it an epiphany, an aha, or a moment of madness, but here I am.

In my own journey it’s not a bad thing to be looking at my life through the lens of Migraine disease.  I am not interested in having that be all that defines me, but it is dangerous to ignore it.  I have questioned a lot
how my life might have been different without this condition.  I approach this question now after nearly a half-century of life.

I’ve had migraines since at least my teens. I don’t remember the first, but at 17 after
surgery at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx (that’s another story), leaving the hospital we drove past the Montefiore Headache Center and I thought “Wow, someone actually treats headaches? Someday, maybe soon, I’ll have to go there.” So I’m guessing I had migraines before 17.  Certainly, the first few I remember clearly, in my mid-twenties, I was already calling them migraines.  I could distinguish the headaches with nausea, vomiting, and nearly unbearable sensitivity to light and sound, from the regular, run of the mill headaches.

In retrospect, migraines have had a big impact on my life and my choices, even though they didn’t become frequent for me until my early forties. The biggest impact in my earlier years was on my career. I
completed law school and went to work at a big Wall Street firm. Everyone who knew me was surprised by that choice, but for me it was important to prove I could succeed in a high prestige, high pressure
world. I proved it for two years and left. In the meantime I had some doozies – vomiting in the gutter in NYC became a familiar shame in my life. I would have told you at the time that my migraines were triggered by stress.  But in retrospect, those moments of high stress came with sleep disturbances (pulling all-nighters to get a brief finished or prep for court), excess caffeine, and the poor eating that went along with them. I went into the less pressured environment of a legal services office, and migraines became less frequent, until after my first child was born. Then I had the new pressure of juggling baby and child care, parenthood, chronic lack of sleep, with part-time legal work. Oh, and let me tell you about part-time legal
work. Part time in the law is like 80+ hours this week and none for the next 2 weeks, not like “I’ll work Monday, Wednesday and Friday when I have child care!” A set up for stress, exhaustion, a frantic life.  By our mid-thirties we had two kids, a house, a yard, a mortgage, and one of us (me) got sick a lot.

I left the practice of law a decade ago and began doing work that I could structure in a way that worked in my life.  Writing and coaching.  Doing that work while making sure that I slept enough, ate right, used meditation as a regular practice.  I made those career and lifestyle changes just in time to develop anaphylactic allergies to pain-killers; just in time to have a sudden increase in my migraine frequency from a few a year to a few a week.

To tell you the whole story would require a book.  I’ll let you know when I’ve gotten it written.  The main thing I am looking at today is who I am – as a migraineur, yes, and as me, who is much more than just this disease.  I have always thought of myself as tough.  You can laugh if you want.  Yes, I’m rather small and soft, not particularly athletic, and I’m not a mean person (though I can be sarcastic).  There’s a mental toughness, though, a determination to keep going, to build, to create.  And on the other side of that, I have to accept my delicacy.  We are sensitive, we migraineurs.  Sensitive to our environments.  Vulnerable to odd things that don’t bother other people.  I can’t seem to change the fact that I get sick a lot.

For a working symbol, I’m going to use my Iris.  They are profoundly rich and beautiful.  They do bruise and wilt easily.  They need to be fed, watered and cared for.  But they keep coming back, and growing, taking more ground.  They are a connection to the splendor of life.

What’s your Migraine story?

– Megan

Tags: chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic illness, life coaching, lifestyle, Migraine disease
Posted in Medicine, Musings | Comments (2)