Chronic Rants

I’ve been trying to help D with his health issues. After getting really frustrated last week by what I saw as his unwillingness to try harder to fix things, it suddenly occurred to me: I was projecting my own values onto him. I needed to figure out his values. So I came up with a little exercise. I found it interesting for myself, so I wanted to share it with you, too.

All you need is a paper and something to write with, or someplace to type, or a recorder to speak your answers into, or whatever else works for you. Now, answer these 4 questions:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst health you can imagine and 10 being the best health you can imagine, how do you rate your current health? By “current” I mean recent. Use the last 6 months or so, and just average it. Be honest, now. What’s your current health?
2. On the same scale, rate your goal for health, being realistic. Let’s face it, some of us will never be a 10, but still, we want to reach as high as we can. What’s your goal?
3. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not important at all and 10 being more important than anything else in your life, how would you rate the importance of reaching the health goal you just set? Consider the many things you may or may not have to give up: your favorite foods, your closest friends, your home if you need to move to a new climate, your favorite activities, etc. How important is it to you?
4. Now, list out everything relevant to #3. Be thorough. You may want to reference this in 6 months or a year to reassess your priorities. List it all.

What do you think? Did you learn anything? In case you’re curious, here are my answers.

1. 5
2. 8.5
3. 9
4. I’d be willing to give up anything except my family and friends. Everything else is fair game if it means improving my health.

I ran these by my parents and they seem to think that my first two answers are pretty realistic. Of course, it’s all guesswork, but they know me well. On the other hand, when I did this with D, I disagreed with his answer to the first question. We got into an interesting conversation about how his good habits are helpful, but they don’t override the problems that he has. You may want to run your first two answers by someone close to you, also. The perspective is really helpful.

What are your answers? How do you rate your health and what’s your goal? Are you there yet? If not, how important is it to you to get there? I look forward to reading your answers!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 23rd, 2013 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Educating, Expectations, Medication, Symptoms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.