We guide healthcare professionals in a solution-focused approach so clients can embrace possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future.
It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen. – Muhammed Ali
Simply put, an affirmation is a statement of what you want in your life.
We recently learned of a new-ish YouTube channel developed by the American rapper Snoop Dogg himself, called Doggyland. He’s turning his rhymes into motivational affirmations for kids…and they work on adults too! Have we piqued your interest? Check it out here
Four of the affirmations you’ll hear there are :
There’s no one better than to be myself.
Today is going to be an amazing day.
I get better every single day.
I care about others.
If this resonates with you, you’ll find additional affirmation videos on his channel .
12 of Tami’s favorite affirmations:
I am joyful.
I am gentle.
I am not easily offended and will not hold on to bitterness.
I am patient.
I am self-controlled.
I am kind.
I am loved.
I am strong.
I have not need for fear.
I will not worry.
I am focused upon the best things.
I am unfinished.
While using the Five Minute Journal, Deb’s been using their tips for journaling. One tip is to use the same affirmation every day if you’re struggling to come up with new affirmations and if you want to focus on one specific idea. Deb’s daily affirmation since the start of 2023 is I can choose to be healthy! Her goals are to adopt more healthy habits over time, but to start with small, achievable goals. Deb is a big fan of Kelly Clarkson, and loves her affirmation at the end of her show each day, “Have a great day, and if it’s not, try and change it.” Her message is a great personal challenge, as we wrote about last time, to encourage change and create the life you want!
Identify one or many affirmations that resonate with what you want in your life and post it where you’ll frequently see it. Tami keeps a list on her refrigerator and both Deb and Tami write them down in their daily journal. Encourage your clients to identify affirmations to support their healthy choices and goal achievement.
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter @AFreshPOVforYou
Deb is employed by Dexcom, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky HealthCare Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Taking a memory into 2022 of a beautiful sunset on Hilton Head Island, SC
What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year. – Vern McClellan
WHO ARE WE?
In this new year, if you are new to our blog, we are solution-focused diabetes care and education specialists. We are passionate about doing diabetes care and education differently. Too much of life is spent focusing on problems. Instead, we believe in turning attention to possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future. We see the benefit in stepping alongside our clients as “think partners” to focus on what’s important to them, what’s already going well, and build upon that to reach their goals so that they may live life to the fullest. We invite you to join us in doing the same if this is a new paradigm for you. We are advocates for person-centered, strengths-based language, and believe that self-compassion is essential when living with a chronic condition.
OUR MISSION
As we welcome the new year, our Mission continues to be that We guide healthcare professionals in taking a solution-focused approach to practice to enable clients with diabetes to embrace possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future.
Our interest and passion around taking a solution-focused approach to practice (and life), means acknowledging what has gone well, acknowledging how that success was achieved, then identifying how to do more of that and build upon that moving forward.
8 TIPS TO TAKE INTO 2022 WITH YOU:
With the start of the new year we’ve been doing alot of reflection. We’ve pondered what has gone well for us, how we were able to achieve that, and how we can build on that. Today we’re sharing 8 tips that we’re taking into 2022 with us and we challenge you to do the same as well as share with your clients:
Make yourself a priority once in a while. It’s not selfish. It’s necessary. Skimping on personal needs can be harmful to our overall well-being. When we don’t put ourselves first and take care of ourselves, certain mental and physical risks can develop and lead down an unhealthy path.
Smile often and laugh more. Finding humor and laughter in the everyday world is a key opportunity to reduce stress. It can also decrease anxiety, fear, and help people cope with challenging situations. Personally, we often feel rejuvenated and ready to face the world again after a good belly laugh or a few silly moments. Suddenly the weight of the world is lifted off our shoulders. Learn more in our blog here.
Learn something new. Many studies show that learning new skills is a way to improve your life. Learning something new can even tie in with #1 above. It may be an “excuse” you need for some “me time”. An appointment with yourself – so to speak – and a break from work or family. Our big “learning something new” in the new year is learning how to host a podcast! Stay tuned, more to come on that!
Take a daily gratitude walk. As you walk, reflect on and express gratitude for what you are thankful for in the day. It can help you feel less stressed and focus on the good. Find other tips to get started with daily gratitude practice in oru blog here.
Talk positive to yourself, instead of listening to yourself. Rather than listening to your mind’s fears, doubts, and complaints, speak to yourself with words of affirmation and encouragement. Learn more about the power of self-acceptance and helping cultivate it in others in our blog here, and positive affirmations here.
Focus on “get to” rather than “have to” each day. It’s not about what we have to do. It’s about what we get to do. It’s easy to act as if we don’t have a choice, but in reality we DO have a choice on a great many things in life. We can choose our attitude, our actions, and how we view life.
Remember your “WHY”. Remember WHY you do what you do. When we forget the WHY, it’s easy to get burnt out.
Look for ways to serve and care. Referring back to #2, smiling is an easy way to show you care and takes nothing but a little effort. Maybe it’s helping someone achieve their goals or shovel their walk (this is top of mind for Tami as we write with 6-inches of snow outside her window). Think about it, if we do one act of kindness each day of the year, that can change 365 lives!
We were hoping to add “Travel whenever possible” to this list since we both were avid travelers before the pandemic. But not this year with yet another Covid-19 surge. So we’ll save that one for next year (fingers crossed)!
WHAT’S TO COME?
Throughout 2021 we launched a series of posts related to applying a solution-focused approach to diabetes technology. What will we write about in 2022? To start off, we will be sharing practical tips to transform primary care visits by incorporating solution-focused tactics to support diabetes management.
We hope that 2022 will be kinder to all of us and that together we can learn how to help people with diabetes live their best life!
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
Deb is employed by Dexcom, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky HealthCare Barnstable Brown DIabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
“You`re only as weak as you let yourself become, and you`re only as strong as you allow yourself to be.”
~ Daniel Hansen
Beautiful bougainvillea, Palm Desert, CA
In this week’s installment of Diabetes Technology and Solution-Focused Practice we’re discussing mobile apps. In our last blog we focused on using a solution-focused approach to interpreting and discussing continuous glucose monitor (CGM) data. This week’s blog we’ll focus on a new discovery for us – the WW mobile app. We will share insights on other apps in future blogs. We believe that using solution-focused language within mobile applications can improve user engagement with the app, as well as encourage individuals to make progress towards their health behavior goals.
WW App: Deb’s experience…
As you may know, Weight Watchers is now known as WW. I have been using their app, the WW app, to help stay on track during the COVID-19 lockdown. You can learn about the different WW programs and pricing here. There are several options to choose from, I only use the app for logging and motivation. I was encouraged to continue using the app because of the nature of the messaging. Then I began to wonder if they were incorporating a solution-focused approach?
From a weekly in-App push a few weeks ago, the headline was “Why you should do what works: You might already have more tools in your toolbox than you think.” If that doesn’t sound like solution-focused messaging, I’m not sure what does! The post reminds us that people typically focus on what isn’t working well and how to deal with challenges. Of course, that is not motivating, and not helpful when trying to make hard health behavior changes.
But, what if you “Flip the switch” so to speak? (See our many blog posts from 2019 about “Flipping the paradigm” – here’s one on healthy eating, and here’s one on healthy coping). The WW message goes on to encourage focusing on the things that come naturally and leverage strengths or what’s worked in the past! Wow! We’ve written about strengths in this blog multiple times (you can read about strengths here), and so believe in focusing on what one does well, building confidence, and increasing happiness by doing so.
Make Strengths your Secret Weapon. According to WW, leveraging your strengths will help you be successful. They suggest asking 3 questions to uncover strengths:
When do I feel like my best self?
What makes me unique?
What comes most naturally to me?
Those are questions that diabetes care and education specialists (DCES) can easily incorporate into diabetes-related conversations with clients as well. Once those questions are answered, WW suggests creating an “affirmation” to help remember to focus on personal strengths. You can read their post here. One exercise that helps people think through writing their own affirmation includes showing a word cloud to help direct thinking about potential ideas of strengths (including humor, cleverness, bravery, creative etc.). What a powerful visual tool, that would be so easy to employ in any diabetes care and education program! Finally they suggest saying the affirmation out loud every morning or posting on your computer so it will be visible every day. For instance, “I am strong.” “I am resilient.” You get the idea
I loved this way of thinking about making healthy choices, and reading and engaging with the content. I created my own affirmation and have it posted on my computer with a sticky note so I glance at it multiple times during the day! Tami has affirmations on her desk and in the kitchen that she sees when making coffee in the morning to start the day off.
Helping clients create their own affirmation using solution-focused principles is a great opportunity to highlight what is working well already and focusing on their strengths, as well as supporting the development of resilience.
Do you recommend mobile apps to your clients?
If you have a client interested in weight loss or adopting healthy eating habits, the WW mobile app might be a good option. (We are not endorsed by WW and do not receive any compensation from WW). Knowing the positive strength-based language that is being used is so encouraging. Also of note, WW recently hired Adam Kauffman, formerly of Canary Health, to head their diabetes program (read the press release here) so we’re excited to see what’s to come in the future.
We plan to continue to write about a variety of other technologies that impact and influence diabetes care and education including diabetes apps, digital health tools, diabetes devices, online peer support and online coaching. Stop back by in 2 weeks to see what’s up next!
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Deb is employed by Dexcom but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky Barnstable Brown DIabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers. ~ Fred Rogers
Getting some “beach therapy”
Today we greet you from our first @AFreshPOVforYou writing retreat! “Writing Retreat”…those are BIG words that have been more than a year in our minds, and are now a reality as we sit across the table from each other drafting the content for our first book! No small feat, but one we are excited about! We are passionate about taking a solution-focused approach to life with diabetes…so let your mind imagine just what this book may be about. We’ll share some sneak peeks as things move along.
Now back to our to our blog…
Welcome to week 3 of our 7-week series on applying a solution-focused approach to the AADE7 Self-Care Behaviors for managing diabetes. This series is focusing on “flipping” the conversation from a “problem focused” (traditional medical) approach to a solution-focused conversation. Have you tried any “flips” in the past 2 weeks? Please let us know if you have, and what your experience was.
Last week we shared about taking a solution-focused approach to Being Active – you can read it here. And the week prior we focused on Healthy Eating here. Today we’re concentrating on Healthy Coping.
It goes without saying that stress is a part of life…family stressors, work stressors, financial stressors, health-related stressors…at times it might seem like stress is all there is. Add to that the relentless demands of diabetes. The combination can bring a variety of coping challenges and ultimately impact self-care. On the flip side, there are many positive ways to deal with stress and cope with life with diabetes in a healthy manner. It’s all about having a tool-box of resources or tactics to pull out or call upon needed. Here are 6 ways that resonate with us to give you ideas:
Move your body. It might be simply taking a walk. Physical activity lowers stress hormones and triggers the brain to release chemicals that make you feel better. (We’re finding that taking short walks to clear our minds is helping us to feel less stress and think more clearly during our writing effort).
Take a break. It might be taking a walk on the beach or simply having a cup of coffee and listening to the waves hit the sand (as we were in the photo above…wishing we were there now!). Or you might enjoy curling up in a comfy chair and reading a book. Or standing and stretching, taking deep breaths inhaling and exhaling slowly.
Use positive affirmations. When life is feeling especially challenging, we’ve found that practicing “daily affirmations” greatly helps us: I can do this. I am strong. Each moment brings choice. I will not hold onto bitterness.I can live an overflowing life. An affirmation is a short, positive statement that you say to yourself to build yourself up. Have you ever tried affirmations? The reality is that we believe what we tell ourselves and what we hear others say about us. Using affirmations can help to “rebuild” negative thinking and strengthen positive thoughts.When working with clients in a solution-focused way, we can help them to create their own affirmations as one Healthy Coping mechanism.
Get enough sleep. In our experience, many people discount the value of sleep. When chronically sleep deprived the stress response can be even greater. (yep, we’re getting our zzz’s this week!)
Spend time with people that make you happy. Stress can cause some to turn inward and isolate themselves. Talking to others about your stressors and seeking their support is one way to de-stress. Maybe it’s getting together with a friend for lunch. Whenever we are together we have lots of fun and laughter. That is one way we cope with stress.
Practice gratitude. You can read more about this in a blog we wrote on gratitude here.
When working with clients instead of focusing on what is not working well or what is “wrong”, here are 3 illustrations of how to flip the conversation:
Try this: How do you manage on the most challenging days with diabetes to keep moving forward?
Instead of this: Managing diabetes requires a lot of time and effort. It’s something you just have to do.
Try this: On the nights you’ve been able to get to bed earlier and get more sleep, how were you able to do that? How did you feel the following morning?
Instead of this: You mentioned you’re only getting 5 hours of sleep each night. You need to get to bed earlier.
Try this: Where is your stress level around ____ on a scale of 1-10? What would it take to reduce it 1 point? What do you need to accomplish that? How can I support you?
Instead of this: You just need to stop thinking about this issue and move forward.
Focus most of the time and energy on thinking about and discussing what is already good, effective, and successful then leverage that to identify solutions.
When you meet again, here is a 3-step follow-up approach to try:
Try to incorporate this approach with clients to reframe conversations and see if you can help them to focus on the exceptions (those times when the “problem” could have occurred but somehow did not) and their desired future state, rather than ruminating on what is not working.
Step 1 – Have you seen any improvements since we last met? (if yes, ask about it. If not, go to step 2)
Step 2 – Have you noticed times when the problem (defined using the clients own words) did not occur or happened less? (here you are identifying exceptions. If yes, ask about it. If no, go to step 3)
Step 3 – Describe for me what would be different if the problem had been solved? (this is the Miracle Question approach we’ve written about many times. Here and here are two of them)
We challenge you each week to try incorporating some flips into your conversations and let us know what impact they have.
Join us next week as we discuss a solution focused-approach to Monitoring
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
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