What if you told someone you wanted to learn a language, asked them what to do, and they said, “You just need to speak it and read it and write it.”
This is kind of what it can feel like you’re feeling burned out with headaches, bad digestion, fatigue, poor immunity, and achy joints and want to “get healthy” but the advice is essentially, “Make healthy lifestyle choices.”
Right... but… HOW?!?!
In my former career, I was a Spanish teacher. Every Spanish course (ex. Levels 1, 2, 3) has objectives for the end of the year. Let’s say the objective is: be able to introduce yourself with basic biographical information and pleasantries.
Ok, so as the teacher, I’m going to look at that goal, and reverse engineer (backward plan) the course. I’ll start broadly, by first breaking it down into units. My students will need adjectives to describe themselves, some verbs, and some pleasantries. I decide how many days to dedicate to each of these units. Then I’ll go a little deeper. For each unit, they’ll need some practice listening, some practice speaking, and some practice writing. I decide which days I’ll dedicate to each of those types of activities. Then I’ll break it down some MORE. I’ll decide what the actual activities are going to be.
As a new teacher, I would pretty much just wing the activity part. I had a general idea of where we were going, and I had blocked out the units, but I would walk into school each morning needing to pull something together to practice the skills we were working on. This was extremely stressful…
So, once I had a few years under my belt, I decided to sit down before the school year had even started and map out the entire year, all the way down to the actual activities we would do each day.
What. A. Gamechanger.
Walking into school in the morning knowing that the decision of what we were going to do had been thoughtfully made in advance, and that everything I had planned was part of a grander scheme working toward the objective was SO RELAXING. Some days, it felt like I didn’t even have a job. I just got to stroll in, be present with my students, and exercise during my free periods.
I knew as we moved through the year, that everything we did in the classroom was intentional, working toward our objective, and ( this is key) that we had enough time allotted to do it.
I also had progress checks with my students (assessments) that allowed me to modify the pace and quantity of certain activities on a day-to-day level as we moved along toward our larger goal. Everyone was really progressing with adjectives, but verbs weren’t going so hot? Great. I could make a slight shift, but always had my grounding to know where I was relative to the larger goal.
Ok, so what does this have to do with health?
“Getting healthy” is about as complex of a goal as learning a language. This means in order to reach that huge amoeba of a goal, you need to break it down and backward plan!
Consider this:
Big Goal: Learn Spanish.
Current Objective: Be able to introduce myself with basic biographical info and pleasantries
Things I’ll need: Verbs and adjectives, pleasantries.
How I’ll get the things I need: Speaking practice, Writing practice, etc. etc.
How I’ll know how it’s going: periodic assessments
With these figured out, I can sit down, look at a calendar, and start to write down the exact speaking activities I want to do on certain days, making sure that I then allot time for the writing activities. I’m assessing priority, and balancing all the skills we need to work on.
Ok, so….. Let’s look at healing from burnout.
Goal: Get healthy
Current Objectives: Reduce inflammation (perhaps in order to reduce joint pain, improve digestion, minimize headaches)
Things I’ll need: Daily movement, increase in fatty acids, stress reduction
How I’ll get the things I need: yoga and walks, fish oil, meditation and therapy
How I’ll know how it’s going: Symptom tracking
Now…I look at the calendar. How many times can I realistically do yoga or go for a walk? Great. Schedule it. I need to take fish oil daily. Set a reminder. I want to try to meditate for 10 minutes a day and do therapy every two weeks. Schedule it.
You would never expect to be able to reach a complex goal like learning a language, or any new skill that is so broad, without a plan. The same is true for improving your health. You’re asking your whole brain and body to rewire. It IS learning a new, incredibly broad skill. So, you need a curriculum!
The ability to put the mental load onto a physical piece of paper and leave it there is incredibly liberating and actually, crucial. Just as it was immensely relaxing and stress relieving for me to plan out my year in advance as a teacher, planning out a path to health goes much more smoothly when you release the daily “What am I supposed to be doing?” question and “I know I should make time for X” shame.
Removing mental burden is one of the central ideas behind the program I designed. It’s a backward planned “curriculum” for getting out of burnout, inflammation, or poor immune function (those are all kinda the same). I created a tool for you to use to set goals and backward plan your way to health, down to the necessary daily care tasks.
Now. I need a name for this book/program. Any ideas?!? SEO experts are especially encouraged to submit suggestions ;)