Creating the life you want to live after cancer

"If you want to create something different, you have to create something that didn't exist in your past." - Brooke Castillo

Over the past two years, a part of my job has been to provide patients with survivorship care plans. These plans were a product of the 2005 Institute of Medicine's Lost in Transition report on cancer survivorship. This report recognized the gaps that existed (and still exist) between providers and people after treatment they complete treatment. Although this report is almost 15 years old and these problems STILL persist today. I believe a large reason is how we approach it.

In many programs, survivorship care plans are a stack of paper that review the treatment received, side-effects, and health improvement recommendations. They are provided either in person or over the phone usually over an hour. We tell patients all the things they need to do to improve their health, like not smoking, eating a balanced diet, managing stress, and exercising daily. Then we wish them well with the next steps of their lives. 

If telling someone is all it took for them to do these things, they would have achieved it years ago. The reality is simply telling someone to do something does not work. An hour meeting in person even with motivational interviewing is not enough to change someone's mind or life since most of these unhealthy habits people have had for YEARS.

Research is showing more and more that people need to change their mind-set to make lasting change. This means we need to get our minds on board and working with us instead of auto-pilot self-sabotage. 

So how do we actually make new healthy habits and create the life we have always wanted?

I believe a lot of this lies in first self-awareness. This means understanding the history and why we doing said unhealthy activity. Below are two exercises I use as a life coach to get clear on what's happening and why.

My Why:

Take out a sheet of paper and think about an unhealthy habit you want to fix and write at the top WHY I DO (INSERT HABIT). Then give yourself some time and write down everything that pops into your head, don't leave any out. That includes the ones that you try to brush away or avoid. 

100 Urges:

Write down whenever you have an urge write it down, what you were thinking, how it felt, and how you managed it. 

I love this exercise so much and recommend everyone do it for unhealthy habits. I have used it for myself to understand triggers and why I was overeating.  It helps to understand what's going on in your mind when you do something. It gives you real-time information and is great if you don't know why you do something. 

After you complete one of these exercises, take time and really look at what you wrote down.

• Are there any patterns or themes? 
• Is there specific emotions tied to it, certain situations, or times of the day? 
• Are there specific thoughts you are thinking? 

Awareness is the first step towards change and breaking the feedback loops we have created. These are the issues that need to be worked on if you want lasting change.  

For many, the step after awareness is one of the hardest parts, since these beliefs can be deeply rooted and our brains are on autopilot. Reprogramming our brains can be uncomfortable since it's new and unfamiliar. This is hard work, but it's worth it because what is better than getting the life you want and becoming the person you want to be?