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The Key to Surviving and Thriving

It may not be what you think it is!


Surviving and Thriving

When you or someone you care about gets a cancer diagnosis, the fear and anxiety you experience might motivate you to start taking better care of yourself ... making better food choices, getting a little more exercise, managing your stress, or spending your time on what matters most to you.


And that's a good thing.


Often, this motivation kicks off a long process of seeking out self-care advice from the internet, books, friends, relatives, and health and wellness professionals. And given that there's no shortage of advice to be found, this can quickly become confusing and overwhelming.


But you might get lucky and come across a few self-care tips that make sense to you and you're willing to try. And you do try. And a day ... or two ... or three go by and you manage to stay on track with your new self-care goal. But before long, something gets in the way - usually, the daily busyness of life, slipping back into old habits, fatigue or symptoms, or realizing that your new habit wasn't such a good match for you after all. And that's a normal pattern.


But you know how important it is to make some healthy changes - for your recovery, managing your symptoms and side effects, your quality of life, your long-term chances of recurrence, and your ability to function. And yet, when you tried to make it happen you experienced how challenging it really is. And you are left frustrated and discouraged.


So, what's the secret?

It's not about finding the right healthy habit that's magically going to work for you.


There's a lot of research showing that the secret to successfully adding good self-care habits into your life, and maintaining those habits over the long term, has to do with the level of self-management skills you've developed.


While we are all trying to sift through the mountains of advice to find just the right foods to eat, the best tea to drink, the most beneficial combination of supplements, or the best mindfulness practice, etc. - it turns out that it's good self-management skills that have the biggest impact on our ability to manage, recover, function, and thrive!


Learning

If you don't have good self-management skills, you're going to have a hard time following through on any goal and making it last. Your self-management skills are the foundation that enables you to identify, work toward, achieve, and maintain your self-care and life-related goals.


Fortunately, they can be learned!


So, it looks like the place to focus your time and energy is on developing your self-management skills.


What are self-management skills?

For someone with a cancer diagnosis, self-management is the ability to learn and use skills that help them cope with the illness and the impact that it has on their daily life. For all of us, self-management is the ability to learn and use skills that help us cope with life, meet challenges, bounce back when knocked down, identify what is good for us, make choices that are aligned with who we are, and follow through with our goals. Some of these skills include:

  • resilience

  • mindfulness

  • knowing your strengths

  • managing your weakness and self-esteem

  • clarifying your values and letting them guide your choices

  • emotional intelligence

  • creating a support system that includes people, resources, and tools

  • being able to set goals and follow through in ways that can be maintained over time


Why are self-management skills important?

Let's look at what the research has revealed. People with good self-management skills:

  • tend to have more and better relationships

  • experience less depression, anxiety, and fewer suicidal thoughts

  • experience fewer hospitalizations during treatment

  • have lower recurrence and mortality rates

  • reduction in psychological distress

  • reduced severity of symptoms

  • improved quality of life

  • improved physical functioning

  • improved management of their long-term side effects


Self-management and the cancer experience.


The cancer experience

Advances in treatment have resulted in more people living with and surviving cancer.


While each individual experience is unique, patients often have a list of challenges that they - and their caregivers, loved ones, and friends - must learn to manage.


Self-management skills are how you manage.

  • Taking responsibility for managing complex treatment protocols

  • Restructuring their daily lives to accommodate ongoing treatment

  • Managing the life-changing impacts of cancer outside of their treatment (career, financial, relationships, self-image, and sense of self)

  • Meeting the responsibilities for recognizing and reporting changes in their health that could indicate recurrence or metastases

  • Learning and applying healthier behaviors to help reduce the risk of recurrence and optimize health and quality of life

  • Responding to the urge to rearrange life priorities to accommodate new perspectives, roles, relationships, and goals

Developing your self-management skills helps you meet these challenges with more resilience, adaptability, stamina, and confidence.


Why do cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers need cancer coaches?

Cancer coaches are the experts who are trained to help you learn these skills and put them into practice. Here at My Best Life Coaching, you can find a collection of resources to get you started and the support you need to keep you moving forward.


There is help available to help you manage your recovery phase, your "new normal", or to make changes in a way you can maintain over time.


That's the key to surviving and thriving!





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