first steps

I’m a Healthcare Assistant in NHS primary care. Part of my job is monitoring patients’ long term health conditions and advising them on where they can make lifestyle changes to stay as well as possible, for as long as possible.

I often see the same patients year after year and can find they’ve started and stopped, or never even started to make the changes they so enthusiastically agreed they’d try last time I saw them.

I’ve realised that to make big lifestyle changes, rather than telling my patients how to get fitter/lose weight/quit smoking, I need to help to empower them to decide what and how they’re going to help themselves.

My role needs to be less teacher, more guide and supporter. I need to build a relationship with my patient. Facilitate a conversation based on their concerns or raise their awareness of detrimental health choices for them to discover their own path forwards. Help them identify and break down the barriers that have stopped them in the past. Support them by encouraging them to set goals and clarify how they can reach them.

I have recently enrolled on several courses through my job including Making Every Contact Count (using every opportunity to start a conversation encouraging better lifestyle choices), Group Consultations (setting up and running group appointments. Facilitating conversations between patients with the same conditions so they can support each other with motivation and advice in a safe environment with clinicians on hand to answer medical queries) and Motivational Interviewing (guiding patients to use their own strengths and set goals, encouraging them to be the decision makers and discover their own motivations for change).

But, before I can help others, I need to work out what motivates me. My first steps. Where do I see myself in a years time? What do I need to do to get there? Is my goal realistic and achievable?

Big questions with some but not all of the answers. My brain has been on overdrive recently with excitement and, I’ll admit, some fear of the unknown and potentially upsetting my happy life. But unless I try, I’ll wonder and if all I achieve is the knowledge that actually life as it is is just fine, thanks… well that’s still a positive, right?

My motivations are to offer consistent, ongoing support to people ready to make a lifestyle change and be more in control of how I do that.

In one year I see myself well on the way to being a Health Coach. I see the Group Consultations at work being successful and both patients and staff benefiting from them. I will work with my colleagues to promote healthy lifestyle choices for our patients and each other.

I will to enroll onto a Health Coaching Diploma Course. A distance learning course will make it realistic and achievable.

I need to communicate with my colleagues my personal plans and request the support of my manager and employers.

Step one. A plan.