Our Ask An Angel correspondent is Arlene Petersen, Life Care Navigation Specialist in the area of senior home care.
Q. I feel overwhelmed. I know I am supposed to take care of myself so I have energy to care for my family, but I can’t even begin to think of how to do that. Help!
A. It’s great that you acknowledge where you are. The challenge now is for you to act on what you know and make a change. Like any new endeavor we want to take on or goal we make, we need a plan. Another vital ingredient to making any change in our life is to have an accountability partner. With that in mind, let’s start with the plan part. A plan consists of desired goals that can be broken down. The more specific, the better. If your goal is to have more time for yourself, the challenge is to consider what that would look like. The honest answers you come up with can be turned into steps to reach that goal. Those steps can be broken down further to make the process to accomplish them more bite size. Once you have this “list” in place, share it with someone. This person is your accountability partner. Sharing it with someone you trust is very important. The right person will keep you on task to help you accomplish your goals. Once you have an accountability partner, establish how often you will check in with that person. Set up a couple of questions you will answer when you have a check in call with your partner. Have your accountability partner question how often you were true to your desired goals. It’s not a time to make you feel like you fell short, it is an opportunity for your partner to encourage you to try again. None of us are perfect and we can all use a little boost to get to where we want to be. Ultimately, the idea is to fill your tank so your frustration level is reduced. This gives a renewed outlook to care with compassion.
Have a question for our angel correspondent? You can send our angel an email to apetersen@visitingangels.com or send your question via mail to Ask An Angel, 65 Woodbury St., South Elgin, IL 60177.
