Tag: healthy resolutions

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Treatment Expectations

Its always your choice

Earlier today I had someone come to do work at my house. I had gotten the name through a referral partner and I already knew that the person was a good cost. My expectations were moderately high going into the visit based on both cost and the fact that he was a recommendation. After he left, I sat back and thought about the visit. I thought that he basically “met” my expectations and that was it. I was by no means disappointed, he answered all my questions, and I felt he gave me the information I was looking for and the solution I expected.

That being said, I didn’t see myself jumping up and down to refer anyone to him nor to sing his praises to the internet. Then I had the thought, “I want to exceed my patients’ treatment expectations.”  Working in other offices and for other people rarely let me exceed expectations.  In fact, looking back, it was part of the reason that I felt I needed to start my own practice. Maybe I hadn’t thought those exact words, but it was the feeling I was chasing. I rarely felt that I was able to “wow” patients in the other offices. Either I couldn’t use the full extent of my knowledge based on time constraints or I was required to follow certain payment options and payment plans, and specific ways to “sell” the patient on their treatment I felt they needed. All of these factors strangled my creativity and my ability to connect with the person in front of me.

I want to exceed expectations. I want my patients to come in expecting great things and then receiving not only great things, but being excited and wanting to share their experience. I want to be Instagramable. You know what I mean. Picture the last time you went to dinner at a new restaurant and your food came out and it was presented beautifully. your mouth started watering and you thought, “I NEED to share this moment with everyone I know right now!”

That is the reaction I want. I want you to leave my office and think, “I need to share this experience with EVERYONE!”

I don’t have any pre-fabricated treatment plans before you come into the office. I don’t have a certain treatment protocol for each injury and I don’t have any kind of guarantee of a wellness plan. I want your concerns to be my concerns and I want your goals to be my goals. I want you to tell me your expectations and I want to be able to exceed them. If I personally cannot exceed your expectations, I want to help you find the place where those expectations are exceeded.

Please don’t hesitate to call or email to get answers to your questions.

As always, keep moving.

Dr Cate

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Fulfilling your Healthy Resolutions

What were your resolutions last year? Do you even remember them? I can tell you that last year I was pretty specific about my resolutions.

  1. Enjoy every minute of wedding planning.
  2. Become a morning person.

I didn’t reach too far, but I chose what I thought to be attainable goals. I succeeded with exactly 50% of my resolutions. I had a GREAT time planning my wedding. The thing about coming a morning person… Not even close.

sunrise
How I imagine mornings would look if I was actually up in time…

I made a rookie mistake with my resolutions. I chose something that wasn’t a definable step. It was an end result and not the details of how to get there. This year I’m going to try again with the morning person thing, only I’m going to label it different. I can’t change a core component of who I am without giving some details of what being a “morning person” actually means.Steaming6

I frequently see patients make a similar mistake by creating a goal of “becoming healthy.” What does “be healthy” mean to you? I want to challenge everyone to baby steps and to change our New Year Resolution into “6 monthly resolutions.” Or a 6 step program to completing your healthy resolutions.

So let me do this with you. I still want to “become a morning person” and I’ve decided to define this as someone that has no problems getting out of bed and enjoying the time spent getting ready for the day. So let’s give this a try…

  1. January: Drink 70 ounces of water each day.
  2. February: No Coffee or caffeine after 10:30am.
  3. March: Begin setting alarm 10 minutes earlier.
  4. April: Actually get up 10 minutes earlier.
  5. May: Do Yoga stretches for 10 minutes before leaving the house
  6. June: Put it all together. Tweak as needed.

As you can see, I’m giving myself a really good amount of time to reach for my healthy resolution and change how I function on a daily basis. Notice that I give myself and entire month to prepare to get out of bed just 10 minutes earlier… Ha!

What are your resolutions? Do you have something based in health? Do you want to get out of pain or start exercising more? Have you been meaning to try to lose weight? Or fill yourself with more self confidence? I suggest looking at the things in the past that have stopped you from getting there and begin to make changes in stages. So for example, if you want to start exercising more, what is usually stopping you? I hear a lot about Knee pain, or ankle pain or fatigue stopping people from exercising. We need to look at that as a separate and primary step in creating your New Years Resolution.

I have no doubt that your coming year is going to be amazing. Just let me know when and where I can help!

Be safe and as always, thank you for reading.

Dr Cate