Baby Steppin'

Monday, December 23, 2013
Geri Lynn Baumblatt, M.A., Editorial Director at Emmi Solutions Baby steps, goal setting, action planning … you may have heard of one or all of them. So instead of giving people an overwhelming list of all the changes they should make to their diet, lifestyle, and activity, this is a great way to help people make changes by taking baby steps. Give it a try.

Start by letting the patient make the decision about making one small, achievable goal they feel they can do that week. After all, when we are empowered to choose what we want to change and how, we’re a lot more likely to do it versus being told.

Then be prepared for pretty much any answer. If someone says they want to work on getting more exercise, ask exactly what they’d like to do first. Doctors have heard everything from: I need to clean my living room this week so I have a place to exercise, to I’ll walk 3 blocks, to I’ll do 100 push-ups everyday.

But how confident are they that they can almost certainly do it that week? Ask “on a scale of one to 10, how sure are you that you’ll be able to do this?"

Generally if people say anything less than seven, they need to set a more attainable goal or problem solve what they can do to improve their confidence so it’s in the high zone. Then follow up in one week to find out what they did.

Instead of being overwhelmed by everything they could do, people make a small change and gain confidence that they can change. And they’re usually encouraged and build on that success.

Like anything new, even something as simple as helping a patient set their first goal can be awkward. But like any procedure you’ve learned, it gets easier. And clinicians find they can do it in as little as two minutes.

If you want to learn more, people like Dr. Kate Lorig and Dr. Hilary Seligman have done great work on this: http://www.healthliteracy.com/article.asp?PageID=6111 & http://www.jabfm.org/content/19/3/324.long.

Tags: patient engagement, communication, shared decision making

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