The Art of Setting Realistic Pelvic Health Goals - Episode 27
Dr. Kari Roberts explores the intricacies of achieving success in pelvic physical therapy on her podcast. She shares a client story and personal insights, highlighting the common setbacks of inconsistency and the feeling of plateauing. The episode delves into the framework necessary for creating achievable goals, ensuring they are beneficial, impactful, enforceable, and meaningful. By adopting a strategic and consistent approach, both therapist and patient can foster progress in pelvic health. The episode serves as a guide to understanding the commitment required for tangible results in physical therapy and overall well-being.
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Dr. Kari: What does it take to make progress with pelvic physical therapy? If you've wondered that, then stay tuned to this episode.
Welcome to the Marron Pelvic Health Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Kari Roberts. On this show, we will be discussing a variety of things regarding your pelvic health. These conversations will be a mix of education, personal experiences, and a blend of tips you can apply to have a healthier pelvis.
The goal of this show is to normalize conversations around pelvic health and help women stop suffering in silence.
And today I wanted to talk about what it takes to get results from pelvic physical therapy and what it just takes to really make favorable outcomes or get meet those goals with pelvic physical therapy.
And this, the reason why I'm discussing this is twofold. One is because something that I'm going through personally, and two, because of something, a conversation that has kind of been coming up multiple times with a specific client.
Now, what's going on with a client, it's like, you know, it's two steps forward and one step back. Two steps forward and one step back. And what we've noticed is, what I've noticed is when she has two step forward, forward, she is like, oh, my goodness, everything's working great.
I don't think I need to come.
Things are being amazing. And then I'm having the conversation.
Let's call her Stephanie, just to keep it neutral. Stephanie.
Stephanie, even though things are going great, we still need to continue to be consistent and continue to work, push forward towards your goals. Just because you're doing great, you know you're going to hit that plateau.
You might have that step backwards. So we're having that conversation. And then when she falls off the bandwagon and is not consistent and she takes that instead of a step back, she might take two steps back or maybe three steps back.
Then it's, the world is falling, Nothing is working. Now I don't want to come in because therapy is not working. So then we have to have the conversation. Stephanie, you haven't really been consistent.
You kind of fell off. You fell off with the things that we know that have been working. Let's go back to square one and let's try to get back on board with things that we know that so that you can have a measure of consistency, meet some goals, and then now we can start building on some progress so that you can start moving forward again.
And how this ties in with me is I had to have come to Jesus with myself. I'm not Where I want to be physically, I'm not where I want to be physically.
As far as how I feel on my skin, I'm not where I want to be physically, as far as how I look when I look in the mirror, how I feel when I'm moving around in the world.
And I am a physical therapist and, and I needed to stop making excuses for myself. And it's like, you know, if I'm choosing to not be consistent with what I know I need to do to be, to eat right or to exercise, then I know I am choosing for these outcomes to be physically not in shape.
If I'm choosing to not do my exercises right, if I'm choosing to not do my pelvic floor exercises, then I am choosing to have a bladder flare up. For me personally, that's not true with everybody because some people's bladder flare ups are due to stresses or things that are happening outside of their control.
So I'm not putting any of this on them. But I know my body and for my body personally, I need to have a consistent routine with my stretches and some of those other things so that I don't have a flare up.
And so when I was having this conversation with Stephanie, we'll call her Stephanie, I was realizing I'm actually talking to myself.
I need to be consistent with what I'm doing with my pelvic floor, and I need to be consistent with what I want to do with my body physically so that I can feel good, right?
So I need to make a decision. I'm going to be consistent with my pelvic floor exercises so that my bladder can be under control. I need to be consistent with my exercises at the gym so that I can feel better in my skin.
So then that got me thinking about, I need to make sure that as a physical therapist, when I'm creating exercise plans and treatment plans for my patients, I need to make sure that I'm meeting them where they are so that we can keep the momentum moving forward, so that they are feeling like they're making progress, so that we can just keep that forward progress.
And they can feel that progress that they're being made, and they can feel that they are moving forward and that they are attaining goals and they're reaching their goals. So that made me think about what does it look like to create goals that are achievable.
So I really think that you need to create realistic goals. And so when I say a realistic goal, I don't necessarily mean that goal, which might be you're Going to pelvic physical therapy so that your.
You can stop leaking when you lift, that might be your ultimate goal, right? So you can stop leaking when you lift. But you might have a bunch of other little goals.
So you might have another goal where maybe your pelvic physical therapist is giving you some exercises that she needs you to do a couple of days a week, or she might have you do some deep breathing a couple of times a day, or she might be having you do a bladder log, or she.
She might have you watch what you're eating or watch how you're managing your stress or things like that. So how can me, as a physical therapist, how can I give those kind of instructions and make it so that my patients can follow through on those things?
So those little incremental goals, how can I make those things realistic? And so I came up with some. A list of things that I think can help these things be attainable or realistic.
Sorry, how these things can be realistic. And so what I came up with was making sure that the goal is attainable. So I had a patient that was here just a little while ago, and she came in and she says, I'm not doing my homework.
I'm not doing my homework. My home life is going through transition. I've got multiple children.
My life is in transition. My work is in transition. There are a lot of things going on. I don't have time for it.
So if I'm telling her, you need to do these exercises every day, it's not going to happen. Okay, so what does your work, what does your work day, week look like?
Okay, what do your weekends look like? Okay, so instead of saying, you need to do these exercises every day knowing it's not going to happen, what can we do to make sure that you can get this in at least once a week?
Can we be consistent once a week? Now I just took that meaningful activity and I made it attainable because we found a space in her week where it is attainable.
So, yes, you have a pocket of time on Wednesday where you can do this thing on a consistent basis. So now that thing is now attainable because we found a pocket of time where you can do it.
And she is the type of person where once it's in her planner, it's as good as done. She put it in her planner. She's like, okay, I can do this on Wednesdays.
Something else that can make a goal realistic is make it beneficial. I don't want you to do something just to check a box for me. I'm not making a goal to go to the gym.
My personal goal is to work out and lift weight, train at least two days a week. I'm not lift weight training two days a week just to. For the fact of checking a box.
No, I'm not doing it just to check a, check a box. I'm doing it for benefit. What are the benefits?
I personally want to.
I want to get stronger. I want my blood work to be better the next time I go to the doctor. So, so what is the benefit for my patient? Why do I want you to do this thing?
Do I? You know, what is the reason? So if you're struggling with trying to have a goal and you're wanting it to be realistic, associate it with a why that is meaningful.
Why, why do you want to do it? What is the benefit of you being consistent with this goal? Be it one day a week or five days a week or once a day or whatever, whatever the case may be.
Why is it beneficial?
The next thing is, how does it impact your life? Make sure that that goal is, meaning, excuse me, is impactful. For my patient, it is impactful because as she starts to make progress with that thing on a weekly basis, it's going to help her with her bladder control.
As her bladder control improves, it's going to help her with how she functions at home with her family and how she functions at work with, you know, at work. For me, how is it impactful?
It'll be impactful for me because I will be able to move around the world better because I will be stronger and it'll feel, yeah, I will feel stronger up and down the stairs and things like that.
So what, how will that impact the life? So we've got a why with the benefit, we've got an impact. So how does it impact your life? The next thing is, is it enforceable?
How are you going to enforce it? So with my patient, she's one of these people where she pulled out her planner, she put it in her phone on the calendar, it's as good as done.
Other people, you might need to write it out on scratch paper. Other people, you might need to put it in as a routine. Every time I do this, I do that.
How can you make it something that's enforceable or trackable or a way to make sure you get it done. Another patient that I had today, she brings her husband to all of her appointments.
Her husband is, I always tease him, he's my assistant.
She's really not that great with her impact with following up with her Exercises. But he gives her a gentle reminder. Babe, did you do your exercises? Babe, you know, you're going back to therapy in a couple of days.
We're spending this money. We're taking time out of our schedules. Can you. Can you do these exercises? So he is. What makes it enforceable? Like, do you have a buddy system?
Do you have an accountability partner? What can you put in your life to make sure that you're going to enforce and actually do this goal?
And then the fourth. Sorry, the fifth thing is, is it meaningful? Is that goal meaningful? How. How is it valuable in your life?
Again, it's beyond just checking a box. So when I think about my patient that was kind of like when she feel, she drops off, and when she feels not so great, she drops off.
Well, the meaningfulness is if she's. When she's consistent and she sticks to it even when she's feeling good, and she builds on that progress. Now she's like, Dr. Carrie, I'm feeling good now.
I'm able to go out with friends. Now I'm able to engage in these sporting activities, and I don't feel pain. Now I'm able to do these other things, and I don't feel uncomfortable when I'm out with friends and I'm sitting in the seat.
And now I'm able to have a little bit more of a social life because I'm not impacted by these other things. See, now she's able to. Her life is enriched.
The meaningfulness is really coming to play because she's not impacted with all these other pelvic floor issues.
My. My patient that I said, you know, can we do this thing one at a time? Her meaningfulness is, you know, now she's able to spend more time with her family.
She's not so impacted by. Negatively by having this issue because she's able to carve out time to get some of this homework done. So just as a review, when you really want to make some headway with your pelvic floor therapy, or if you're thinking about doing pelvic floor and you're like, what is it going to be like?
It's probably going to be two steps forward and one step back. Just like everything else you think about when. When you're losing weight, you're doing some, you know, you make a change and you get a result, and it feels good.
Okay, you drop. You drop that five pounds. You're like, okay, that's great. Well, how do you drop the next 10? You got to do the same thing over and over and over.
You got to be consistent, consistent, consistent. You don't always see big changes, or you might have a lull for a long time and then drop a little bit more, and then a lull for a little bit more and then drop a little bit more.
The same thing is true with how our body responds to physical therapy or any kind of change that you're making. You've got to be consistent. And the way that you can be consistent is to create these realistic goals that are meaningful.
Excuse me. That are attainable. You find ways that you can actually really do this in real life. They are beneficial.
That you bet you have a real why attached to that goal, a meaningful why. They are impactful. They enrich your life. They are enforceable. You have an accountability partner or a schedule or a tracker or something that really helps you make sure you follow through with this goal.
And it's meaningful. It's something that makes you feel good, or it's a way that it enhances your life. So hopefully this little conversation about how to be consistent with your goals helps you not only have a peek inside what it looks like to be a pelvic floor physical therapy patient, but just really what.
What it's like to be a good patient in general whenever you're going through physical therapy. And if you're thinking about, hey, I think I might want to work under Carrie's tutelage and see what.
What she can help me with, contact me. I would love to be able to have the opportunity to work with you. I would love to be able to flex my mental skills on you and see if we can partner together.
And I can help you create some of these realistic goals to overcome some of your challenges, too.
See you. Oh, one other thing. I have a patient that is an avid listener, and I know she's like Carrie said she was gonna be every two weeks. And this podcast is coming out a week later.
You know who you are, and I want to say I'm sorry, because I know this is coming out a week late, and I. And I owe you one. And this is not forgotten on me.
So here's to being consistent or not consistent. Here's to holding myself accountable for being a week late. And I thank you for being an avid listener, and I thank you for holding me accountable.
And I will be back in your earbuds in two weeks with another episode.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Marron Pelvic Health Podcast. Please do me a favor and leave a review so that more people can find this content and make sure you like and subscribe yourself so you never miss another episode.