Day 2: SWOT Analysis - Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses
In every journey, we need tools to survive the challenges and thrive along the way.
Today, let’s do a SWOT analysis—a common tool we use in healthcare quality to improve systems and processes. Translating it to personal healthcare improvement, we want to know what our Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities are, and Threats around us. Our goal is to improve our body systems and physiological processes.
STRENGTHS
Today, list down your Strengths. This will motivate you to do what you’re about to do.
What successes have you had in the past?
What characteristics do you have that will make you achieve your goal?
Are you determined?
Are you resilient?
Do you have faith in yourself? If not, do you have confidence in the power of the Divine within you?
Travel down memory lane today and list events in your life that made you emerge stronger and victorious over the challenges that came your way.
When was the last time that you hurdled a seemingly insurmountable task?
How did you face it?
What did you do to turn the mountain into a molehill?
How did you manage to chop the elephant into bite-sized pieces?
Are you an achiever by nature?
Is patience one of your virtues?
When people describe you, what is the best trait that they come up with?
Write all this down. You’d need these as we move on with our health journey. Mental Mise En Place is all about the mindset. Success begins with commitment.
WEAKNESSES
In the past, what kept you from sticking to your goals? What reservations do you have? Most of the time our historical performance will cause us to doubt and hesitate. What if this endeavor ends in another failure again? Well, better to try and fail than not to try at all. At least, you’d get some insights on what worked and what didn’t.
Were there recurring events, patterns of behavior, even food addictions?
Can you turn your weakness into strength?
Have you tried different approaches?
What made you give up?
Maybe you went too fast?
Or too drastic with the changes?
Perhaps you didn’t have the support of your family?
Or you didn’t have a community that would hold you accountable?
Maybe your commitment was half-hearted?
Was it really a weakness?
Or was it an unrealistic goal that you set?
You can revisit your failed attempts and do something different this time. As a genius once said, “It is stupidity to do something over and over again and expect a different result.”
Let’s get smart this time.
You don’t do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result unless the circumstances are different or you have become different. In anesthesiology, if you keep on repeating the same thing using the same tools and technique that led to a failure in intubation, you’d end up with a disastrous result.
Look at your past performance and identify the things that worked and didn’t work. And write down the reasons why those didn’t work. Avoiding these will increase your chances at success. And of course, don’t forget to identify the things that worked and maintain those. If there are things you can improve on, pursue them.
Make this year a better year. Remember, you can use roadblocks as steppingstones or ease you to a better detour. There are so many things you can do virtually nowadays. I signed up for a half-marathon virtual plan at Zwift just for fun. I know someone who uses the treadmill iFit program for guidance. But if you’ve never trained before, I don’t recommend starting your health journey with exercise. Why? Because many don’t like it. If you won’t like it, you won’t sustain it. And frankly, it’s the most ineffective way of losing weight fast if that’s your goal. You'll only end up getting frustrated and abandon all efforts. It takes time for the body to adapt to training and become a fuel-burning machine. And another waterloo with exercising too soon, you feel entitled to eat… really eat. Very counterintuitive.
That's why in this 40-Day journey, we start with nutrition.