Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / 120 // Using a planner for better health

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120 // Using a planner for better health · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

• 0:00
  Hey, welcome back to Health with Hashimoto's. This is episode 120.
• 0:03
  Do you like to shop? I don't. I really, it stresses me out.
• 0:08
  All of the choices, the like sensory overwhelm of most stores. I don't like shopping.
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  But there is one, nope, two types of stores that I could just spend hours in.
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  And those are bookstores. Love bookstores. I could browse and look and like
• 0:23
  read previews forever. I love bookstores.
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  And then the other one is office supply stores. I just love office supplies.
• 0:30
  I don't know what it is. I really don't.
• 0:33
  Let me know if you are like that. Join our Health with Hashimoto's community
• 0:36
  over on school.com, S-K-O-O-L.com, and search for Health with Hashimoto's or
• 0:41
  click the link in the show notes.
• 0:42
  And join our community. Join the conversations over there. It's such a user-friendly space.
• 0:48
  I love it. No ads, no algorithm, no politics.
• 0:53
  It's just a great place to be. So come join the conversation.
• 0:57
  Today, we're going to be talking about planners. And so I was thinking about
• 1:01
  office stores, office supply stores. I love just looking at all of the planners.
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  If I could have a hundred planners, I might, but I only need one.
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  Today, we're going to talk about how a planner can help you in your health.
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  I want to talk about the different things that you can use a planner for,
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  how the planner itself can help lower your stress.
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  And of course, for Hashimoto's or any autoimmune thing, we need to lower stress
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  because the higher our stress levels are in their body, then the more haywire
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  our immune system is going to be.
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  But how can a planner do that? Great question.
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  So a planner can serve a couple of functions.
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  Number one, it can be a gentle reminder for our health habits.
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  Like you can track your hydration or you can set aside time for rest.
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  You can like block out days on your calendars to do, you know,
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  specific things for your health.
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  You can use a planner like that. You can also track gratitudes.
• 2:00
  You can write down your gratitudes every day and that helps increase your health.
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  There's a lot of different ways that you can use your planner for health.
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  And specifically when I'm talking about planners, I'm really referring to a paper planner.
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  I use my phone. I use the calendar on my phone. So I have Apple and I use that
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  for reminders of places to be and places to go.
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  And I do write them on my paper planner too.
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  I just, if I write it down physically, then my brain holds onto it a little better.
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  But also if my alarm goes off on my phone telling me that I have to leave in
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  10 minutes, that's super helpful.
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  So I use both my Apple calendar and my paper planner for places to go.
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  But for scheduling my day and for writing down gratitudes, things like that.
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  I prefer a paper planner because there's just something about writing by hand,
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  whether you use paper and pencil or pen,
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  whether you have fancy markers or washi tape, there's something about the process
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  of actually writing that talks to your brain differently than tapping out on your phone.
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  So I do love a paper planner.
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  Now, some people will do the combo where you're writing with,
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  you know, like an Apple pen.
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  So an electronic stylus. So you still get the act of writing and then you can
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  get special, like, I don't know, it's a cover for your iPad so that it feels more like paper.
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  So it's got a little bit of that grit and resistance. And it's.
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  I've seen commercials on Instagram or Facebook for them. I've never tried one of them myself.
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  I prefer paper and pen. And the reason I'm talking about this right now,
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  I did have this podcast scheduled or the episode scheduled for later on in the
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  year, but I already got my first pre-Black Friday sales email.
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  And the planner that I have chosen is my favorite.
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  I have used so many planners over the years. I've done bullet journals.
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  I have had several different types of pre-printed planners.
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  The one that I love the most is having an early Black Friday sale.
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  It starts on 1111 at 11 o'clock Eastern time.
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  Makes it easy for you to remember. So the sale starts 1111 at 11 o'clock. It is a 20% off sale.
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  And if you order, you know, more products from them, they also have like a vision board kit.
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  They have a couple other really nice products, like a love letter kit,
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  where you could have this beautiful stationery to write a letter,
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  not necessarily to the person.
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  Like your spouse, but anybody, like your best friend or somebody you appreciate.
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  Anyway, there's several different things on the site. If you order enough, you get a 30% discount.
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  So that is Horatio Printing, H-O-R-A-C-I-O Printing, and I have the dream planner.
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  I will talk about it a little bit more as we go through this episode.
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  But I did want to start this episode earlier in November so you can get in on
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  any sales about what I talk about.
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  And I am not an affiliate for Horatio Printing. I just absolutely love their stuff.
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  And the paper quality. Oh my goodness. If you love office supplies like I do,
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  you know that the paper quality matters.
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  Knowing that I can write on the paper with whatever I have and it's not going to bleed through.
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  That's so awesome. I can't tell you how many different planners or papers I've
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  had and you get the shadowing through or you could just, you know,
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  straight out bleed through.
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  Horatio, like the paper quality is so good.
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  Anyway, back to your health and a planner.
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  So a planner, number one, like I said, it can serve as a gentle reminder for your health habits.
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  So whether you're tracking hydration or you're keeping track of how many steps
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  you take, or you have all of your medications listed out, or you have a page
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  in there to track your labs, or you're using the planner to track your symptoms.
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  So if you have ever gone through the holistic Hashimoto's course, you know that week that
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  week three. That's the gut health week, I think. And there's a journal that
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  I give you or a diary so that you
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  can track how you're eating and how that feels, how your stomach feels.
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  You can track all of your symptoms for between three and five days is what I
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  recommend so that you can get an idea of what foods kind of impact your gut health.
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  But you can do that in a regular planner too. You can track your symptoms and
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  perhaps as you track them, you figure out patterns and you figure out,
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  oh, when I do this, this happens.
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  Making those connections is so crucial to empower you to advocate for your own health.
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  Advocate with yourself to make better choices.
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  You know, sometimes you have to argue with yourself and what you know that you
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  should do maybe is in, like it's arguing with what you really want to do.
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  And you know, maybe having data in your planner can help you make the better choice.
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  That's one way to use a planner. I would love to know what you have used your
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  planner for as far as that.
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  I bought a sticker pack maybe a year ago.
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  And one of the stickers that has multiples in that set, it says progress over
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  perfection. And I will put that over hard weeks.
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  I will put that sticker at the top of the page so that when I'm tracking things,
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  I don't just to say, oh, I screwed up once.
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  Never going to do that again. You know, that's a, that's a wash.
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  No, I am working. I am making progress.
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  If I, you know, don't hit my step count in a day, which sometimes it totally happens.
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  It's not that I give up on that goal. It's just that the next day I get back
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  up and I start walking again because I know that progress matters more than perfection.
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  And having a paper planner kind of helps me get back into that.
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  And I will admit that some years I have had weeks where I didn't touch it.
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  And then I was like, well, I didn't touch it. So I might as well just like scrap the year.
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  Which is just a crazy mindset, but that's what I did.
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  So I am happy to say that I have gotten better about that progress over perfection
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  mindset, and I give myself more grace.
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  I hope that you can also give yourself grace when you understand that I didn't
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  do things awesome today, but tomorrow is a new day.
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  So that's a couple different ways that you can use a planner for tracking and for your health goals.
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  You can also use a planner to reduce your mental load.
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  I don't know if you're familiar with that phrase, like your mental load,
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  but as soon as I say it, you probably know what I mean.
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  We carry a lot in our heads.
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  And especially if you're a mom, plus you have a job or you have all the stuff
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  at home, plus you have all of the kids' activities, but maybe that's just the season of life I'm in.
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  And you can list off a whole bunch of other things that you have on your mind
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  that is in your mental load,
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  even if you are not in the same stage of life as I am with kids needing to go
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  to multiple places and that I have a couple businesses and jobs.
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  Maybe you're not balancing the things that I am balancing, but you still have
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  a lot on your plate. We call that mental load.
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  And when you have a lot on your plate, It's a stressor.
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  And so if we can figure out different ways to lower that mental load,
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  to reduce the mental load, then we're going to lower our stress levels.
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  And one way to do that is by writing things out.
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  When you write out your week, it really does reduce the mental load because it's contained.
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  Your brain isn't like, oh my goodness, I have to remember this.
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  I have to remember this. I have to remember this.
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  You've already written it down. And if you need an alarm, you put that in your
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  phone. You already have it, so now your brain doesn't have to hold on to it
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  and it reduces your mental load.
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  It reduces your stress.
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  I love that aspect of having a planner.
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  If you need some info on planning and reducing mental load, I highly recommend
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  the podcast Systemize Your Life by Chelsea Jo.
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  It is so good. She's got like over 500 episodes by now.
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  So you can just go and search and look at her time blocking method or look at
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  her, I think she calls it a five block method.
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  You can look at more recent episodes where she's talking about planners.
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  It's actually through her that I found out about the Horatio printing and bought mine last year.
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  And I am buying or I already bought my dream planner for this year.
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  So she does talk about that planner, but she also talks about like so many different
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  things about planning and how to make your life work better.
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  Highly recommend Systemize Your Life, that podcast.
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  So that's another thing that a planner can do. It can reduce your mental load,
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  which can reduce your stress and that in turn helps your immune system.
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  Another thing that having a planner can do is it can help you manage your fatigue,
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  manage those brain fog days.
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  If you have those days, you know how important it is to have things written
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  down because all of a sudden your brain is just, it's like it tuned out for the day.
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  You can't rely on your brain to tell you what you're going to do or to remember
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  what was important because your brain checked out.
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  It's like, nope, if you don't have it written down, it's not going to happen.
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  So having a planner to manage those days when you're completely exhausted or
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  to manage the days when your brain just doesn't feel like it's working,
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  that is another way to use your planner.
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  It can help break down overwhelming things into simple action steps.
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  I talked to my oldest son just yesterday and he told me he was all done with
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  school for the day. And I said, great, go show me your planner.
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  I create a planner for both of my homeschooled kids.
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  And at the beginning of the year, we looked at our goals. My oldest is a senior
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  this year. And so he's got life goals.
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  He has goals for school that will help equip him to be an adult,
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  to launch him into adulthood.
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  And we're trying to make it, you know, simple and seamless because it's a big step.
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  And so when he got his planner, all he had was check marks. He didn't have anything
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  written down for what he did.
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  He just checked like math, check, history, check, science, check.
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  I'm like, oh my goodness. Okay.
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  Let's go back to the beginning of your planner and
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  Let's look at your goals for the year and tell me how what you did today supports those goals.
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  How what you did today will move you one step closer to where you want to go.
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  Because checking off things in school, I don't want it to be just busy work.
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  I want your day to move you closer to your goal. And that's how I see our health too and everything.
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  We can have goals in life. We can have goals in our health.
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  And every day we're just making progress. And I love that. And that doesn't
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  mean there's tons of pressure every single day.
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  Like, let's break down the big goal into simple things that we can do.
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  And that also goes for things that just feel big.
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  Like, I have to make a doctor's appointment for one of my kids.
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  He has an ingrown toenail. and so he needs to go see a podiatrist.
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  And I have had, you know, make an appointment on my list of things to do,
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  but I have realized that that is too big of a goal because I don't know what podiatrist to do.
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  So maybe breaking down that make an appointment is number one.
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  Find what clinics are in my area and in my insurance network so that I can make the appointment.
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  And then step two, maybe find a phone number. And then step three,
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  call and make the appointment. but I have to do the little steps.
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  If I just have the big one on my to-do list, obviously it's not getting done.
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  It's been on my to-do list for, I think, three weeks.
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  So I just thought of this as I was talking to you right now about how I can
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  break that down so that I can get it done.
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  And that is what we can do with a planner. And quite honestly,
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  I didn't even have that written down.
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  It's just something that my husband and I have been talking about and it was
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  on my plate and I haven't written it down and I haven't broken it down into smaller pieces.
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  Thank you for letting me, you know, verbalize this because now I'll be able to do it better.
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  Another way that a planner can help us with our health, making those appointments, right?
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  When you join the Holistic Hashimoto's course, when you enroll in that,
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  you are going to see a wheel of health.
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  And, you know, it's that circle where you fill in how you're doing for each thing.
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  And if you ever have a, you know, Hashimoto's session with me, we do the same thing.
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  I send it to you before the session so that we can talk about your life,
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  all the different things, not just one thing, all the different things.
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  One thing I love about my dream planner is that
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  it has this wheel in it and you
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  can get this and other planners come with it but
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  you can download it off you know anywhere online the one
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  in the horatio planner the dream planner specifically has eight different pie
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  pieces and they range from your professional life your financial your personal
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  spiritual physical your dwelling and then there's two empty ones that you can fill in.
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  And I put my marriage and being, and then in the center is a question, who do I want to become?
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  Now, looking at that at the beginning of every single season,
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  it has that wheel. And it asks that question, who do I want to become in each of those areas?
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  So not just a dream about, you know, something nebulous, like I want to be healthier,
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  but actually, you know, how do I want to show up in my personal life?
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  How do, who, who do I want to become?
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  So for my spiritual at the very beginning of the year, I said I want to listen
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  to the Bible every single day.
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  I chose an audio Bible for my daily Bible, you know, quote reading.
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  And that's what I wrote at the beginning of the year. I have maintained that
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  pretty much every single day. Some days I, you know, catch up on the backlog.
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  But that is one thing I wrote at the beginning of the year and have maintained
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  it. But here is what is cool.
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  After you go through your wheel on, I think it's the next page.
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  Or maybe a couple pages later, it asks, you know, why do you want to do those things?
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  And then what are you specifically going to plan into your weeks to make that
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  happen? And I love that it's so tangible.
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  Like, who do you want to become now? How are you going to make it happen?
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  And you can do that in so many different areas of your life.
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  Of course, we're talking about Hashimoto's. We know that there is a genetic component.
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  You can't change your genes, but you can use, you know, nutrigenomics.
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  Nutrition impacts your genes.
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  Nutrigenomics, you can use that to impact your health. We know that there is
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  a gut component for Hashimoto's and all autoimmune things.
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  So you can look at your gut and you can look at the different things that you're eating.
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  There's different triggers. There's so many things that you can look at specifically
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  for your autoimmune health in your planner and you can write them down and you can track them.
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  You can make goals and then achieve them.
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  That's another thing I love about a planner and how it can help in your overall health.
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  So hopefully by now I have given you some reasons to want to have a planner
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  and you don't have to get the same one that I do.
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  I love it so much, but I know that there are so many different kinds of planners on the market.
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  So what are you going to look for in a planner? Number one, I want you to look for a planner.
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  Go out and look and find something that's going to help you support your overall goals.
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  It's going to lower your mental load and stress and it's going to work for you.
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  So to have that, you have to find one that appeals to you. Is it the cover?
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  Is that going to call out to you? Is it the paper quality? Is it the size?
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  Some years I have wanted a smaller planner. Some years I have had a bigger one.
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  This year I have one that is like a medium. It's the Goldilocks range, and I love it.
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  But what are you going to look for that will make you want to open the planner?
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  That's kind of number one, because if you don't open the planner,
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  then nothing else matters.
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  What's on the inside doesn't matter if you don't want to open it.
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  So choose a planner that you will want to open.
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  And then look at different things like the layout. Do you want a vertical or a horizontal layout?
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  Do you want, you know, a gridded every single hour of the day is accounted for?
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  Or do you want more blank space?
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  Do you want more margin? Do you want more in there? Do you, like,
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  there's so many different things to look for.
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  Do you want space for a daily gratitude?
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  That was one thing that pushed me over the edge when I got my Panda Planner.
• 19:03
  I loved my Panda Planner. It ended up to be a little bit too busy for me.
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  I did use a Panda Planner for, I think, two years, maybe three,
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  before I found the Dream Planner.
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  And I love the Panda Planner. And the Panda Planner, let me say,
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  you can get a PDF that is all their different layouts.
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  So I actually printed it and used a different layout for two weeks to test it
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  out before I bought my full year or maybe it was a quarter planner.
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  So, you know, see if the planner that you're looking at has a try it before
• 19:36
  you buy it type option where you can print out the PDF.
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  There's a lot of different things to look at in the planner world.
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  But just know that using a planner can reduce your mental load.
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  It can reduce your stress.
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  It can support your health goals.
• 19:53
  Using a planner can make you a healthier person.
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  So go ahead and take a selfie with your planner right now. Let us know what you're looking for.
• 20:03
  Come join a conversation about planners and all things goals related if you
• 20:08
  want over in our school community, school.com, that's S-K-O-O-L.com,
• 20:14
  the Health with Hashimoto's community.
• 20:15
  I'll see you over there. And of course, I'll be right back here on the podcast
• 20:19
  next week. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
• 20:23
  Please discuss any concerns and plans with your trusted healthcare professional.
• 20:27
  If you found this episode helpful, will you please share it with a friend?
• 20:31
  I'll see you next week on the.
• 20:33
  Music.