As a professional fundraiser, Julia Holman knows what it takes to set an ambitious goal — and then do the work to meet it. But when she had knee surgery, she needed some help setting new goals for herself, and then making those happen. When she connected with a care team following her surgery, she found a way to get back on track.
“I’d had a partial knee replacement, and over the next weeks my care team checked in on me,” Julia recalls. “I was worried about getting back to work, and was dealing with some other health issues and so had a lot of stress. My care team recommended wellness coaching, and so I thought I’d try it out.”
Julia wanted to lose weight, eat better and get more exercise, among other things. Working with her Ascension Care Management care team, she drew up a Wellness Vision Plan with a three-month goal, and then weekly goals to help her get there. Over time, she was able to find an exercise regimen that worked for her, began actively looking for work and even turned an interest in flowers into a garden-club membership and even working to become a competition judge.
“I expected that coaching would help me set goals in terms of my fitness level and get back to where I was before, but when I began working with my care team I became aware of more that I wanted to do,” Julia said. “The coaching helped me simplify the goal-setting process, and having someone to check in with once a week really changed my life.”
As she worked toward better health, Julia also became more of an advocate for herself in terms of interacting with doctors, and so became much more invested in getting, and staying, healthy. Overall, the whole process has helped her confidence during a time when she easily could have given up on improvement.
“If I miss a goal, we look at it and maybe set it again, or maybe just refocus on something else,” she says. “Instead of myself acting as my worst critic, I have a calm, rational person asking me why something is important, and supporting me if I change my focus. I fix things, and I keep moving. Ascension Care Management has really changed my life in a very good way.”
What can you do with a helping hand? Contact Ascension Care Management today at 1 (855) 288-6747 or email acmmembers@ascension.org to get started.
