Have you been diagnosed with a chronic illness or disease? Do you feel like a victim, wondering why this happened to you? It’s normal to feel frustrated, angry, and sad. But dwelling on victimhood prevents you from moving forward in a positive way. The first step is to take accountability for your health. What does this mean? Let’s break it down.
You Play a Role in Your Own Health
It’s tempting to blame doctors for missing a diagnosis, to blame genetics for predispositions, to blame food manufacturers for creating unhealthy products. Those external factors may contribute, but at the end of the day, you make choices that impact your health every single day.
You choose what to eat, how much to exercise, how much sleep to get, and how much stress is in your life. Making healthy choices in all of those areas can significantly reduce your chances of developing chronic illnesses and improve outcomes if you do get sick.
So while genetics and environmental factors play a role, you also hold responsibility. Your daily choices determine around <mark>70-80% of your overall health</mark>. That’s huge!
Taking Accountability Puts You in the Driver’s Seat
When you take accountability for your role in your health, both past and present, you empower yourself to make changes. You transition from victim to active participant in your healing process.
Rather than waiting for doctors to “fix” you with the perfect pill or treatment protocol, you realize you have the power to improve your health every single day through your diet, movement, sleep, stress management, and other lifestyle factors.
This accountability mindset is freeing because it gives you hope. Your health is not entirely out of your hands. You have more control than you realized.
How to Take Accountability in a Healthy Way
Now taking accountability doesn’t mean blaming yourself or beating yourself up over past choices. That counterproductive mindset leads only to shame and discouragement.
Here are some tips for taking accountability in a healthy way:
- Acknowledge areas where you could have made better choices in the past, without self-judgment. Look at it as gathering data to make informed choices now.
- Forgive yourself for any unhealthy choices you may have made in ignorance. You did the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time.
- Focus on the factors within your control today – your diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, supplements, social connection, etc.
- Consult doctors and natural health practitioners to uncover any underlying issues you can address through lifestyle, like gut health, hormones, toxicity, deficiencies, etc.
- Commit to incremental changes and be patient with yourself in the process. Lasting change takes time.
The goal is to strike a balance between accountability and self-compassion. Take responsibility for your health without taking on blame or guilt.
The Payoff for Embracing Accountability
When you accept accountability and start optimizing your daily habits, you’ll likely start to feel better physically and emotionally. Other benefits include:
- More energy and better sleep
- Reduced inflammation and pain
- Improved lab markers and test results
- Less reliance on medications
- A sense of empowerment and control
Every positive change you make, however small, will compound over time. But it starts with you admitting you play a central role in your health outcomes.
Still Work Closely With Your Doctors
Now taking personal accountability does not mean dismissing or blaming your doctors. They play a critical role in treatment plans, medications, and ongoing care.
But you have to accept that doctors don’t have all the answers. Modern medicine is excellent at emergency and trauma care but struggles to heal chronic conditions.
That’s where lifestyle and natural medicine excel. Work collaboratively with your doctors. Let them handle disease management while you focus on daily health optimization through diet, exercise, stress reduction, etc.
When you take accountability for your health and make the effort to live an optimally healthy lifestyle, you become an empowered patient. And you will start to see results.
The first step is admitting you play a central role in your own health. From there, you can make choices daily that improve your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Don’t remain stuck in victim mode. Take back your power by taking accountability today!
