With the new year comes the talk of New Year's resolutions. Dr. Hoyt loves goal-setting but not with the traditional "resolution" type of goal-setting. Tune in to this episode to learn Dr. Hoyt's 3-step plan for making effective plans for the New Year and how these simple steps can help you and your kiddo with food allergies.
What's your food allergy question? Subscribe to our newsletter to ask your questions!
Looking for one-on-one time with a food allergist to finally get your food allergy questions answered? Sign up for Food Allergy Office Hours for Parents!
Engage with us on Instagram!
Are you in need of an allergist in your area?
AAAAI Allergist Finder
ACAAI Allergist Finder
OIT Allergist Finder
Would like to become a patient? Reach out to the Institute!
Does your kiddo's school need help with medical emergency response planning? Check out the non-profit Code Ana.
This podcast is the official podcast of the Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy. Information on, within, and associated with this site and Food Allergy and Your Kiddo is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.
With the new year comes the talk of New Year's resolutions. Dr. Hoyt loves goal-setting but not with the traditional "resolution" type of goal-setting. Tune in to this episode to learn Dr. Hoyt's 3-step plan for making effective plans for the New Year and how these simple steps can help you and your kiddo with food allergies.
What's your food allergy question? Subscribe to our newsletter to ask your questions!
Looking for one-on-one time with a food allergist to finally get your food allergy questions answered? Sign up for Food Allergy Office Hours for Parents!
Engage with us on Instagram!
Are you in need of an allergist in your area?
AAAAI Allergist Finder
ACAAI Allergist Finder
OIT Allergist Finder
Would like to become a patient? Reach out to the Institute!
Does your kiddo's school need help with medical emergency response planning? Check out the non-profit Code Ana.
This podcast is the official podcast of the Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy. Information on, within, and associated with this site and Food Allergy and Your Kiddo is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.
Hello and welcome to Food Allergy and your kiddo. I am your host, dr Alice Hoyt, here to talk with you today about how to have a super awesome 2024. Those are big words, but, yes, I am going to go ahead and proclaim that super awesome 2024 and this is how you're going to have a super awesome 2024. And specifically, yes, this can apply to food allergy, just like literally everything we talk about on this podcast, but this can also apply mom's, dad's, as you're listening to this to life in general. And these are the three steps that I follow to have awesome years. And ever since I've started doing this, which is maybe five years ago at this point four years ago no, five years ago I feel like I have had better years. Maybe that's because I feel like life gets better as we get older, but I do think absolutely that my three steps have been very helpful to that. So what are those three steps? First step theme your year. The first time I themed my year. So those I'm trying to remember. So 2018 or 2019, I think it was in 2018 for 2019. And the theme was intentional. And in 2019, I wanted to be intentional about all of my decisions. I didn't want to over commit, I didn't want to under commit, I didn't want to commit to things that were not in keeping with what I really wanted to do professionally and personally. So being intentional was an awesome theme for my year, because then I was able, when opportunities presented themselves, I was then able to decide with a mindset okay, I need to be intentional because I want to do X, y and Z with my family, or I want to achieve A, b and C professionally. Remembering to be intentional about my choices was very important, and a lot of times that comes with taking a step back and not answering super quickly. So, in the case of food allergy, if you are thinking about doing oral immunotherapy or sublingual immunotherapy depending on what you theme your year it can help you take a step back and think okay, I want to be intentional about this. I don't want to dive into something because someone on Facebook said that it was totally life changing and like okay, I want my life changed too. Like no, no, no, no, no. So if you're being intentional about your year, whatever you theme your year, that's going to help you make these decisions, make best possible decisions.
Speaker 1:So some examples of things that I think are great themes for your year, Intentional focus, my focused year. Here's the one that I think is going to be mine for this year present, to be present. And so when I'm making decisions about activities not just for me, for my kiddos, for our family, how are we going to be present with each other? I mean, y'all life gets so busy, right? So I think present is like a really good theme and as we go through the next two steps, this is going to be a little bit more sense.
Speaker 1:Another theme, another really good theme, especially if this year you're thinking okay, I really want to tackle the food allergy. I know that there are a lot of families who have been managing food allergies with avoidance, and avoidance plan is always great because even when you're going through oral immunotherapy or subliminal immunotherapy, you're still avoiding the allergen when you're not doing the specific treatment. But a lot of families still choose to do avoidance as their management plan. And you might be thinking you know, is OIT right for me or is SLIT right for me? And if you're themeing your year as informed, then whenever you're scheduling your allergist appointment, this may even prompt you to schedule another allergist appointment, even though it's not. You're not due for your annual appointment, right. Then if your year is to be informed, then you're approaching your decisions, you're approaching your doctor's appointments. You're approaching them differently because your goal going in there is to be informed. And if you're ready for the whole night, why not go live in? Patience is a great theme, right? Sometimes we just need to be a little more patient and sometimes we just need to sit down and just rest.
Speaker 1:That's the next one on here is rest. Yes, you can theme your year for rest. Moms, dads, I'm talking to you. You can have the theme of your year to be rest, because there's so much that you are already doing Work, school, your kids' school, all of these things. They take up time and energy and sometimes we forget to rest and that's important. So those are some great, great themes.
Speaker 1:And how do you pick your theme, right? So some questions you might wanna ask yourself is okay, well, where do I kinda struggle? Am I struggling because I don't get enough sleep? So maybe rest needs to be my theme. Or my kiddo is doing so many activities that he or she is not getting enough sleep, so maybe rest should be the family theme. Next question where does my family struggle? And then, where does my business struggle. So for moms and dads who either have their own businesses or whatever your job is professionally, then where are your struggles there? And a lot of times, you guys, I find this all sort of aligns Even if we're giving our all at work, we're still trying to give our all at home and we just need to take a step back and for 2024, I really think theming your year can help you be intentional about your choices, to make less stress, more joy.
Speaker 1:That's what we always talk about here less stress, more joy. So why do we really wanna have a themed year? Of course is to make our lives better. But like, okay, make your life better. That's kind of a generic goal and, as you've heard me talk about before, I'm not all about generic goals, I'm all about smart goals. So what is a smart goal? A smart goal is a goal that is S-M-A-R-T S specific, immeasurable, a achievable or attainable, r relevant and T time bound. So if you have a smart goal that can take a goal of I wanna know more about my kid's peanut allergy, that's a good goal, but it's not very specific, it's not time bound. So instead you might say more. I wanna know what an error H2, specific IGE level in my kiddo. I wanna know what that really means for their potential tolerance and I wanna learn this within the next three months. And so when you're setting a time bound, specific goal like that, then you're able to take action that is appropriate to help you meet that goal.
Speaker 1:Because, kind of, going back to the whole and I said it sort of in just like the whole like annual allergist appointment, I fully believe it is important to see your allergist at least every year. But the reason I say at least every year is because right now there's so much changing in the landscape of food allergy. More providers are offering SLIT or offering O-I-T and I often find sometimes we end up doing our annual allergy appointment right before school, where it's just kind of madness. Right, you wanna get your form signed, you wanna make sure you have enough epinephrine, auto injectors, all the things, and so it's actually really nice to have an appointment where your goal is to sit and discuss potential treatment options, not necessarily to say, okay, I wanna do this now, but if your theme of your year is to be informed, then that's a very specific, intentional way that you can be informed is by setting that goal of I wanna have an appointment with my child's allergist to specifically discuss treatment plans, and I wanna do this by April. Whatever you wanna do, but I find that if we don't actually set a date for things and they don't get done right.
Speaker 1:And also, some people really like to write these down. I'm a big fan of writing things down too. I have no book where I write these down. I sit here with my pen, so that is how we do. Smart goals big fan of smart goals. And as you're setting your goals, those smart goals are falling in line with whatever you've themed your year, because if you're trying to be more informed, then you're gonna have smart goals that allow you to be more informed. So what's the third thing? As I said, there were three ingredients to my recipe for having an amazing year.
Speaker 1:So the third thing on this list is to choose grace, choose grace. I'm not sure when the world got so crazy or so polarizing, or so you know whatever fell in the blank, unhappy adjectives you want to use, but we need to show more grace To each other. Yes, and kindness, show more kindness. If someone gets your coffee order wrong, that's a huge bummer, but it's not the end of the world, and so let's show some grace to that barista who is working two jobs right fell in the blank. I don't need to go into detail about that. But also choose grace for yourself. Choose grace for yourself.
Speaker 1:Especially if you're listening to this podcast, it's because you love somebody who has a food allergy and it is hard to know everything about food allergies. I am a food allergist. I don't know everything about food allergies. I talk to world-renowned experts. They don't know everything about food allergies and this is literally what they we do for a living, and so you, as a parent, you're not going to know everything. That's why it's so important to surround yourself with good support, good friends, good family who get it, with a good board certified allergist who is going to hear you and talk with you about different treatments, and do it in a way that's very open and engaging, and they're sitting and having a discussion with you and not just typing and just show grace to yourself, to others. Show yourself grace. So if you theme your year, if you choose to set goals using smart goals throughout the year, and if you show grace to others and to yourself, then you will have a fantastic 2024. God bless you and God bless your family.