INTERNAL CAPABILITY 5: SELF-GOVERNANCE AND SELF-MANAGEMENT AND PERCEIVED SELF-GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT TO ACHIEVE HEALTH OUTCOMES
Managing your health, achieving health from within
OVERVIEW
Agency 1. Self-management and self-regulation skills and expectations
Agency 2. Ability to manage personal and professional situations: ability to handle external pressures (e.g., children, work, household and extended family responsibilities, finances, marital and personal relationships
Agency 3. Ability to make the connection between cause and effect with regard to personal behavior and health outcomes; personal responsibility
Agency 4. Ability to draw on networks of social groups
Agency 5. Vision, direction, planning, strategy, and ability to make positive health choices
What is it?
Self-governance and self-management and perceived self-governance and management to achieve health outcomes constitutes an internal health capability. It is not a measure of ‘sheer willpower’ or ‘moral character,’ and extends beyond self-control. Self-governance and self-management includes self-regulation skills, the ability to manage personal and professional situations including external pressures, the ability to draw on networks of social groups, and vision, direction, planning, strategy, and ability to make positive health choices. Perceived self-governance and management encompasses self-management and self-regulation expectations, personal responsibility and the ability to make the connection between cause and effect with regard to personal behavior and health outcomes.
Why is it important?
Self-governance and self-management and perceived self-governance and self-management is important because we are each agents of our own health. This capability is an asset because it enables us to have agency over our health, and with it comes the responsibility to self-govern and self-manage our behaviors.
What does it look like?
A strong internal capability of self-governance and self-management and perceived self-governance and management to achieve health outcomes looks like holding oneself to high self-management and self-regulation standards, and having the skills to follow through. This could be in terms of taking medication regularly, refraining from unhealthy behaviors like smoking, and being able to manage stress from personal and professional sources. Someone strong in self-governance and self-management and perceived self-governance and self-management to achieve health outcomes also demonstrates the ability to connect one's own behavior with one's health outcomes and take personal responsibility rather than placing blame on factors outside one's control. However, it simultaneously involves being able to draw on networks of social groups for support, to enable one to achieve healthy outcomes. Finally, this capability entails the ability to envision, direct, plan for, strategize about, and ultimately make positive health choices.
How do I do it?
Self-governance and self-management and perceived self-governance and self-management can be trained and strengthened by firstly developing self-awareness. By reflecting on the role we play in helping or hindering our own health, we connect our health outcomes with our personal behavior. By reflecting on how to bridge the gap between our current health status and our health goals, we start to envision and plan to make positive health choices, raising our expectations for self-management and self-regulation. Finally, skills of self-management, self-regulation, stress management, and utilizing social networks can be learned through formal educational institutions and informal educational resources.
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