🔖 The List, the Habit, and the Appointment: What August Was Really About
Aug 28, 2026
As we wind down August which is National Wellness Month, I thought it would be best to provide a recap of the month especially as we approach the last quarter of the year. I used this month to ask you, and myself, the same question a few different ways: who is taking care of you? If you have been reading along, you already know where this landed. If you missed a week, here is the whole arc in one post
🗓️ Week One: Who Was Looking After You?
I opened the month with a story I don't tell often — mine. Years spent as the reliable one, the one everyone leaned on, always in planning mode and never quite getting to the things I told myself I would start "someday." On the two occasions I was tempted to postpone a routine screening, those were the two times I was diagnosed with cancer. "Later" is a promise our bodies do not always keep. That was never a discipline problem on my part, or on yours. It's conditioning, and it can be unlearned.
✨ Week Two: The Habit That Actually Sticks
Next, we let go of the 30-day overhaul. Research out of University College London puts the real timeline for a new habit to feel automatic at about 66 days — not the 21 days most of us were told (that number came from a 1960s self-help book, not a study). I shared how I rebuilt my own health after breast cancer treatment through small, unglamorous, repeatable choices, stacked onto habits I already had. It's not you. It's the pattern — and one small habit, given time, outperforms ten resolutions abandoned by week two.
🩺 Week Three: The Appointment You Keep Moving
We closed with the appointment that keeps sliding down the calendar — the mammogram, the colonoscopy, the screening that's been living on your "someday" list. Nationally, nearly nine in ten people have skipped or delayed a preventive screening, and about one in four women 50 to 74 is not up to date on her mammogram right now. As a three-time cancer survivor, I shared how the two times I was tempted to reschedule my own screening are the two times I was diagnosed with cancer. Early isn't a guarantee. Early is a gift you get to give yourself.
💛 The Thread Underneath All of It
You have spent a lifetime of being the reliable one. The coordinator. The safety net. And your own needs sliding, quietly, to the bottom of a very long list. This is not who you are meant to be — it is a pattern the world trained into you. Patterns can change, one small, deliberate choice at a time.
So as we wind down National Wellness Month, I'd like you to come back to this realization. If you have not already, pick one thing on your list: book the screening, start the habit, or simply give yourself permission to be on your own list. And after that one thing is done, moving forward, keep working on one thing that attends to your health and wellbeing every single month.
You have spent years making sure the people you love don't fall through the cracks. Now it is time to catch yourself the same way.
If any part of this month felt like it was written for you, I'd love to talk — a free discovery call, no obligation, just a conversation to see if we're a fit to work together.
And if any part of this letter resonated with you, or you know someone who needs to read it, please forward it along.
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