One question that you’ll likely hear from our team during your initial consultation is “why are you here?” On the most basic level, it may seem like a simple question. Perhaps you sprained your ankle during soccer and you’re hoping to ensure the ligaments heal correctly, or maybe you recently had surgery and your surgeon recommended six weeks of PT to help keep your recovery on track.
While those are surface level responses to the original question, don’t be surprised if we ask it again. Why are you here? We want you to take a moment and really think about why you are choosing to participate in physical therapy today, because if you can really understand your “why,” your sessions will be easier. We explain why it’s so important to find your “why” in the early stages of your physical therapy program.
Physical Therapy And Finding Your Why
The reason we want you to find your why during the early part of your PT program is because it will help fuel your passion to complete your sessions. We love physical therapy, but we know that it’s probably not the highlight of your day. It’s easy to skip your sessions or quickly rush through them so that you can say you did them, but when you do this, you only end up cheating yourself. Most of the clients who end up missing sessions or failing to follow through on their home-based exercises are struggling to find their why.
When trying to figure out your why, we urge you to dig deeper than something as simple as “I want my knee to be stronger” or “I want to have less shoulder pain.” These answers are along the right track, but really try to challenge yourself to establish a clearer why. Some great whys we’ve heard when talking to patients include:
- “I want to work with a physical therapist to speed up my recovery so that I can rejoin my teammates as soon as safely possible.”
- “I want to put an end to my wrist pain so that I can get back to enjoying retirement with hobbies like golf and tennis.”
- “I want to improve my balance and coordination so that I can remain independent and my family doesn’t have to worry about me living on my own.”
- “I want to improve my athletic performance during the offseason so that I can make the Varsity team as a freshman.”
- “I want to be able to safely return to my job in a timely manner so that I can get back to earning a full paycheck.”
- “I want to make the strongest recovery after knee replacement surgery so I can keep up with my grandkids!”
Find your why, and it will be easier to hold yourself accountable and follow through with your physical therapy program. Let your why motivate you and push you to become the best version of yourself. If you need help finding your why or you want to connect with a clinic who can help you hit your recovery goals, reach out to the team at OrthoRehab Specialists today at (612) 339-2041.
PT of Costa Rican National Soccer Team for 2007 World Cup in Victoria, CAN. Clinical Instructor for University of Minnesota Doctor of Physical Therapy Affiliations
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