Up next in 10
Vision Therapy Habits for Success When You are "Too Busy"
9K views
Dec 14, 2022
Do you fall behind and find yourself in ruts with the goals you're trying to achieve in life? Especially in your vision goals? I am the same way, but I am learning from amazing humans and from trial and error some easy ways to be more successful in moving towards goals and I know they will work for you too! Take the free quiz "Do My Eyes Work Together?" here https://learn.strabismussolutions.com/do-my-eyes-work-together-6-tests
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, my name is Melissa Daniels and I have Sturbismis, which is when your eyes don't point in the same direction
0:10
And for four years, I've been working on improving my vision and teaching my brain to use both eyes
0:16
And in those four years, I have learned a lot about being consistent in forming habits and learning how to do these small daily tasks that are going to lead to this huge
0:30
huge overall improvement on your life. And I wanna share some of those techniques
0:35
that I use with you because I feel like it makes it such a big difference. So this video is definitely probably gonna be geared more
0:42
towards people who are working on improving their vision right now that are maybe struggling with creating
0:48
those good habits or figuring out how to apply it into your daily life. So that describes you, this video is definitely for you
0:56
I will say I just finished reading James Claire's book atomic habits, which I think I might be the last person in the world to read this book
1:04
So phenomenal. If you haven't read it yet, you definitely should. It totally aligns with the things
1:10
that I have learned over the last four years. And I wish I'd read it at the beginning, so I didn't
1:15
have to figure it out the hard way. One of the quotes from his book is, success is the product
1:20
of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. And success in vision therapy is exactly
1:29
that. It's the product of daily habits. It's all of those small things you're doing every day
1:36
Not just this one light switch comes on and you go from using one eye to using two eyes
1:42
So there are a lot of different ways that you can form habits and I definitely recommend reading
1:47
atomic habits because it will really help you figure out a method that will work for you
1:52
But I wanted to share the two things that I've been working really hard on this summer that
1:57
have made this summer my most successful summer ever. I graduated from vision therapy this summer
2:04
I was more consistent than I've been in the past with exercises and my vision has definitely
2:10
improved. And usually summer is the time of year for me when everything goes out the window
2:16
Sometimes I go weeks and weeks without even touching a vision therapy exercise and my vision
2:20
deteriorates significantly because I spending time with my family which I want to do But this summer I was able to figure out how to find the balance I want to share that with you So to share I going to
2:32
tell you about my new favorite toy, and that is my Roomba. A Roomba is a vacuum that's a robot
2:38
It just, you just push the button and it vacuums for you. And the first time I tried to use my Roomba
2:43
I cleaned the whole house, opened every door, cleaned under the beds, and then I left the house
2:49
and turned it on and I was so excited to come home and see a perfectly clean house
2:53
And it was severely disappointed to come home and find out that it only had gotten through
2:57
like half of each room. It had gone in, down a few lines, and then like gone to the next room
3:03
It was kind of random. And I'm like, this thing is the worst. I hate this vacuum
3:07
And I didn't understand it. But what I realized is that I gave it too big of a task, right
3:15
I needed to make it a smaller, more manageable task. And what I've learned is that if you put the room but in a smaller room and shut the door
3:24
it does the room perfectly. It gets everything so clean and it just works way more efficiently
3:31
And humans are the same way. If we have this huge task and a huge goal, it just feels insurmountable, right
3:40
It feels impossible. And so when it comes to your vision goals, you need to break it down and make it manageable
3:47
for me that meant taking all of my normal goals and cutting up down by a third
3:54
Instead of saying, yeah, I'm going to do vision therapy an hour, six days a week during the
3:58
summer, I got more realistic and said, I'm going to go for three days a week for 15 minutes
4:02
And that is all I'm trying. I also, instead of making a goal to have this huge improvement with my vision, I just made
4:11
the goal of making it stable. As you're learning and learning to use both eyes together
4:17
there's definitely an ebb and a flow and I decided that I wanted to solidify where I was
4:24
so that my brain can consistently use them together. Not that I was improving my stereo
4:29
but I was not going back and I was making the habit of using both eyes more consistent instead
4:36
of less consistent. That was my big goal and that really made a big difference to make it smaller
4:43
So I would challenge you to figure out how can I make this goal smaller Is it the amount of time I spending Is am I expecting too much of myself If what you doing right now isn working it probably because it too hard And I not saying that you shouldn set huge goals right
5:00
I have a huge goal that's out there. I want perfect vision, okay
5:05
I want it to be perfect. That is a huge, insurmountable goal for somebody with Stripismus
5:10
Some would maybe say it's impossible. I have that goal. but when it comes to filling out my weekly calendar
5:18
I'm not making every thing that I do based on that goal
5:22
It's not like, okay, tomorrow I'm hoping for that. I'm breaking it down into, okay, we're going to do the summer of stability
5:28
We're stabilizing where I'm at so that I don't ever go below this point again
5:34
And I'm going to do this much a day. And eventually that is going to get me to my goal
5:38
but I'm picking more manageable goals in the moment that will help me eventually get to that big
5:44
Huge goal. Okay. That's the first thing. Make the room smaller, right
5:49
Get that Roomba in a smaller room. Get your goal in a more manageable space
5:53
that you can really see what's going on. The second is to pivot, right
6:00
We, if you've watched a Roomba, it's crazy. It, like, if it hits a wall, it doesn't just stop
6:07
It keeps moving. The Roomba never stops moving. Well, every now and then it stops to calculate
6:12
but it's in general always moving and it bumps into the wall and then it figures out which way it can go
6:19
So it keeps, it's like, okay, hit another wall, hit another wall, hit another wall, oh, now I can go
6:23
and then it hits something else and then it keeps pivoting. So I want you to think of yourself in that way
6:29
You're never going to make these huge goals by just sitting there and like watching carefully
6:34
hoping for some great answer to come. You've got to keep making adjustments
6:39
So this means that when you don't get any therapy done for the whole week
6:45
it doesn't mean you beat yourself up. You just say, okay, hmm, why didn't that work? How do I need to pivot
6:50
Do I need to try a different time of day? Do I need to try it in my car when I don't have people around
6:55
Do I need to do it at night? Do I need to give somebody the password to my social media
7:01
And I only get my password after I've done my vision therapy
7:05
So there's a lot of different things that you can try, but just keep that visual of moving
7:10
You've always got to keep moving, trying something else. That where the learning is going to happen is when you actually doing Some things that I tried I definitely changed around the time of day that I was doing therapy I tried doing some of the
7:25
exercises with my kids that worked on some of the different exercises that I do. I tried some of
7:30
them at the pool. I learned to use my vision when I was going for a walk or a hike. I definitely
7:38
was engaging my peripheral during those times. So I tried to do, change some of the exercises
7:44
that I was doing that could be done in my real life situations. Let's see. Oh, stacking, and this is
7:52
this is a great atomic habits word, but you do habit stacking. And you take a habit that you already
7:57
have, like brushing your teeth, and then you add some sort of vision therapy exercise while you're doing
8:02
that. And so for me, that means putting the sticker on the mirror. It means looking at the sticker
8:08
then looking behind the sticker at my face, then looking at the sticker, then maybe looking at my toothbrush
8:12
So I'm moving my eyes all around or different exercises like that
8:16
So when I'm doing an activity that I'm going to do no matter what, I stack on a vision exercise with that
8:22
Same with like weeding my garden, driving, all of those different things, brainstorm
8:27
How can you take what your optometrist is asking you to do and then apply it to those exercises
8:33
So that is the big idea, right? You're going to have to take this and apply it into your, and figure out how it's going to work for you
8:41
because what works for me isn't necessarily going to work for you, but these concepts will work
8:46
That's choosing something manageable, right? Choosing a manageable goal, something that's realistic
8:51
and then pivoting and keeping on moving. Keep moving towards something, and eventually you're going to get off on the right path towards your goal
9:01
So keep trying different things, keep making adjustments, and I think you're going to see a lot of success
9:07
Now, if you don't have any idea, what all of this is about and you want to know more
9:14
about vision therapy or Strabismus and you're wondering if you're able to use both eyes
9:19
go to learn.stribusolutions.com and take the free quiz called Do My Eyes Work Together
9:25
And this quiz will help you understand how your eyes are or are not working
9:30
so that you can make some plans to figure out how you can get your vision even better
9:38
I'll see you in the next video. Be sure to like and sub-ebusy So you don't miss any of the future updates
#Eye Exams & Optometry
#Laser Vision Correction
#Vision Care