Check-Ups and Check-Ins

A check-up is something a professional does to you - like the routine exams that found both my cancers. A check-in, on the other hand, is something you do yourself, on purpose, with no one to report to. It costs nothing and takes ten minutes. Most people never do it, and I include myself for most of my adult life.

I don’t want to oversell it. A check-in won’t fix anything on its own. It’s closer to reading the gauges on a dashboard. You still have to decide what - if anything - to do about the warning light that’s glowing orange. But you can’t respond to a warning you never looked at, and most of us go years without looking.

Here are three check-in questions I use. They’re simple, yet powerful.

1. What have I been calling “fine” that isn’t?

We all have a word we use to end the conversation. “Fine” is mine. When someone asks how I am, it’s the automatic answer. The question is what’s sitting behind it. Sleep that’s gotten worse. A worry I keep postponing. A relationship that’s strained. Be specific, because “stressed” or “busy” is too vague to do anything with. “I dread Sunday evenings” is something you can work on.

2. Where did my time actually go this week, and does it match what I say matters? I mean this literally. Open your calendar and look. I say my family and my health come first, and then I read a week full of meetings and email. Sometimes the calendar tells me I’m right, but more often it tells me I’m off. Whatever the answer, it’s more reliable than my intentions.

3. What am I putting off, and what’s the real reason?

Everyone has something. A doctor’s appointment, a hard conversation, a project, a return phone call or email. The second half of the question matters more than the first. “I’m busy” is almost never the real reason. Usually it’s fear or embarrassment or not knowing where to start. Naming the real reason doesn’t make it disappear, but it often makes the next step small enough to take.

None of these has a right answer, and you don’t need to fix everything you find. You’re collecting information about yourself, the way a check-up collects information about your body.

Pick a time and keep it. Mine is during a long run, because there’s nothing else to do and no screen in my hand. For you it might be a walk, a Sunday night, or ten minutes in the car before you go inside. What matters is that it’s regular, because the first few times will feel strange and the useful answers show up the fifth or sixth time you do it.

Keep your check-ups. Get the colonoscopy, the PSA, the mammogram, whatever is due. And then take a few minutes this weekend to ask yourself the questions no doctor will.