Phillip

Phillip

You don’t have to be sick to benefit.

“Via my feedback session at My-E-Health, I felt better. I thought, I can make some small adjustments in my everyday life to make it easier for me to relieve some stress. I can avoid being irritated by the little things in life”.

Philip grew up in Gothenburg. Before starting his studies, he did some travelling, a few ski seasons and played a lot of handball; he was pretty good at it. But in the end, he chose a different direction. He moved to Lund to study his Masters in Industrial Engineering and Management and he’s now in his fifth year.

“When I go into something like a long education, the end is so far away. You can’t see yourself getting there, but if you just take it day by day or week by week, suddenly five years have gone and you’re almost done”.

It wasn’t the obvious path for Philip, but he wanted to move, his sister was studying in Lund and he knew it was a great student city. He was also keen to keep his options open, so the course was a good fit.

“With Industrial Engineering, you can go into lots of different types of companies and do different things. I didn’t know what my end goal was, so I kept it wide and it worked out. I’m still here and I realized that this is something I really liked”.

Through his course, Philip was introduced to My-E-Health. It was part of the Industrial Management course that explored individual competence development, looking at how people work; their decision styles and what motivates them. By completing the assessments, the students can see what their tendencies are and it helps them to gain a better understanding of themselves. It also offers quarterly reviews for one year as part of their personal development.

“Everyone got it”. It’s not that you’re feeling bad, but it’s about keeping you well and being proactive in this way is a no brainer. Why shouldn’t someone be provided with this kind of support and with the access to some tools and tips provided by My-E-Health. “It helps you to manage things, so the small things don’t grow to be big”.

The techniques aren’t difficult, or ground-breaking. As Philip says, it’s about being shown them and then using them in your day to day life.

“It’s not that it’s hard, it’s actually very logical. When I hear it I think, “yes of course I should do that”, but it’s getting someone who has those tools and saying it to you that makes it work. It’s hard to come up with those things yourself”.

After only two sessions, Philip could already see and feel the benefits. The assessments highlighted a common theme around the same issue and it became obvious that any irritation and frustration he was feeling were related to the same thing.

“I felt frustrated when other people did not do the things they should have done in the groupwork. There was a situation with one group where we were quite late in our project and a lot of things had not been done. I know that I am a bit afraid of conflict; but it was something that came up again and again”.

Through My-E-Health, Philip got access to the tools he needed to help manage these situations. In his sessions, he talked about really simple things, like putting up a schedule and checking in with the group each week to see what had been done and what hadn’t. It helped to take the pressure off Philip personally and created a better group dynamic.

“My My-E-Health coach explained that it’s not fair to yourself to bottle up all this internal stress and that I shouldn’t go around with it, nor should I continually take on all the responsibility of others since it was also about teamwork; and it depleted my ability to recharge which also affected me in other areas of my everyday life. I now realize that I don’t have to carry all that weight by myself. We had the group meeting and it didn’t go perfectly, but it still relieved a lot of my stress and I could communicate my position clearly”.

Philip appreciates that the sessions wouldn’t work if you’re not totally open and willing to share your life and your problems. This is why My-E-Health’s “My Private Space” helped a lot as he could be himself and not feel judged. He realizes that it’s not always easy to talk about this kind of stuff. He sometimes felt like he was pointing the finger and blaming other people, and he wanted it to be more about self-reflection and what he could do better. Nonetheless, understanding this is all part of the process.

“With my My-E-Health coach I felt really secure doing this and he doesn’t judge in any way at all; it’s all helping towards my personal development. This was something I needed to manage and so I knew I needed to talk about it”.

Having a secure, safe space to open up and talk freely with someone was a great help for Philip. It stopped those small irritations growing into something unmanageable.

“I’m surprised how far we’ve got in just two sessions. I’ve realized that you’re always going to have conflicts with people in life, because we’re not the same and we don’t feel the same. So for someone like me, who avoids conflict, it feels really good when you don’t and you can standup for what’s right”.

“This empowered me to take my place and say, ‘this is how I feel and this is what we need to do from now on’. It definitely felt good to stand my ground”. My-E-Health has empowered Philip to take his place and to proactively work towards finding his balance.