Two years ago, I was the picture of health, purpose, and success. The perfect Type A dream, by all appearances. Kids: great! Marriage: great! Job: great! Friends: great! I worked out five days a week, and ate a Mediterranean diet with almost no sugar. I mommed hard, raising my two beautiful kids. I was an SVP at a company specializing in wellbeing, working in my chosen field in a great job. 

But in reality, I felt like everything was falling apart. I suffered from chronic back pain and stress-related health issues, like TMJ and digestion problems. Every day, I rushed. From work to meetings to home and back again. Life moved at a dizzying pace. 

Much more than the busy-ness, however, I had lost the joy in life. My Type A driven perfectionism was out of control, and it left me feeling bitter and angry. My standards for myself were unachievable by any measure—and continued to skyrocket as the years went on. I couldn’t stop moving the goalposts in every corner of my life, leaving me perpetually striving and never living up. I was last on my list. And never got to the end of the list. For decades, I treated myself like a machine, not giving myself the downtime, the care, the softness, the compassion that I gave to everyone and everything else in my life—and that every human being requires to be healthy. 

Then I got diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage 3 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. I was 44, healthy, with no family history of any cancer. It was a screaming wake-up call. 

I realized that if I didn’t address my Type A driven perfectionism, it would forever and always hold me back from feeling good, being healthy, finding happiness. It was the root cause of my challenges emotionally, mentally, and physically. And it is many of our root causes—we are a nation, even a world, of driven people.

Breast cancer ground life to a halt, and that pause opened up an opportunity: A chance for me to begin a journey back to myself and toward true wellbeing. I’m an expert in the science of resilience, teaching and train people all over the world, and became a Board Certified Health Coach after my diagnosis. I used all my knowledge and experience and applied it to myself. I went from Type A to what I call Type H: finding health, healing, happiness, and feeling “hot” (meaning feeling lit up; connected to my purpose).

Here’s how to go from Type A to Type H—building a foundation of health and wellbeing for busy, driven people, who are incredibly successful at whatever they choose to do, but it comes at the expense of their health and happiness:

1. Healthy

Before we can do anything else, we must take care of ourselves. And Type As tend to be incredibly low on self-care. We are go-getters, pushers...always doing and not very kind to ourselves. Zero breaks given. 

My Type A bottom?: When I got diagnosed with cancer, I hadn’t had a mammogram in over seven years. There is no excuse, but the reality is that I took my kids to every one of their appointments, made sure everyone else was taken care of but left myself at the curb.

We need to get to the underlying beliefs that cause us to drive ourselves like machines. What are we afraid of? What messages did we get growing up around achieving and ourselves? Then it’s time to create boundaries, form self-care routines that integrate into our full lives, get enough sleep and exercise, and learn to say no.

2. Healed

Here’s the truth: We are what we think. Ninety percent of our thoughts are the same each and every day—and 85 percent of those thoughts are negative. We become captive to the wiring in our brains. Even more, with Type As, we tend towards anxiety and perfectionism. We are chronic overthinkers and analyzers. It’s exhausting and it sends us down paths and in directions that don’t always serve us. 

In order to heal, we must get to the root cause of our Type A patterns and release old pain and limiting beliefs, heal our anxiety, and rewrite what I call our “laws” of perfectionism. Learn to turn down the analyzer—and make space to create new positive patterns that truly serve us.

3. Happy 

Happiness isn’t contingent on reaching a certain point, accomplishment, or goal. Yet Type As tend to think this way: If I just do this...when that is done...once I do that THEN I’ll be happy, then I’ll give myself a break, then I’ll do something for me. But life is what’s happening right now, in front of us. And our ability to feel joy should never be contingent on anything. 

In the midst of the hardest days of my breast cancer treatment, I actually found joy.  I had no choice but to ask for help. I was vulnerable, and it cracked wide open the protective shell I had built around my heart, which at one point had saved me from hurt but had become a blockade to joy as it hardened over the years. 

That crack allowed me to see how much I was loved. There were so many moments that brought me to tears of joy. We had meals and gifts delivered for months by our friends and community. My mom and I spent more time together than we ever had as adults and got so much closer and healed old wounds. My husband and kids and I became a unit so tight nothing could break us. 

There is joy all around us if we allow ourselves to see and experience it. And we can experience it, even in the midst of challenge. 

4. Hot 

I define “hot” not so much in appearance, but feeling lit up and living in alignment with our truth—of who we are and who we want to become. And that alignment allows us to feel good about ourselves at a foundational level, driving authentic self-confidence, which looks good on everyone.

Type As tend to logic our way through life, which results in a mismatch between what we’re doing and our heart’s true purpose. I’ve fallen victim to this too many times to remember. Here’s where I reconnected with the person I had lost along the way—pausing long enough to authentically hear that small voice of wisdom inside all of us that Type As will often trample in their drive to achieve. 

When I did that, a decades-long fog of “what do I want to do”...”who do I want to be” suddenly lifted, opening a clear path. My career skyrocketed, I launched a business. I became a magnet to the people and things that are meant for me. This alignment makes us unstoppable, fills our cup—and we radiate beauty inside and out.