Clair Fisher Blog Legacy - Mini Missions
22.01.21 Clair Fisher
Clair's blogs were first published by the What Works Centre for Wellbeing on their website www.whatworkswellbeing.org The Centre closed on 30th April 2024, and to ensure Clair's legacy remains her blogs have been reproduced here, with permission of Clair's family and the What Works Centre for Wellbeing.
“Mini missions” set out Clair’s priorities as she approached what she termed her retirement project. For Clair, it was important to:
Advocate for early palliative care intervention & more understanding for that label.
Make it more usual for terminally ill people to keep working while they want to.
Break down the taboos and talk about dying.
This blog was originally published on Dyingwell.uk, a website owned by Clair Fisher.
In Clair’s words: “Dying Well was my retirement project. A space for me to document my personal journey, to explore the evidence around wellbeing in terminal illness and test out some of the theories.”
Mini missions by Clair Fisher
I’ve been brewing this project for a few months now, and really started it as my full time distraction when I retired from my day job at the beginning of January. Already I’m feeling so grateful for all the many connections that I’ve made and conversations that I’ve had. My reading pile is ever growing and my head full from all the reading I’ve already done.
I’m more convinced than every that there is real gap in the evidence for wellbeing and how it relates to terminal illness and am keen to discover and develop that work. A new page has just gone live on my website about that part of my work, so do please take a look.
But I also realise that I need to prioritise. So here are my current top three mini-missions;
1. Advocate for early palliative care intervention & more understanding for that label. My blog ‘Hello Hospice’ has more on why I think this so important.
2. Make it more usual for terminally ill people to keep working while they want to. Employment is such a key factor for wellbeing and our workplace policies and culture need to be a whole lot more flexible. I am working on some new material on this that will come out on World Cancer Day (4th Feb).
3. Break down the taboos and talk about dying. I’ve been overwhelmed with the number of messages I’ve received about how refreshing or ground-breaking my approach to talking about dying is. Honestly, I’ve found this surprising. But it’s made me determined to keep doing it and hopefully my doing it in the open will help encourage others find the confidence and liberty to do the same.
Thank you to everyone who’s got involved in this journey and project so far. I’m always open to more ideas and connections so do please connect on twitter or drop me an email.