Did your New Year’s Resolutions make it 50 days into 2016?
Maybe you vowed to stop eating carbs (let’s be real… giving up bread and pasta is WAY harder than it sounds).
Maybe you resolved to balance your work / home time or to save more money.
Maybe you did what our CEO and Chief Problem Solver, Eric Tumperi did and made a new year’s resolution to commit to fitness. However, we don’t all make it 365 (or 366) days sticking to our resolutions. A recent study performed by the University of Scranton showed that more than a third of people that make new year’s resolutions give up in the first month. Sometimes it is of our own resolve; we don’t take it seriously or fully commit. Sometimes it is out of our control.
Take Eric’s story for example:
I was all excited about committing to a two-week fitness boot camp trial at my church beginning just after the New Year. Mind you, I have NEVER done a fitness, yoga or aerobics class in my life. I have always played and loved lots of sports, especially basketball, but I’m not used to routine intensive training.
You can imagine how much “fun” I was having getting whooped into shape. More than half of the class was pretty experienced at coordinating complex movements and quick changes from one exercise to the next. I learned quickly that there are a lot of muscles I’m not using running the basketball courts every week. Yep. Pretty safe to say I was sore, but a good sore.
Nonetheless, after doing my first two weeks of 60-minute intense and surprisingly pretty fun workouts, I was ready to sign up for the class long term.
WHAM – There weren’t enough folks signed up to keep the class going. Come on!
So… what did I do next?
Well, I didn’t find another time/location (even with the same instructor) to stay involved and continue my fitness program. Maybe I still will, then again maybe not. Maybe by writing this personal story down for all to read, I might be held more accountable by my friends in the community corrections field.
Next time you see me at an industry conference, ask me how my boot camp program is going!
You Aren’t Alone
So don’t feel bad when those “new year, new you” aspirations fizzle out. We’re all human. The Department of Health and Human Services says writing down your goals helps you plan and keep track of your progress. Doesn’t this sound familiar *cough cough*... case managers advocating and tracking accountability?
Second (And Third) Chances
We are proposing a second chance — after all, isn’t that what we are all about?
Let’s make realistic resolutions to carry with us for the rest of the year. Here are some of our practitioners’ resolutions for the remaining 300+ days of 2016.
"Perfect my systems to enable myself to have a better work life balance."
–Lindsay Barnes, Case Manager
"My mission is to support staff members and their development by creating an engaging learning environment where they are empowered, respected, heard and motivated. I will model my willingness to learn and grow as it relates to the Time to Change mission and vision and will do so with integrity and compassion."
–Jennifer Kaufman, EBP Coordinator
"My professional resolution is to try to improve upon my relationships. I want the clients to know that I'm going to hold them accountable, but that I want to see every client succeed, as well, I would like to do more "in the moment" advice for my less experienced staff members that I work with. Give them better ideas and better ways of going about their jobs."
–Patrick Reilly, Correctional Technician
What are yours? Will you write them down?
