When it comes to resolutions, I’m all about keeping it real and keeping it doable. Forget those vague promises that fizzle out by mid-January—what works is setting goals that truly resonate with you and are backed by a solid plan. I’m challenging myself to adopt what I call “sharegiving,” where every day I find a way to lighten someone else’s load with an intentional act of kindness. Whether it’s holding the door for someone or stepping up to help a caregiver in need, small acts add up. Let’s flip the script on resolutions this year and focus on making every goal personal, actionable, and tied to the kind of person we really want to be.
About Me:
I have cared for many family members across the life span, experiencing the joys and challenges of child-rearing, the poignance of caring for parents, friends, and elder partners. I realized that I could not handle the stress of family caregiving 24/7/365. It was time for a new approach to caring. My health and happiness were slipping away. This is how Think to Thrive for Caregivers evolved. Let your mind meet your heart so you don’t lose track of your life.
Connect with Me:
https://www.deborahgreenhut.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahgreenhut01/
Thanks for listening!
Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.
Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!
Subscribe to the podcast
If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.
Leave us an Apple Podcasts review
Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript
Hi everyone and Happy New Year. It's that time of year when all of us start to think about resolutions, whether we actually make them or implement them or not. So I thought I'd speak about that. I'm recording this a little bit before January 1, but I'm already thinking about mine. You know, we make them and most of us break them. It turns out that by the end of the first week of having made a resolution, about a quarter of the people who've made one fail to keep it and following that, about 80% of the others don't make theirs either. So sometimes I wonder what purpose resolutions really serve. It makes us feel better in the moment, so I imagine that's a really good thing, and we all need to feel better sometimes, but the reason they fail is something not everybody knows. They fail often because people don't make the right kind of plan to implement the resolution. So it's not the want to or the intention that matters as much as how are you going to follow up on it? What are you going to do about it? And some people suggest SMART goals. You might have heard that acronym before, S, M, A, R, T, those kind of goals are specific, measurable, actionable. They're relatable to you, and they're time bound by that. I mean, you can't just say I want to do more exercise that's never going to get you anywhere. Likewise, you can't set that goal without having a time limit. That's what the T's for. So when am I going to do it? How often am I going to do it? Those are all part of measurable things that you need to be thinking about as well. And actionable. Is there a specific action that you're going to take? Is it a mental goal where you don't you're just going to think about something, not that thought is something I devalue at all by any means. But are you thinking about doing more exercise, or are you going to do more exercise? So what actions are you going to take? And the R is part of the goal formation that a lot of people often skip over. Is it relatable to you? Is it your mom's goal for you? Is it your doctor's goal for you, or someone else's goal that you should have, or is it one that you actually want to set up and implement? It's really important that it's your goal that it's relatable to your overall plan for yourself. So if you don't have an overall plan for yourself, except I'll just do everything that comes up every day in the order that it comes up and until I drop that's not much of a plan, particularly if you are a caregiver. So I advocate for rational caregiving, being a good manager, and making sure that you provide goals that you can live by. Now it's a season where we walk. We're all, most of us, planning to be giving something to someone, and I have to reflect back on something I witnessed a couple of years ago during the holiday season, because it made me more mindful of doing intentional acts of kindness, which I also advocate that we think about it a little bit. What happened was we had all been to a holiday concert, and I say we all because it was a very large auditorium, and a lot of people were filing out at the end, and of course, there was a line for restrooms and the ladies room line was really long as usual, because we don't plan those things out very well. And I got up near the front of the line, and I noticed that behind me was a couple, an older woman, and her elderly husband, who wasn't very responsive, and it was very difficult. It seemed to make him move up. When it was time were trying to enter the restroom, and the people behind them were pretty upset about it, so the women were whispering and saying, shouldn't be in here. That's not something you're supposed to do. It's not okay. No one actually said anything out loud, but I could see that this woman was becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the situation at hand, so when I got up to the front of the line, I motioned her to come forward. I said, Come up here. Go in front of me. And I heard a big outcry from the line behind her, and a lot of people were pretty upset about it. Now, I know we have all kinds of restroom dilemmas in our country, and probably a family or a non gendered restroom would be the solution for most of them, but some places are not willing or able to make that accommodation. But I did it, and I let her go first with her husband, and she gave me a look of such thank you and that, but that wasn't why I did it. I did it because it's the right thing to do. It's the human thing to do. This woman was struggling, and we could, all of us in that line, easily, have helped her out. So I want to think about this as a kind of coda to that season of gift giving and present receiving that we've just had, and put. Giving on the list of my resolutions, thinking about how often I can give something back to someone who really needs it. I can fulfill a need by sharing the labor of caregiving, which actually belongs to all of us. We can make it more difficult for people who are being caregivers, or we can do something to lighten the load, so I share that with you as my resolution that I plan to do, share giving every day. I plan to look for an act of kindness that I can perform, and that's my resolution. I hope yours serves you just as well. Have a great week, and I'll see you next time.
