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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Winston-Salem, NC

    New Year's Resolutions

    What are your New Year's Resolutions? Post any you want to share in this thread.

    --I've found that I can often seize the day and feel better if I get to bed at 10 pm and begin the next day with a good early start. This has been easier said than done for me, so in 2021, I'm going to try to get to bed most every night at 10 pm.

    I've posted these essay blogs before from the psychiatrist who taught our boards review prep. I thought this one is useful food for thought related to the topic of New Year's resolutions and making positive change. Dr. Jack Krasuski in this one gives advice for psychiatrists to help motivate patients to make changes. But it's good advice for anybody trying to make them I think.

    Motivational Enhancement by Dr. Jack Krasuski -

    Today, I will not lay out the richness of motivational enhancement and save a detailed treatment of it for a future post. Instead, I’ll share my simple-minded way of thinking about it and presenting it to patients. It’s the “Point A - Point B” conceptualization, which has three main parts: Point A is the here and now, all the ways the patient is in pain, symptomatic, dysfunctional, facing a myriad of overwhelming problems, and feeling stuck. Point B is the desired outcome, a vision for what life would be like if the patient were able to move beyond their pain, symptoms, dysfunction, overwhelming problems, and stuckness. The third part consists of the barriers that impede moving from Point A to Point B.

    To move through this approach, I say something like the following to the patient: “It sounds like you’re feeling frustrated and stuck. Our next step is to find the ways – practical and doable ones – to get you unstuck. The way I think about this is as the ‘Point A – Point B’ problem. You are now stuck at Point A, which you’ve described to me already. Point B is what you want in life and out of this treatment. So, let’s now focus on Point B, that is, describe to me in as much detail as possible what you want your life to be like if you could get unstuck”. Here I encourage the patient’s open-ended exploration of what their day-to-day activities would be like once they reach their desired state. In this exploration, I might throw in the ‘miracle question’ which is, “If you woke up tomorrow morning and all the problems you described to me were gone, like a miracle, what would your life be like? What would you be doing?”. It is important to force the patient to be specific by asking follow-up questions, such as, “What time would you get up each morning? What would you eat for breakfast? What would you do to improve your finances? What would your relationship with your kids be like? What would you do for fun? How would you handle new problems as they arise because, we can be sure, new problems will arise?”. The goal is to have the patient visualize and feel their future life, to have a rich imaginal experience of it. During this exercise, some patients realize they never really thought about what their alternative better life would/could be like. They had always focused on their pain, symptoms, dysfunction, forgetting that the amelioration of the bad stuff does not directly translate into a life worth living. A compelling positive vision of what life can be like is often a necessary ingredient in moving forward.

    The last step of this model is exploring and fixing the barriers to moving from Point A to Point B. Note that barriers include both bad things that exist in the person’s life and good things that are absent. A violent domestic partner may be a bad thing that is in place, while childcare support may be a good thing that is absent. As with the previous parts of the model, the barriers – what needs to be removed or overcome and what needs to be added – need to be explored in detail. The rubber needs to hit the road. The patient must be guided to consider, choose, and carry out practical and doable solutions. There are likely many problems that need resolving and likely many changes to be made. The patient should be guided to prioritizing and choosing the first step. My approach is to say, “It’s not uncommon to get a little overwhelmed when thinking about all these changes that need making. The best way to succeed is to choose one thing to change and start there. And then, over time, add other things to change. So, in your judgment, what is the single thing you believe would make the biggest difference in your life right now?”.

    If all this sounds like a lot of work that will take a lot of time, it usually is exactly that. The alternative is like what much of psychotherapy is actually like, an endless focus on the problems, frustration, stuckness, etc., without adequate focus on moving through solutions into a desired life. For example, many people in treatment for an addiction would like to stay clean and sober. But staying clean and sober requires many concrete choices and actions carried out over extended periods of time. Often the motivation for change is low and not robust in the face of setbacks, not because the current life of active addiction is great, but rather because the life of sober living seems unattainable and perhaps not even that compelling. Exploring in detail Point B as well as the barriers that need addressing can help increase motivation, hope, and a feeling of growing agency.

    To end, the reason I riffed on motivational enhancement is that it is my way of responding to fears of manipulating the patient. Do I manipulate the patient by increasing their motivation, trying to get them to think about things they haven’t thought about, and to take actions they otherwise might not undertake? Of course I do. The better I can do this, the more effective I become.
    ______________________________________

    --“To be a person is to be constantly engaged in making yourself into that person” ― Christine M. Korsgaard

    --“This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.” ― Terry Pratchett

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    I resolve not to pay attention to any polls.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Thanks for the post, rj199. Interesting read.

    I am looking forward to being able to rejoin the gym after I get my vaccine jabs. I had gotten back to my weight goal range and the steady exercise had me feeling very good. I am more of a weekend warrior now, weather permitting, and it just isn’t doing it for me.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Winston-Salem, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Thanks for the post, rj199. Interesting read.

    I am looking forward to being able to rejoin the gym after I get my vaccine jabs. I had gotten back to my weight goal range and the steady exercise had me feeling very good. I am more of a weekend warrior now, weather permitting, and it just isn’t doing it for me.
    It will feel so good.

    I walked into my old gym when they re-opened wearing my mask. The staff was not wearing a mask, and she said "we're supposed to check temperatures but don't worry about it, go ahead and enjoy your work-out" No one in the gym had a mask on. I turned around, left, and cancelled my membership.

    Instead, I was able to join beergoddess's Wake Forest hospital gym through her employee spouse account. It's been fantastic. Everyone has to wear a mask at all times, even when exercising strenuously. It's never crowded because we have to sign up for appointments. We had a great work-out this morning, and it has felt so good to get back in the gym. The pandemic did force me to take up running again when gyms closed, which I've enjoyed. But I feel so much better after my gym work-outs too. When the right gym is run very carefully I believe it can be done safely. We've been doing it since October. I prefer it to eating at a restaurant where I see people sitting too close to others eating with no mask on.

    But hanging in there and waiting for the jabs is smart too. Hopefully it really won't be too much longer for most readers of this board to get to that point, and with cases so high the goal remains just don't get Covid if possible.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by richardjackson199 View Post
    It will feel so good.

    I walked into my old gym when they re-opened wearing my mask. The staff was not wearing a mask, and she said "we're supposed to check temperatures but don't worry about it, go ahead and enjoy your work-out" No one in the gym had a mask on. I turned around, left, and cancelled my membership.

    Instead, I was able to join beergoddess's Wake Forest hospital gym through her employee spouse account. It's been fantastic. Everyone has to wear a mask at all times, even when exercising strenuously. It's never crowded because we have to sign up for appointments. We had a great work-out this morning, and it has felt so good to get back in the gym. The pandemic did force me to take up running again when gyms closed, which I've enjoyed. But I feel so much better after my gym work-outs too. When the right gym is run very carefully I believe it can be done safely. We've been doing it since October. I prefer it to eating at a restaurant where I see people sitting too close to others eating with no mask on.

    But hanging in there and waiting for the jabs is smart too. Hopefully it really won't be too much longer for most readers of this board to get to that point, and with cases so high the goal remains just don't get Covid if possible.
    Yeah, I enjoy the long walks (I got in 7.5 miles yesterday, another 7.5 today). But the variety and the weight resistance you can do at a gym is just beyond what I have (or am willing to buy) at home.

    The good news — listening to a great and very long podcast about the Punic Wars and the fall of the Roman Republic. So at least exercising the mind.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Winston’Salem
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Yeah, I enjoy the long walks (I got in 7.5 miles yesterday, another 7.5 today). But the variety and the weight resistance you can do at a gym is just beyond what I have (or am willing to buy) at home.

    The good news — listening to a great and very long podcast about the Punic Wars and the fall of the Roman Republic. So at least exercising the mind.
    I walked about that distance today. Of course, my walk was spoiled by intermittent swearing and searching for the frequently-wayward ball ...
    "Amazing what a minute can do."

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Colorado
    The New Year's Resolutions get easier for me as I get older. I have a more realistic view of my self, what I can accomplish and what I should accomplish.

    I want to be a kind, loving and responsible husband to my wife of 43 years. I want to be a great, supportive father to my 3 kids, all in their 30's with different world views than me. My first and only grandson is one year old, he and my son just moved in with us while looking for a place to live in Boulder where my son just got a great, new job. I want to be there for my grandson, my son and his family. I want to be the steady, reliable guy who loves them unconditionally and supports them.

    I'm in the 9th inning of my legal career. I no longer care about being the best, from a media perspective. I want to be hardworking, honest and doing the best for my clients.

    Sounds kind of corny, I know, but it keeps me going.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    There’s some interesting conflicting science around the impact of sharing your goals as motivation to stay committed, and as a demotivator (telling someone apparently hits the same brain reward center as actually achieving the goal).

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post

    The good news — listening to a great and very long podcast about the Punic Wars and the fall of the Roman Republic. So at least exercising the mind.
    What?!?! Please share!

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by ClemmonsDevil View Post
    What?!?! Please share!
    Well, that’s a lot of ground to cover . . . .

    1. Large regional power Rome fights the other large regional power, Carthage, in three Punic Wars. Hannibal from Carthage not only has elephants, but is a very good tactician. Rome plays rope-a-dope for a decade to wear out Hannibal, then Scipio Africanus forces the action back to North Africa. Rome ultimately prevails, becoming the superpower of the Mediterranean. Roughly 264 BC - 146 BC.

    2. Rome has growing pains as a result. The Gracchus brothers, though from old families, go super populist through land ownership reform efforts and raising the status of the merchant class to rival the blue bloods. Both are murdered by political rival factions (the older brother Tiberius in 133 BC, the younger brother Gaius some 9-10 years later).

    3. Soon another populist arises, Gaius Marius. A great general, he is faced with a problem — you could only be a legionnaire if you owned land, but the rich have bought up the small farms while the soldiers are away so there are fewer soldiers available. Gaius Marius waives the land ownership requirement, allowing plebes to join and then they will be rewarded with land and pay as they win. So the soldiers stop being as loyal to Roma and their land, so much as to their generals with whom their fortunes are tied. Down to about 83 BC.

    4. Sulla arises as a counterforce to the populists and Gaius Marius, representing the interests of the oligarchs. Violence and shenanigans ensue. Sulla outlives Gaius Marius, and undoes a lot of populist reforms. Down to about 78 BC.

    5. Upon Sulla’s passing Pompey the Great rises to power. He puts down a number of rebellions, including the Spartacus slave uprising. He ultimately ends in a triumvirate with Julius Caesar, who brings his very loyal army across the Rubicon in 49 BC thus declaring war on Pompey. Pompey flees to Egypt in 48 BC, and the Republic is essentially gone.

    The podcasts specifically are from Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History (I think they are free on his website and in Apple Music). The two series I listened to are “Punic Nightmares” (episodes 1-3) and “Death Throes of the Republic” (episodes 1-4).
    Last edited by OldPhiKap; 01-02-2021 at 09:46 PM. Reason: Grammar

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Well, that’s a lot of ground to cover . . . .

    1. Large regional power Rome fights the other large regional power, Carthage, in three Punic Wars. Hannibal from Carthage not only has elephants, but is a very good tactician. Rome plays rope-a-dope for a decade to wear out Hannibal, then Scipio Africanus forces the action back to North Africa. Rome ultimately prevails, becoming the superpower of the Mediterranean. Roughly 264 BC - 146 BC.

    2. Rome has growing pains as a result. The Gracchus brothers, though from old families, go super populist through land ownership reform efforts and raising the status of the merchant class to rival the blue bloods. Both are murdered by political rival factions (the older brother Tiberius in 133 BC, the younger brother Gaius some 9-10 years later).

    3. Soon another populist arises, Gaius Marius. A great general, he is faced with a problem — you could only be a legionnaire if you owned land, but the rich have bought up the small farms while the soldiers are away so there are fewer soldiers available. Gaius Marius waives the land ownership requirement, allowing plebes to join and then they will be rewarded with land and pay as they win. So the soldiers stop being as loyal to Roma and their land, so much as to their generals with whom their fortunes are tied. Down to about 83 BC.

    4. Sulla arises as a counterforce to the populists and Gaius Marius, representing the interests of the oligarchs. Violence and shenanigans ensue. Sulla outlives Gaius Marius, and undoes a lot of populist reforms. Down to about
    78 BC.

    5. Upon Sulla’s passing Pompey the Great rises to power. He puts down a number of rebellions, including the Spartacus slave uprising. He ultimately ends in a triumvirate with Julius Caesar, who brings his army across the Rubicon in 49 BC thus declaring war on Pompey. Pompey flees to Egypt in 48 BC, and the Republic is essentially gone.

    The podcasts specifically are from Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History (i think they are free on his website and in Apple Music). The two series I listened to are “Punic Nightmares” (episodes 1-3) and “Death Throes of the Republic” (episodes 1-4).
    Impossibly excited by this. This is what I did instead of dating in college, by the way.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by ClemmonsDevil View Post
    Impossibly excited by this. This is what I did instead of dating in college, by the way.
    Someone on DBR turned me on to Dan Carlin’s very lengthy but extremely good series on the First a world War (“Blueprint for Armageddon”). It’s like 26 hours but it is absolutely fantastic. I’ve been hooked on his podcasts ever since.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Winston’Salem
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Someone on DBR turned me on to Dan Carlin’s very lengthy but extremely good series on the First a world War (“Blueprint for Armageddon”). It’s like 26 hours but it is absolutely fantastic. I’ve been hooked on his podcasts ever since.
    Ahhh, I understand now. I bet it was a podcast about Woodrow Wilson that got you into so much trouble ....
    "Amazing what a minute can do."

  15. #15
    Does resolving to attend more virtual beer pubs count?

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by DukieInKansas View Post
    Does resolving to attend more virtual beer pubs count?
    Since the only two I zoom pubs missed are the only two you attended, let me know when you’re going and I’ll be sure to attend.

    Who is hosting January?

  17. #17
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Winston-Salem, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by DukieInKansas View Post
    Does resolving to attend more virtual beer pubs count?
    Yes absolutely!

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Rj199, any good reads or podcasts or such on general positivity? We are in a fairly dark place as a society and I know plenty of folks who could use a positive attitude adjustment. Myself not excluded.

    If everyone could just take two steps back from the hate/anger line in society, that would be a new year’s resolution worth a king’s ransom.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Winston’Salem
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Rj199, any good reads or podcasts or such on general positivity? We are in a fairly dark place as a society and I know plenty of folks who could use a positive attitude adjustment. Myself not excluded.

    If everyone could just take two steps back from the hate/anger line in society, that would be a new year’s resolution worth a king’s ransom.
    Except when it comes to the 9F’ers, though, I assume ....

    (To be clear: I agree with OPK.)
    "Amazing what a minute can do."

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by Tripping William View Post
    Except when it comes to the 9F’ers, though, I assume ...

    (To be clear: I agree with OPK.)
    I think they call that “channeling,” and that it is a positive coping mechanism.

    But I’ll defer to rj who knows that about which he speaks. Courtroom lawyers like me are amateur psychologists but that is a weak substitute for real expertise.

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