Happy New Year Families and Friends!
                Thank you for your response to our December Family Focus newsletter.  Your insight and response is so appreciated.  With the New Year I thought it may be meaningful for us to reflect on our goals for the year.  As we all know, New Year’s Resolutions are always set with good intentions but for many of us they fall off by March or April.  Last year, I tried something new – I set a realistic one!  I decided I wanted to make a resolution to “do more yoga.”  And you know what?  I did!  I was happy this year to look back and realize that I did much more yoga last year than the year before.  This boosted my confidence in my ability to set and complete goals for myself.  Now this year I feel more hopeful that I will be able to set and reach my goals.  This year my resolution is to move more!  Exercise is so important for our bodies and minds but can also be difficult to fit into our busy lives.  By setting my resolution as “moving more” I can accomplish this daily – even on the days I don’t make it to the gym, I can make an effort to take a 10 minute walk around my work space. 
                How can we apply this same logic to our relationships?  We can set realistic goals with our loved ones.  Instead of “I want to talk to my son every day for an hour and have a deep meaningful conversation about his life,” we could say “I would like to talk to you more often – what if we agreed to talk on the phone twice a week and text a couple of times as well?”  In our romantic relationships in lieu of planning a “date night” every week, we instead set some intentional one on one time to be together – this may be watching our favorite show together, or going to dinner, or, in my case, it may be spending an hour together with no devices once the kids are asleep.  Keep your goals realistic and attainable.  Specific enough that you know what to aim for but not so specific they limit your ability to accomplish them. 
                I am adding a few links to the bottom of the email.  One is for our department website, and one is for the Al-Anon Family Group site.  I will also leave the name of the book I have been reading that expands on helpful ideas like setting realistic goals. 
 
I hope you have a safe and happy New Year!

Kelly Miller
Coordinator of Family Services
Collegiate Recovery & Intervention Services
 
*I hope you found this message helpful and I look forward to staying connected through monthly emails.   If you have a topic or question you would like me to address please feel free to reply back to this email.  You can also reach out to me via phone at 205-348-2727.