Baby Steps

One foot in front of the other.

Sometimes that is all it takes and all you can do. Keep things simple and move forward as you can. I have found that the journey of life is not won by big events, but by small daily choices. It is these seemingly small decisions and choices that shape our life and character. I am sometimes amazed at what can be accomplished by staying centered on your goals and making small efforts, on a regular basis. You can and will achieve more than someone making a big push or effort in the moment.

Each day I choose. I choose to get up, move, and do. I am and can be an influence in my family and neighborhood. I can't do everything but I can do something.

You can choose to move forward by making small daily choices.

Many set goals at the beginning of the year and push for a short time to meet them. Then, tired, they burn out. Making change is not about doing it all at once, that is too much physically and emotionally. We are tied to our habits and behaviors, they developed because on some level it worked for us. You cannot just decide to cut away part of yourself. There is a process of letting go. With my surgery I did not go through this process prior to having my tumor removed, but I did emotionally go through the grieving process later.

No one escapes the grieving process. Giving yourself time to recover and regroup can be a necessary part of change, as long as you hold to the truth that you are only regrouping and you will re-engage.
Retreat, Recover, Re-engage

Baby steps forward are doable.

I have begun by making big goals and decisions about what I want my life to be. I know some things will have to happen. I will have to relearn to drive. I will have to go through job retraining. I will have to relearn how to cook, work, and live with noise and stimulus.

I work to break these down. I have big goals and break them down into small mile-stones achievable each month. (Sometimes the timelines need to be adjusted based on progress or lack of progress.) I them break the month down into weeks and finally individual days. Activities with the same level of involvement/intensity are balanced out by smaller and simpler activities. Rest periods are used regularly, helping prevent over work and shutting down.

I keep a yearly calendar. On my desk is a monthly calendar where I track my monthly goals. On my wall is a daily calendar where I write my planned/hoped activities for each day. Included on this are my menu, rehabilitation appointments, and housekeeping needs. (Sound like a lot?)

At this point my individual planned activities are quite simple. For example; today I will work on visual tracking during my walk and physical therapy, I will practice using the iron to make a straight line, and I will work to follow a new 4 step recipe to make dinner. While engaging in these activities I will work to maintain quiet levels of soothing background sounds, increasing my tolerance for auditory stimulus. At any point where I feel increased anxiety, I will rest, reduce noise, and recover. I will then choose to get up and continue where I left off.

Through small steps I will meet my goals. I plan to live my life and engage fully in my family and community. Nothing is stopping me but me, and I can learn to work around that too.

Make goals! Move forward. Even if they are baby steps, keep going in the direction you want to be and you will get there. God bless and keep you.

Plans

Plans, goals and ambition do not die off when you are given a life changing medical emergency. In effect your time actually becomes more valued, important, and essential that it become well spent. I measure everything from a standpoint of its impact and value on my life goals, its energy cost, and even its emotional value, i.e. the joy it brings me today. All these are weighed together to help me determine where my life values are at. I wrote earlier about scheduling and activity management. Cognitive Aids

Take that one step further to determine your goals. If your life is not reflecting what you say your values are one of two things has occurred; either your stated values are not your real values, or you have lost focus on what a precious resource the measurement of time is. Time is finite. None of us can buy, build, or bargain for more.

What we can do is spend wisely what we have. This does allow for rest periods. Based on my schedule you can see that much of my day is taken up by recovery and rest periods. I can accept this because that rest allows my brain and body to rebuild and heal. If I do not rest I collapse. That is my reality. Not enough rest and I can do nothing. I breathe, blink, and that is it. No speech, no memory retention, I lose even the ability to perform basic tasks.

As you plan for this next period in your life, make your goals SMART.

Tools for SMART goals

Goals and Plans

The holidays come to us with joy and frenzy. Dealing with brain trauma/injury on top of that can easily send us over the top. We become fatigued and stressed by events that in the past we simply took for granted. Planning and priorities take the place of frenzied activity. This is not a bad thing. Paraphrasing advice on goal setting from Dennis Bonner, Ph.D. I have come up with the following guidelines.

 

1. Determine your long range goal. For me this year it is simply to spend quality time reinforcing traditions and connecting emotionally with my loved ones. That is a broad goal that can be overwhelming if I tried to do it all now. So, break it up into small do-able pieces. Each week try to have one emotionally honest moment with a loved one. Determine which holiday activities are important to continue this year, let go of the rest. Santa, for us that is a must. Looking at lights, another must. Caroling, not necessary. Sit down with your family and determine family goals and determine an order of importance, you may find that little is actually irreplaceable.
2. Set goals that stretch but do not overwhelm. You know your limits best, be honest about them. I am going to the opening day of Star Wars. This will stretch my abilities but I have support systems in place and plans such as headphones and polarized glasses if it becomes overwhelming. The actual event of sitting with my family to experience that together, it's worth planning for.
3. Set a simple schedule based on your priority list. Be honest with yourself. I can handle one simple hour long event per day; this means that I have an exit strategy if I get overwhelmed and as explained above, ways to help me regulate when overwhelmed. Be flexible. My speech pathologist reminds me to set my schedules in Jello- be open to change and ask your loved ones to support you in this.
4. Have reward and rest periods. You made it through your kids school concert with lots of people, sounds, and light- you have all earned an ice cream date. Enjoy.
5. Revise- it is ok to evaluate and revise your plans based on your real capabilities. What is not done now will happen again in the future, the thing to remember is "yet". You are simply not ready for that, yet.
6. Write it down. I keep a monthly and daily schedule. Both help me stay on track. You can no longer trust your memory, so take a notepad or method of recording appointments and activities with you. I even have my medication dosage times programmed with a reminder ring into my phone.
7. When writing goals be personal and proactive. Create the reality you wish to have. Begin with "I". Use emotional and action words to embrace the change and your reality in the change. Examples can be "I love walking every morning."  or "I feel amazing after my physical therapy stretches."
8. Put the goal where you can see it everyday. Right now I have motivation statements posted in my home. In addition to pictures of my loved ones reminding me what I am working for, I have the following statement posted where I see it multiple times per day: "Don't be gloomy. Do not dwell on unkind things. Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight--"

You can make it through the holidays after brain injury and surgery with amazing moments and experiences of love and caring. Take time, plan for it, and be easy on yourself. You can do this. It may not be yet, but it will be again. You've got this. God bless and keep you.