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What has changed about the way you set goals after your injury?
Happy New Year! This new year is especially hopeful for many of us. Traditionally we all try to set goals to make our lives better. We usually take time to reflect on the last year and decide what we need to change and what we did right.
Our world has changed a lot in the past year and many of us may be looking at setting goals from a different perspective.
After a traumatic event, like a brain injury, that shakes up our whole lives we might have to change the way we develop those goals.
What has changed about the way you set goals after your injury?
What advice would you give to others to help them set attainable goals?
What goals have you set for yourself in 2021?
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For me, I had to relearn to set goals. I am finally getting the hang of setting small goals that are attainable for me as pushing thru tasks and goals is no longer an option. I try to make weekly goals and the kind of goals I make changes from week to week depending on what is going on with me. Right now, I have been focusing on getting up in the morning and accomplishing what needs to be done such as my rehab exercises because I get those periods of depression where I don't want to do anything but sleep and being locked up in the cold is very hard for me as I was living in Florida at the time of my accident, so I was use to being outside and going for walks on the beach. My 2021 goals as I am coming up to the two year anniversary of my brain injury in August are to get back out in the world and see what my new life looks like which includes finding an entire new job and hopefully getting back to the beach sometime, but those are huge goals and it is scary and exciting all at the same time.
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3 Reactions@totto, I like that you have goals both big and small. But I get it that depression can creep in, especially at this time of year with the long hours of dark and cold. I just recently heard something in an interview about small goal setting with gloom sets in. It's called the 4 S's:
1. Shower
2. Stretch
3. Sunshine
4. Specific task
I think the first 2 are self-explanatory. Sunshine can be a challenge these days as there has been a lot of cloudy days where I live, so I've interpreted that step as just getting outside for 10-30 minutes.
Setting a specific task is an important part that can change everyday depending on how you feel. The main thing is to set a specific task that you can accomplish or specific part of a task if it is a big job. It can be something small like emptying the dishwasher or something more ambitious and new. The main part is the satisfaction of accomplishment.
You seem to be very faithful to your overall goal and your rehab exercises. What exercises do you like to do?
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2 Reactions1Use the todo app to organize and prioritize what needs to be done and meditate (centering)
Exercise and meditate.
2. I have a home gym. I alternate between a stationary bike and various exercise equipment. I seldom fail to do this
3 read and listen to calming music. My favorites are Chopin, Rockmaninof
4 Call and zoom for personal contact.
5Find recipes from various cuisines to fix.
6Laugh and cry. Don’t feel sorry for yourself
7Don’t watch too much television.
8if you can, play a musical instrument
Peace
Mike G.
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4 ReactionsThank-You Colleen. Rehab exercises I do are occupational therapy right now which can be very challenging some of them. Does anyone else keep doing there physical therapy exercises at home after they completed and got discharged from PT. I feel like I should as my balance which is pretty good now sometimes gets poor which I associate with stress and fatigue. Having balance issues right now is very scary with all the ice. I did fall Thanksgiving morning but the person I live with caught me before I hit the floor. I have a treadmill and I run on it which I love it is a lifesaver for me. I actually got to where my body could physically handle running faster some days but my brain wasn't. I would get the sharp pain in my head and eyes when I would do the cardio bursts, so they told me at rehab to slow down a little and that helped and enabled me to complete other tasks during the day cause I felt better.
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1 ReactionHow much time do you allow yourself for watching TV? What activities do you replace it with? It is hard to not watch netflix for me cause I get very bored. I watch it in the evening after everything else in my day is done. I can't think of much else to do in the cold.
Thank-You!!!
I am so fortunate. Being retired gives me a whole day, every day. I accomplished so much last summer that I am wondering what I will do this coming year. That said, I do have a wife that is quite good at finding things for me to do, One thing we are working on is getting rid of many things we really don't need or use anymore. When my Mother-in-law passed in November there were a lot her of things that needed to go. Made us realize we need to pare things of our own down to more manageable. I also hope to have all next winter's wood cut, split and piled by fall.
After I was discharged from my 1st round of PT I didn’t keep up on the exercises because I forgot. I was experiencing some recurrence of symptoms, so I got back in : the very week before the lockdown. Unable to do much. Started again this fall, but the exercises were too painful to do at home. This was after my Nov. 26 incident. I cancelled my last visit in December and haven’t been back. Seems like it’s getting harder and harder to get logged in to any helpful online site. I’m so tired that I can’t accomplish it in one day, and I go back to it the next day, it’s like I had never done the work the day before.