Our Blog

BY Joel Junker

Preparing for Success in the New Year

Like most people, I set goals and resolutions for 2011.  When I did this, I was excited to achieve my goals and hungry to get started.  Yet, I know it is easy to feel this way 4 days into the New Year.  There will be weeks coming soon, where challenges and long hours will appear.  It will be convenient to go the “easy” route.  For example, I started my new workout routine a couple of weeks ago, P90X.  I have to admit, it was easy and motivating the first 2 weeks but now into my third week and getting up at 5:00 a.m., and having to do my workouts in hotel rooms while traveling, I find it tempting to sleep a little longer and skip it.  I also set goals for reading and personal development.  Again, I find it easy to read when I have free time, but when the football games or NCIS are on television, it’s tempting to go the “easy” route.

My eleven year old daughter is a swimmer.  She is getting pretty good and has set goals to achieve championship qualifying times.  This requires waking up at 5:45 a.m. twice a week for practice every day after school and meets on the weekends leaving the house at 5:00 a.m. to travel to San Antonio or Austin.  There are days she asks me if she has to go to a practice or a meet.  I try not to tell her but rather give her the tradeoffs and consequences of her choices.  I am proud to say that she usually gets it right.

I know the Cameron-Brooks Team Members, Alumni, and our Junior Military Officer (JMO) candidates will be setting goals and making improvements in the new year.  I wanted to share an article that my daughter’s swim coach sent to me recently.   Reading this article will remind all of us how easy it is to take the “easy” route and the consequences for our decisions.

http://sports.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/odst/message/7592 

Happy New Year!

Joel Junker