A New Year's lesson from jail.

I really didn't intend to write anything about resolutions for the coming new year, but I had an experience the other day that I want to share that just happens to relate. I dropped by a friend's house on Christmas Eve, and in the course of conversation he described an important principle that's valuable anytime, but especially timely as we look forward to a new year.

My friend does volunteer work at the county jail every Sunday, an experience he loves. Each week he prepares what is essentially a brief Sunday School lesson for inmates who request it. In the minimum security wing the inmates are allowed to assemble in a small room where he presents the lesson and leads group discussions. Prisoners in the maximum security wing are not permitted to gather outside their cells. So he walks down the lonely corridors and knocks on each cell door and asks "church?" through the small sliding opening where conversation can be held. If the inmate says yes, the lesson and discussion is held through the opening in the door. As you might imagine, he has a lot of interesting stories from these experiences. My friend related to me that one conversation gets repeated a lot, and there is a great lesson for both the inmates and all of us. The lesson is about change.

All the inmates, my friend says, want to change. They tell him every week. "When I get out, I'm going to be a better man." No more drugs, stealing, whatever it was that got them in trouble, it's all going to change. OK so far, yet the recidivism rate is over 70%, so there's not much evidence of change going on. So my friend, a compassionate but no-nonsense type, has begun to challenge them, and he could be speaking to all of us when he does. When he hears an inmate promise to change, he immediately asks "what's your plan?" The usual response is "I'm going to stop (doing whatever brought them to jail)." Again the question, "what's your plan?" "How are you planning to stop? What are you going to do differently? What might get in the way?" And so on. Forced to think it through, the inmates agree that they have to be more specific. With a little coaching from my friend, they add "I'll stay away from my former friends and hangouts," and other ideas. In other words, they develop a plan. Changing requires planning. Without a plan, it's just a wish.

Who among us hasn't had the same original idea of the inmates, that we'll change just by saying we will? And then whatever it is, losing weight, a new job, better relationship, a few steps are taken and we fall back into old patterns and habits. No plan, no progress, no success. Whether it's now as we make the usual New Year's resolutions, or next month or six months from now, it's all the same: decide what it is we want to change, our motivation for doing so, the rewards for succeeding, the steps we plan to follow and the method of accountability to get us there. The people I've coached (and one actually was an inmate...another story there) all want to change. They've tried before and it didn't work, and to a person the basic steps of planning were neglected. I have a number of things I want to work on in the coming year, both personally and professionally, and I'm planning the steps right now. Are you?