What Is YOUR Tactical Action Plan for 2012?

Editors Note: Please join me in welcoming our newest contributor Sgt. Mark St. Hilaire as he leads us off for a Happy, Healthy and Safe New Year!

The New Year’s Resolution: What Is YOUR Action Plan for 2012?

As I reflect back on 2011, I am a little overwhelmed thinking about the things that occurred over the past year in my life.  I have experienced many changes in my agency, new commitments within my family and my community service, illnesses and the deaths of loved ones and friends, some physical changes as I approach the golden anniversary of my birth and most of all, observing and reading about law enforcement officers who self-destruct in their careers through their unusual behavior and actions on and off the job.   It has been an emotionally exhausting time and I am grateful for the many training opportunities, the maintenance of my fitness-eating plan and especially my peers who helped prepare me to meet these challenges.

As this New Year begins, many people participate in the ritual of a New Year’s Resolution.  Many people accept the challenge and yes, many of our resolutions succumb to an early death.  I stopped making resolutions on the annual basis because I felt discouraged when I could not keep my resolutions.

In the New Year of 1996, I had been a police officer about 10 years. I weighed about 350 lbs.; I had a distorted view of my career, working nights, an adult beverage problem.   I had come to the point that I was so frustrated and I was miserable… Continue reading

A Manifesto for The Perfect Life

Editors Note: Chuck Rylant, a police officer from California who is also a Certified Financial Planner and a regular contributor on CopsAlive.com, gives us all a New Year’s Manifesto for a Perfect Life and shows us the process it takes to get there.

THE PERFECT LIFE MANIFESTO
By
Chuck J. Rylant
How you can achieve more this year than in the past 10 years combined

This report is free. I encourage you to share it or post it on your web site. My only request is that you do not edit it and keep it in it’s entirety. You are welcome to publish excerpts as long as you identify Chuck J. Rylant as the author. And a link it www.chuckrylant.com is always appreciated.
© 2010 Chuck Rylant

THE MAGIC FORMULA

Every year around January 1st a lot of people will begin new years resolutions or do some sort of goal setting, but only about 3% of those people will actually achieve those new goals. Previously I wrote about goal setting from a different perspective, but in that article Brian Tracy found that only 3% of the population writes their goals down. And according to research, those 3% are 1000 time more likely to accomplish their goals.
But this isn’t just another story about writing your goals. There’s plenty of that advice out there already. Traditional goal setting usually involves a written list of the things you want to accomplish. This step alone, as mentioned above, has incredible power at helping you get things accomplished. But there is a better way.

“Most people aren’t really happy, but they aren’t unhappy enough to do any thing about it. That’s a dangerous place to be.”

Tony Robbins

I’ve always been somewhat of a goal setter and usually do fairly well at accomplishing my goals. But when working with private clients, I’ve learned that it’s very hard for most people to accomplish their goals. So this led me to really study the subject of getting things done through goal setting. In researching and working with others, I realized that my informal goal setting wasn’t working as well as it could.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I took those goals that were bouncing around in my head and put them in some logical order on paper. As part of a leadership retreat, we were sent for two hours to sit overlooking the ocean and write our goals. With nothing to do for two hours but think, I figured out some amazing things about myself.

“Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.”

Brian Tracy

The following two years I continued this process and expanded it by taking a couple of days each year and devoting them strictly to goal setting. Last year I went to a beach resort and while there, created the beginnings of the process I’m about to share. But it wasn’t until I read Leo Babauta’s blog post titled “the best goal is no goal” that I really put this whole thing together. My approach is very different than Leo’s, but what he said got me thinking.

The reason people don’t usually accomplish their goals is partially because… Continue reading

New Year’s Resolutions for Cops

As a police officer, sheriff’s deputy or corrections officer do you have a list of New Year’s Resolutions?

It seems that some resolutions that would be appropriate for peace officers or those in law enforcement would include a list that started with these questions: Continue reading