CareLines 2025 January–February Newsletter
New Year with Powerful Tools An update from Tia Drumm, Caregiver Programs Coordinator The new year offers an opportunity for caregivers to embrace the idea of balance between caring for others and for themselves. By moving forward into the new year and welcoming flexibility and creating goals that fit the unique demands of caregiving, you can make this new year one for resilience, growth, and fulfillment with balance, personal goals, and action planning. Powerful Tools for Caregivers teaches us to create a weekly Action Plan for your goal! An Action Plan is an agreement with yourself to help you do something you want to do during the week that will help you reach your goal. A good Action Plan has several parts: •
Create the plan to focus on something you want to do, not something you think you should do. Pick something that will make you feel better about yourself.
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Make the plan attainable. You want this to be something that can be easily completed during the week. For better success, it’s important to know what you can do and what is realistic to you at the time.
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Create a behavior-specific plan. An example could be taking the general goal of wanting to “take better care of yourself” and specifying that goal with “schedule an appointment with your doctor” or “walk three days a week.”
After thinking about these three parts, you can start to create an Action Plan specific to you. When creating this, make sure it includes 1) What you are going to do; 2) How much you are going to do; 3) When you are going to do it (time of day); 4) How often you are going to do it. Once the week is over, review the plan. Do this without judgment. How well did you follow the plan? What worked and what didn’t? Think about the changes you can make to the plan and put those into effect for next week. Complete this and repeat! For Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Henry, Jay, and Madison counties, contact Tia Drumm at (765) 759-1121 ext. 101 or tdrumm@lifestreaminc.org. For Fayette, Franklin, Rush, Union, and Wayne counties, contact Chelsey Krofta at (765) 759-1121 ext. 281 or ckrofta@lifestreaminc.org.
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