29 Jan Call Me Crazy. You Wouldn’t Be The First.

This past week I attended a professional workshop about goals. We were taught how to focus our desires to achievable goals, taught how to reach these goals in a timely manner, and taught to stretch these goals bigger than the original. The point of stretching the goals, we were told, is so that if they are not reached in their entirety, the original goal has a better chance of being accomplished.

In most cases, I believe that stretching goals is a good idea. For instance, your goal is to lose 10 pounds? Well, stretch it to 15. If you happen to lose only 12, you’ve beaten your original goal. Or, you want to read 5 books over the next 4 months? Stretch it to 10. If you’ve read 7, you’re doing great!

Yes, in most cases, stretching your goals is a great way to reach above and beyond what you wish to do. However, in other cases, I believe if you’ve stretched a goal, that goal should then become the ultimate goal that must be accomplished. Could it be a little unrealistic? Sure. Could it be crazy? Well, most likely yes. Will it push you do the best and most that you can? I think so.

This is what I’m doing with Uncover Ostomy. Call me unrealistic, and call me crazy (you wouldn’t be the first) but I have some goals I want to accomplish for this campaign. Big-no- huge goals I want to reach. And I think I can do it.

Thanks to all of you, I’ve had an amazing response to last week’s video blog. I’ve had people reach out to me who are willing to help me find resources, people, time- anything. I’ve had meetings, discussions, phone calls, and more to come. Things are rolling and they’ve only just begun. I’ve focused my goals and I’m working to finish them in a timely manner.

Though you may think I’m crazy, I find my sanity in the fact that there are also many other people out there in the ostomy/IBD community who are working on achieving big goals to make a change as well.

For one, Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto, has the Rachel M. Flood Wound and Ostomy Care Education Program. This program, which I’ve mentioned before,  is working to build an education program for nurses to understand how to properly care for those before and after ostomy surgery. The goal of this project is to enroll every nurse in the relevant field in this program so that they can successfully treat ostomy patients both physically and mentally. In October, I spoke at a conference for the program and helped explain how nurses can encourage patients to spread their own ostomy awareness. I was asked to speak because the program believes that ostomy awareness begins at the beginning of the patient’s journey. This education program is a great way to teach nurses how to encourage openness and acceptance for the surgery. They have quite a large goal, but I believe they can do it.

Another great organization is Gut Inspired. This organization works to promote acceptance and vocalize the presence and commonality of IBD in Canada. They also aim to inform the public about IBD and reduce the stigma associated with digestive disease. It’s kind of like the IBD version of Uncover Ostomy, with large goals and all.

These initiatives are working hard to achieve their goals and have given me strength to focus on mine.

Or have made me unrealistically hopeful.

Hey, if they can do it- so can I.

The goal workshop I went to also spoke about sharing your goals. We were told that having goals did not really mean anything unless other people were involved. We were told that by telling  others about a goal was to, for one, ensure you do not give up the goal or “pretend it never existed” because others knew it did. The other, more important reason to share goals, however, was so that others could help you reach them.

And help you have.

I don’t think I can ever thank you all enough for everything you do. I know I thank you guys a lot, but how can I not? I can’t get anything done without you.  You support the campaign by actively participating in the community, you share the campaign with people you know (Did you know we hit over 3,600 fans of the Facebook page this week? ), and you personally ask your networks to help the campaign when it’s needed.

When I reach my goals, it’ll be because of you.

Thanks guys.