New Year’s Resolutions

Kate Greening Keep breathing and remember to laugh. BC Notary Kate Greening Courtenay

I don’t have any Resolutions this year . . . pretty boring. I have quit smoking and drinking already; all I do is ride my horse if I’m not working.

Patti Thomson I’m living the dream . . . I have no changes to make!! BC Notary Patti Thomson Cowichan Lake

Continue to have the courage to suck at something new.

Riaz Meghji Human

Connection Keynote Speaker How do we have a better experience in this challenging chapter of our lives? These are not normal times Tiffany Postler and I know people can be very hard on themselves when they’re struggling. I think we need kindness and empathy not just toward others, but for ourselves.

First it hurts, then it changes you.

To me, that describes this year. Strangely, before COVID, that idea was the basis for my 2020 New Year’s Resolution. I resolved to continue working on my relationships, not just with loved ones, but with other aspects of my life like health, money, and nature. The pandemic flipped my New Year’s Resolution on its head, forcing me to get creative with the way I maintained relationships once social-distancing measures were in place. This year has been hard on all of us. When I make a New Year’s Resolution, it’s never to stop something, it’s always to start something. Going into 2021, I am going to build on my resolution for 2020 and start encouraging the people in my life to give themselves more love and understanding. Tiffany Postler DoProcess

©iStockphoto.com/ThomasVogel

Lawyers are taught to make a lot of clever noise. Listening skills are not part of most law school curricula. As a law reformer, however, I need to

Krista James hear about people’s experiences in order to explore how to improve the legal system. My 2020 personal and professional growth resolution was “listen better and deeper” and, ironically, during my year of attentive listening, the universe offered additional listening challenges— pandemic limits on gathering mean consultation is increasingly mediated by video-conferencing software.

Not surprisingly perhaps, on the way to thinking about better listening, I realized I was talking too much. I discovered that some people need a lot of silence to speak up. I also learned that moments of silence reduce the cognitive load for many listeners, such as immigrants and people living with dementia. They hear me better when I resist the impulse to fill empty silence with more words. So for 2021, I am still meditating on listening, but I am also considering how to strategically leverage silence. Krista James, National Director Canadian Centre for Elder Law Coast Salish Territories