Training / QA Coordinator Cobb County Dept of Emergency Communications Marietta, Georgia
After selfishly signing up for a Disney race, I needed to train. Using a couch to 5k program for the third time? fourth? was incredibly difficult; 50+lbs overweight, little natural athleticism, and already failed to complete the program multiple times, would it even help? Day by day, the challenges and my choices added up. This is my story of how, within a year, I went from sitting at a console with vague goals and no plan to Operations Supervisor over Training & Quality Assurance at the third largest PSAP in Georgia...and how signing up for a race changed my life.
Learning Objectives:
Sign up. Putting yourself out there can seem overwhelming, especially if the goal is bigger than what most people believe you can achieve. Whatever your reason for wanting it, you have to decide that it's worth it and commit. At the end of this session, you will be able to identify an achievable physical goal and commit to an action plan.
Embrace the Suck. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Some of those bites are tastier than others...when you get a mouthful of yuck, you can't spit it out and give up. OK, enough of that mental image. But the sentiment remains, if it was easy, everyone would do it. Embrace the challenges and grow. At the end of this session, you will be able to recognize fallbacks that may occur during your training and create contingency plans.
Flex and flex HARD. Small victories lead to larger victories, learning to celebrate ourselves, turning off the negative commentary in our own minds, and persevering through the backslides leads to resiliency and fortitude that overflows and seeps into all areas of life. At the end of the session, you will understand the need for a personal reward system and be able to create small and large "win" prizes, whether materialistic or psychological in nature.
