Try January: A New Year Mindset That Begins with Trying

Judy Oskam: 0:02

It's a new year, a new day, and a chance for new opportunities. Welcome to Stories of Change and Creativity. I'm Judy Oskam, a professor at Texas State University. Now, January often gets framed as a month of restriction. Dry January. Less this, less that. But what if January wasn't about giving things up like alcohol, sugar, whatever else? What if it was about trying, trying something new, trying again, trying with intention, not perfection? Well, this is my try January episode, a collection of insights from past conversations that remind us how change actually begins, and it often begins with a start. Well, trying doesn't mean doing everything at once, it means choosing what matters, especially in moments of transition. Psychologist Dr. Meg Jay reminds us that the choices we make during the key seasons of life shape who we become. And I found it interesting the way she described identity capital. And I have talked to my students about that and my own daughters about that. I thought it was super interesting and super insightful.

Dr. Meg Jay: 1:23

Well, I like the name it and claim it piece because what I tell, you know, college students or 20-somethings when we start that conversation is you already have more identity capital. Exactly. They always do.

Judy Oskam: 1:36

They're so interesting.

Dr. Meg Jay: 1:38

And they'll say, Well, I don't have any. Um, it's not possible. What have you been doing for the last two, three, five, ten years? Tell me about your major, tell me about your jobs, tell me about your internships, tell me about your travels, your hobbies, something cool about you, something, what would your friends say your identity capital is? Um, that it's really just our collection of usually experiences, but sometimes it can be just personal assets of, hey, I'm a great conversationalist or whatever the case may be, that kind of make us who we are, that make us different from our best friend or our brother or sister or classmate. Um there's a great quote you aren't who you are, you are what you do. And um, and I there's so much truth to that, especially when you're young. I think a lot of young people are trying to figure out who am I, like it's this, like it's you know, unhidden under a rock somewhere rather than, well, you are whatever you've chosen to spend your time doing, that that's how people are going to understand you.

Judy Oskam: 2:44

So for Try January, maybe we should think about how we can build identity capital. I know for me, I always think about one or two things that I want to tackle or accomplish in the coming year. Last year was sort of a big year for me. It was my TED X talk, and also I had the chance and the opportunity to teach in Scotland. Both experiences challenged me in ways that I had never dreamed. But it doesn't have to be something that big. It can be a new sport, trying a new recipe, it can be reading a new book, reading more, um, practicing your cursive, um, writing with writing more letters to your friends and family. What do you want to try this year? What do you want to be known as? I'm the kind of person who, and then fill in the blank. Well, trying also might mean setting some goals that help us grow and help us reach those accomplishments. Goal setting expert and positive psychologist Caroline Adams Miller challenges us to rethink what success looks like and rethink what we know about goals. It was an interesting conversation with her.

Caroline Adams Miller: 3:59

Well, we have to have a dream for ourselves. So we have to start there. What is what is the dream that you have for your life in the next year? Just begin to engage in the process of if my best possible life occurs this year and I'm going to be doing hard work, I'm going to choose to go out of my comfort zone. What do those dreams or goals look like? And how many of the components of accomplishing those different dreams and goals have I done before? Um, so do I have a learning goal? Am I learning artificial intelligence? Am I learning to enter a new field? I've never worked in a certain field before. Um before, you're an accountant and you want to add a certain certification to how you do your work, you know how to do your work, but you're adding something to it. It's still a performance goal, even though you're adding this one component because you know how to do your job. You know what excellence looks like. Same thing for athletes, for example. So I'm a competitive swimmer. And so I don't need to learn how to swim. I don't need to learn any stroke technique. I might need to learn how to endure more pain if I want to get faster. And so I might have to do different sets in practice. So I can have a performance goal of making masters nationals, but I might have to learn how to endure more pain. However, I know how hard I have to work to get there. So you have the performance piece, which is showing up at workout, doing the workouts. And then the learning piece would be this small add-on, which is how do I endure more pain in different kinds of sets to get there?

Judy Oskam: 5:32

Well, goal setting is certainly a part of leadership, but so is mentorship. And sometimes it means leading right where you are, trying to make a difference, trying to make a connection. In my conversation with Texas State University president, Dr. Kelly Damphousse, we got to the heart of why he pays it forward and why mentorship matters.

Dr. Kelly Damphousse: 5:57

But this mentor I had at Texas AM in grad school, he he really cared about me and invested in me and had we had so many conversations. And one of the conversations is about to have my first child, our our first child. And um he's he starts talking to me about, you know, do you know the difference between between being a father and a dad? I said it sounds like the same word to me. He said, biologically, anyone can be a father. It takes work to be a dad, and here's how you do it. And in the midst of that, uh at the end of it, I I I couldn't I couldn't understand why he cared enough about me to to impart these kinds of wisdom. And he had done so much for me as well. And I I literally asked him, like, Dr. Crow, I don't understand, I don't get you. Like, I why do you care about me? I said, How could I ever pay you back for what you've done for me? Because I have a lot of, I was gonna drop out, all kinds of things, and he'd done so much for me. And he said, Um you you can't pay me back because you don't have anything I want. And uh, but he said, and we were actually sitting in his car at the time. He said, I don't know what your future holds, but someday you'll be sitting behind the steering wheel of the car, and somebody else will be sitting in the pastor's seat, and they're gonna need something. And um, and when when you are tired, when you're stressed, when you're distracted, and someone reaches out, I want you to stop and remember this moment and say this is my opportunity to pay Dr. Crouch back. And so this is before the movie Pay It Forward came out, but the principle is the same. And I wake up, I'm not kidding, I tell I probably this is maybe the 15th, 100th time I've told the story, but I wake up every morning thinking about that. And I don't want to sound noble. Uh Dr. Crouch was noble. I'm not, but I do feel duty bound when I look at the sea of students in front of me, when I look at our faculty, because I was a faculty member, when I look at our staff members, I th I see my mom and dad who are scratching out a living, trying to make things happen. I've tremendous empathy and I try to think about how they're thinking, and then think about the fact that I've been placed in a position where I can change people's lives and um i in a positive way. And so the goal has always been to pay Dr. Crouch back by not being too tired to take a phone call, to go uh sign a birthday card somewhere, or send a student a video, or send an encouraging note to a faculty member or a staff member that I'm reminded every day that Kelly's not important, but the presidency is important. And and when I can go do something, it means something that the president was there. Not that Kelly was there, but the president was there. And I think people I think that resonates with people that they see that I'm trying to try to make their lives matter.

Judy Oskam: 8:56

Well, we never really know what impact we have on others. It might be just a simple word, a simple recognition of someone's accomplishment or their hard work in in order to get there. You never know. Mentorship matters. So I know for me in Try-January, I'm going to try and do a better job of connecting with others and recognizing my faculty achievements, my student success, um, my family milestones. Um I think you can never underestimate the impact you could have on others. And sometimes the most powerful act of trying is saying yes to a place you've never been before and maybe a version of yourself you haven't even met. That was certainly the case during our education abroad experience in Scotland. And you can hear some of the uh interviews I did with students there in the Scotland section of the podcast. But I found it really insightful to hear from Jamin Ochoa and Angie Almos, two of our students that shared some of their reflections.

Jamin Ochoa: 10:06

I think to maybe push yourself. I think even the idea of going abroad is scary. And it's like the days before this plane, the plane here, I was like, I don't want to go, I'm gonna cancel it, I don't want to go. It's so it's so horrifying to completely unend your life and to go in a whole nother country where you might not be welcomed or you might not feel accepted. But I think there's a lot more in store than you think, and I think it's gonna be an experience you won't forget, and it's an experience that's gonna change you. And like me, who might come back and might take a master's here, it might open so many doors for you that you never knew were possible. And so sometimes it's okay to close your door of, hey, I want to have a cachel summer or hey, I want to stay in America. Close that door, close that door, leave the window open, but close that door and go abroad and take opportunities and take risks because that's what's gonna make you who you are in the future.

Angie Olmos: 10:53

Do it, like you own you're young once. Um this is something that like you can tell your kids, you can tell your friends, you can tell your family. And it's something like it helps you grow as a person because we're still like as I said, young. Like these like experiences and memories are like what will shape us. And you can also use it as networking as well, but like it's it's like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and like you're getting to go somewhere new and you're traveling by yourself, like you get to grow as a person.

Judy Oskam: 11:23

You can see why I love working with my students, and we had such a great experience in Scotland. It was so uh so positive. Well, trying also means creating. Creativity isn't just about art, it's about curiosity and experimentation and play. And every time I think about creativity, I think of my friend Wendy Conklin, and she's been uh a guest on the show a couple of times. But I had Wendy give a workshop to my graduate class on creative problem solving this past spring, and it made me think about ways that we could incorporate creativity in our own lives. And I know start of the year, this is tri-January, it might be a good chance to think about some of her feedback and her advice.

Wendy Conklin: 12:13

Well, I would say um begin with your surroundings of where you live and where you work. Because if you create the spaces that bring you joy, your life will be better, your outlook will be better, your work will be better, you will be a better parent, you know, you'll be a better spouse because your surroundings have a lot to do with stimulation and joy. And whenever and I and I I never really thought about this until I had done some chairs for a lady, and um they're really bright and colorful. That's the way all my chairs are, and she had sent me a card in the mail as a thank you. And she said, Every time I walk in my kitchen, I smile when I see those chairs, and I thought, Whoa, are you serious? I mean, like this is news to me, you know, I didn't know this. And then I started noticing when I would post online pictures of my chairs, people would say, Your chairs just make me smile in the comments. And so this is, you know, you don't know when you're a creator, you don't know what effect it has on other people. It's to me, chairs are like art, you know. I I treat them that way, they are the art in the room. But those surroundings and those things that we look at, um, we need to have in our own homes that make us happy.

Judy Oskam: 13:47

As part of Try January, how can we create a better work life environment? Uh, not only at home, but also if we're working in an office or what kind of a situation do we have? Can we influence and make it more pleasant, more uh more pleasing? I think Wendy's right. I think creating the space around us does infuse creativity. And as I was thinking about the past year, I also thought about the attitude and the approach to life that veterinarian and global adventurer Cliff Redford shared with us. He reminds us that adventure doesn't have to be extreme, it just has to be intentional. So we had some good insight on ways that we can approach life. And I found it, I found it pretty insightful.

Dr. Cliff Redford: 14:42

Yeah, yeah. Be kind to others and be kind to yourself. I mean, uh, life is short, life is a lot more fun when you're when you're easy on yourself and easy on others. Give people a break. You don't know what they're going through and they're when they're a little bit rude to you, maybe. There are times where you're gonna be rude to somebody else as well. You don't mean to, you're going through a bad day. So forgive those when they're a little bit hornery. Um and forgive yourself when you make a mistake and and and just go and chase that wonderful cuisine, as uh Anthony Bourdain says, it's okay if you failed it. Well, if you failed it one, try again.

Judy Oskam: 15:21

Uh, try again. So this January, instead of focusing on what you're giving up, focus on what you're willing to try. Try curiosity, try intention, courage, try again and again. You've been listening to stories of change and creativity. Thanks for starting the new year with me, and thanks for making it a try January.