New Year’s resolutions and goal setting is a topic we’ve addressed in the past, and is a fitting subject for this time of year. A new year can promise fresh hope and a natural break from the past that may have grown stale or disappointing. Emotionally healthy people periodically look for renewal and setting goals with a natural jumping off point helps frame and motivate toward desired change. In law enforcement, a new year often means new shifts, supervisors, teammates, or assignments, all of which can be a breath of fresh air.
For law enforcement, 2015 has been a year many of us might want to just forget. Policing and police officers have been under a microscope following a series of controversies, protests, and even some genuinely suspect actions by a rare few that cast suspicion on the overwhelmingly honorable majority. It seemed no misdeed, real or merely perceived, went unnoticed. Completely innocent actions and fully justified uses of force were lumped in with what even objective officers would agree were legitimately stupid or criminal acts by a handful of their peers; trying to explain the difference to a ravenous media and out-for-blue-blood segment of the public was often a fool’s errand. Broadly criticizing the police while underplaying nuance has become a tool of the political class. And in the face of all this, morale among the ranks has plummeted.
Facing an onslaught of what feels like deeply personal criticism over events you had no part in and no firsthand knowledge of to make an informed opinion, while being held to bear for it merely because you wear a badge is frustrating. Trying to stand strong against it when each new wave of bad news and reproach breaking over your profession further erodes morale is exhausting. The temptation to simply give up and go into a survival mode – give the bare minimum, view absolutely everyone with suspicion and on par with the most vocal critics, forget ideals and focus instead on just getting through the day – is one more and more cops seem to be giving into, or at least paying lip service. Some are literally giving up, looking to leave the job at the first opportunity, discouraging the younger generations of considering law enforcement as a career, or, in the rare but worst case scenario, cynically “going to the dark side” ethically and behaviorally, and perpetuating the public’s darkest suspicions about police officers.
At its core, broken morale is really a sign of a broken heart. Idealism has been worn down, expectations disappointed, and the realization that not everyone shares your sense of what is right and true is no longer a shock but normalized if still being deeply disconcerting. What a lot of cops are feeling now is more than disappointment, more than anger, and more than simple distrust of media, the political class, and much of society – all hardly new; what is being experienced now is almost a sense of despair over the new realities at the end of 2015.
Making corrections to low morale when it has to do with how an officer is reacting emotionally to external stimuli (most notably, public and media criticism and political machinations) are critical to psychological wellbeing, with the responsibility necessarily going to fall on the individual officers to fix themselves. While supportive administrators, supervisors, and political leaders have a role to play – and, we believe, a responsibility to embrace it – there is no guarantee they will. Even when enlightened bosses step up for their officers they can only do so much; the real efforts to raise morale must come from within.
Being proactive and setting goals – resolutions, if you will – is the essential first step to taking control of your own morale. Wise goal-setting creates benchmarks against which to measure successes and overcome deficits, provides impetus and the positive stress necessary for happiness, and gives control back to individuals rather than leaving them as cogs in someone else’s agenda. If all LEOs resolved to do this, thoughtfully and with a sense of purpose and perspective, perhaps largescale transformation could take place through hundreds of thousands of small incremental changes in attitude and practice. Probably not likely, or course, but pledging to make those small incremental changes in your own policing can make a difference for you.
So, as we move into 2016 and hope for better and more law enforcement friendly times than this past year has given, we offer these tips for effective goal-setting:
Set goals that are manageable and doable
Effort falls short when the goals set are too big, unrealistic, or not given enough time to come to fruition. Vowing to lose 50 pounds in six months is probably not realistic – or healthy – and when progress is too slow discouragement sets in, which leads to simply giving up. Losing one pound a week is better, and adding healthy lifestyle changes better still. Even if you never lose the fifty pounds but instead come to routinely run 20 miles a week, cut out most processed foods, and reduce body fat percentage instead, you’ve reached a manageable and doable goal.
Apply the same principle to policing. You will never eliminate crime from your community, but you can impact it by increasing public contacts (and Cis), learning or improving at investigative techniques and technologies, becoming proactive rather than reactive in your policing style, or developing unique tactics to address specific problems. It makes the job more fun, too.
Set some goals that are measurable
Of course, numbers and empirical data are not everything, but they do serve a purpose to help track progress. For instance, if you are a patrol or traffic officer and spend an inordinate amount of time handling crashes in a specific area or intersection, set specific enforcement goals and tie them to crash reduction goals. See if the one (enforcement) affects the other (crashes). If there is an identifiable correlation, perhaps your goal has succeeded. If not (i.e.: stops increased but there was not corresponding reduction in crashes), go back to the drawing board and know that you’ve at least learned something, even if it wasn’t what you expected. All knowledge is good, and goal failure can be its own reward when it expands knowledge (even if it is knowing what not to waste time on in the future).
Make goals “improvement focused”
Set goals that are “improvement focused”; that is, specifically designed to better yourself and the situation of others around you, instead of being merely self-gratifying. “I’m going to take more time to read” is fine, but “I’m going to read more to expand my horizons, strengthen my mind, and be a better person and cop” far better.
Set goals that are a mix of both personal and professional
Work/Life Balance is a real thing, and very important. For cops, who derive so much identity from their work persona, it may be even more so. Having goals that benefit you personally improves professional morale. Working toward professional goals enhances satisfaction away from work. It sounds odd, but it’s true.
Set your own goals independent of management goals
Respect and work toward the departmental goals that will be set for you but focus more on your own. Being someone else’s cog is, for most of us, unsatisfying (and even unsettling). Meeting your department’s objectives may satisfy in its own way, especially if you are truly on board with them, and keeps the bosses off your back, but fall short when it comes to true satisfaction.
Having goals that you’ve set and accomplished is far more satisfying, and somehow increases engagement far more than just following the company line.
Develop goals that increase involvement with the community you serve
The biggest criticisms of police today all seem to stem from accusations of disengagement with the communities they serve, leading to other, more specific ills. Be the change agent in your own sphere of influence! None of have enough clout to really change how other cops do their jobs whether in distant cites or the next beat over, but we can change how we handle ours.
Celebrate achievement!
Reward yourself when a goal is reached. Blow your own horn at work (rarely will anyone else) or pat yourself on the back for personal successes, whatever that looks like for you.
Hitting milestones and benchmarks is a big deal! Treating it as such improves the likelihood of future success. Remember: Rewarded behavior is repeated behavior (even if you are rewarding yourself).
2015 was a hard year for law enforcement as a whole, and this has taken a toll on many cops personally even if they were never in the crosshairs of public opinion themselves. It is time for setting the personal and professional goals that will make 2016 better.
Michael Wasilewski
Althea Olson, LCSW and Mike Wasilewski, MSW have been married since 1994. Mike works full-time as a police officer for a large suburban Chicago agency while Althea is a social worker in private practice in Joliet & Naperville, IL. They have been popular contributors of Officer.com since 2007 writing on a wide range of topics to include officer wellness, relationships, mental health, morale, and ethics. Their writing led to them developing More Than A Cop, and traveling the country as trainers teaching “survival skills off the street.” They can be contacted at [email protected] and can be followed on Facebook or Twitter at More Than A Cop, or check out their website www.MoreThanACop.com.
Althea Olson
Althea Olson, LCSW and Mike Wasilewski, MSW have been married since 1994. Mike works full-time as a police officer for a large suburban Chicago agency while Althea is a social worker in private practice in Joliet & Naperville, IL. They have been popular contributors of Officer.com since 2007 writing on a wide range of topics to include officer wellness, relationships, mental health, morale, and ethics. Their writing led to them developing More Than A Cop, and traveling the country as trainers teaching “survival skills off the street.” They can be contacted at [email protected] and can be followed on Facebook or Twitter at More Than A Cop, or check out their website www.MoreThanACop.com.
