This Year at CTP we are renewing our commitment to change with a recommitment to practice. We acknowledge that change is constant and our workplaces benefit from change and practice. We define practice as a present, active engagement and a willingness to change. Practice is how we push equity forward.

We invite you to join us.

Our values guide our work. Practice as a framework illuminates when we may be flawed in an approach. Although the reflection process may require a pause or a slower start, it saves us time and grief throughout the change process. Practicing makes us all better humans, partners, and community members. For CTP, practice deepens our mission to liberate the workplace!

New Year’s Resolutions Are So Last Year 

80% of New Year’s Resolutions fail

If that statistic isn’t leaving you inspired… Don’t worry, we have some simple solutions to inspire your new year.

Why do resolutions fail?

1. Behavior change takes time. 
2. Change requires a plan for accountability. 
3. Change is unpredictable. 
4. Our cognitive reaction to words and phrases may be blocking our mental capacity.

Those are four reasons that New Year’s resolutions sometimes fail. Instead of framing our new year with resolutions we can recommit to a practice.

Here are a few ways how:

1. Be honest without being brutal.
2. Set up an accountability process. 
3. Set themes for change rather than tasks. 
4. Ditch the resolution and commit to practice instead.

Check out our blog How to Succeed at Your Goals for the New Year to learn more!

From Practice to Praxis

Let’s take it one step further. Paulo Friere, educator and philosopher, claimed praxis was the application of theory.

What does that really mean?

Praxis is a process of continual and collaborative reflecting, theorizing, and acting (then repeat), toward transformation of conditions. A process that includes workers, intellectuals, and whoever else is impacted by the conditions.

Paulo Friere

Here is an example! You may be painting a room, and you start with a shade of blue. Start with small strokes, add a few more shades, leave it to contemplate, and ask friends or family for feedback. You might choose to go with a combination of blue shades.

A few months later, you may realize that you didn’t ask for feedback from the person or group of people who will be using the room. Once you get their feedback, it might be time to go a different route entirely. 

With paint, this process may have more moderate consequences, though, in regards to relationships, or policy, a praxis that supports peoples’ needs getting met is very important.

Practice is not about getting it right.
It is a continual and integrative process of reflection and applying new learning from diverse perspectives.