Staying the course

Every winter as the calendar turns from December to January, people across the country start to reexamine the past year and look ahead at what’s to come.

Whether it’s personal goals like heading to the gym more or business goals tied to improving the bottom line, there is no time like a new year for taking stock and making resolutions.

However, data shows that the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions don’t last. According to U.S. News and World Report, 80 percent of resolutions fail by the time Valentine’s Day rolls around.

The reason behind this overwhelming failure rate can be tied, in part, to our desire to see instant results even in the face of complex challenges.

In promoting his book “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t,” author Simon Sinek gave a talk in which he describes how the desire for immediate results often prompts people to give up on their objectives before realistic changes can manifest.

“If you go to the gym and workout, and you come back and look in the mirror, you’ll see nothing. And if you go to the gym the next day and come back and look in the mirror, you’ll see nothing. So clearly there are no results. Success can’t be measured, [exercise] must not be effective, so we quit,” Sinek says. “But if you believe you’re on the right course of action and you stick with it, you commit yourself to the regime, I’m not sure the exact day, but I know you’ll start getting into shape. … It’s the daily practice of all the monotonous little boring things that matters the most.”

This issue marks the start of Construction & Demolition Recycling (C&DR) magazine’s 20th anniversary. In looking back on our time serving the C&D recycling sector, we’re reaching out to industry leaders as part of our ongoing “Evolution of an Industry” feature (page 57) to talk about their time on the job. According to Dan Costello, owner of Costello Dismantling in West Wareham, Massachusetts, Sinek’s fitness analogy on making gradual progress also applies to what it takes to succeed in the construction, demolition and recycling industries.

Asked how he’s been able to grow and adapt after 40 years on the job, Costello says, “You need to just keep plodding on. I think you have to have a will and a desire to continue and succeed, and it’s never easy. Things change constantly. You just have to be ready to address whatever issues may come up.”

Regardless of whether you’re picking up C&DR for the first time or you’ve been a subscriber since our first issue rolled off the presses in 1999, we’re committed to doing our part to keep you abreast of industry changes so you can make more informed business decisions in 2019 and beyond.

That’s what C&DR set out to do 20 years ago, and it’s a resolution we’re proud to maintain today.