As we enter a new year, it’s a natural time to reflect — not just on where we’ve been, but on who we want to be. New Year’s resolutions often come with big promises: dramatic lifestyle changes, ambitious goals, or sweeping personal transformations. While those intentions are admirable, I’d like to suggest something simpler, and perhaps more achievable.
Commit to being just a little better than you were last year.
Being a little better doesn’t require a grand plan. It doesn’t demand perfection. It simply asks for intention. Maybe it means exercising consistently, eating a little healthier, or prioritizing sleep, something we in the fire service often sacrifice without a second thought. Maybe it means sharpening a skill, training more consistently, or preparing yourself so that when the tones drop, you’re just a bit more ready than you were yesterday.
Improvement Beyond Ourselves
But improvement doesn’t stop with personal performance. One of the most meaningful ways to be better is to invest in others. Mentor someone. Share what you’ve learned, especially the hard-earned lessons that came from past incidents. If you’ve been in this job long enough, you’ve accumulated experience that someone else can benefit from. You don’t have to be a chief or an officer to make an impact. Sometimes the most powerful mentorship comes from a simple conversation or a word of encouragement.
I also encourage lifting people up. While it sounds simple, it’s incredibly powerful. The fire service is built on trust and teamwork. Yet somewhere along the way, we’ve allowed negativity, especially on social media, to chip away at that foundation. What I call firefighter-on-firefighter violence isn’t physical, but it’s damaging all the same. It shows up in comments that tear others down, in dismissive attitudes toward different departments, roles, or people.
We need to do better.
Social media can be a tool for education, connection, and support, but too often it becomes a place where we criticize instead of mentor, judge instead of understand, and divide instead of unite, while commenting without knowing the backstory or situation, or without considering the impact of our words. Before posting, commenting, or sharing, we should ask ourselves a simple question: Does this help the fire service move forward? If the answer is no, maybe it doesn’t need to be said at all.
Stronger Together Across Disciplines
As we think about being better in the year ahead, it’s also important to remember that the fire service does not stand alone. We are part of a broader emergency services family. Firefighters, dispatchers, EMTs, and paramedics all play critical roles in the same mission: serving the public and protecting life. Each role comes with its own challenges, pressures, and sacrifices. Mutual respect and understanding across these disciplines is essential.
Firefighters rely on every link in that chain to do their job safely and effectively. When we recognize that we are truly in this together, we become stronger as individuals and as a profession.
So as this new year begins, consider making a resolution that’s less about drastic change and more about steady progress. Be a little healthier. Train with more consistency. Be a little kinder. Be a little more patient. Mentor someone. Lift someone up. Choose to support rather than criticize. Choose to unite rather than divide.
If each of us commits to being just a little better, the collective impact will be enormous.
Happy New Year.
Frank
