The Dojo of Collaboration

For the last five years I have traveled this wonderful journey of learning Ryukyu Kempo Martial Arts.  It’s an Okinawan, Japanese style of martial arts with a focus on self protection. It’s not solely about the fighting, but rather conditioning and preparing the mind.  You first learn how to prepare your mind for the training.  Preparation is key.  Preparation in context of Ryukyu Kempo is understanding and embracing the rules of the dojo (training ground), the guiding principles and the tenets will prepare you to study and master the art.  In martial arts I have to depend on my classmates to help sharpen me to learn the art to the precise detail needed to effectively protect myself if that situation should arise.  There is a lot of collaboration that occurs in class in order to sharpen one another.  You see, we recognize we need each other to reach our fullest potential. Though we learn at our own pace we still need each other to be successful.

The same is true in any discipline.  Business analysis is a discipline.  As a business analyst you need to partner and work with others in order to reach that shared common goal during collaboration.  The word collaboration is used A LOT, but the execution of it is where individuals fall short.  Taking the time to prepare yourself to create that collaborative environment is key.  A lot of times there are assumptions made that everyone knows how to collaborate and will play in the sandbox together.  However, that is not always the case.  Some individuals have worked in silos for so long they don’t understand how to get out of that siloed way of thinking, and work with others who bring different perspectives or thoughts.  Some would prefer to just do their own thing independently and not have to work with individuals at all.  The power of collaboration is the diversity of thought and perspectives that come to the table to bring forth powerful business transformations.  Transformations cannot be done in a vacuum, at least not powerful ones.  Understanding the importance of building and maintaining relationships, how to handle conflict, how to come to decisions that everyone can buy in to are all parts of collaboration.  In order to create a collaborative environment you must first model the collaborative behavior.  If you are not modeling the behavior you cannot expect others to.  It’s important to create that environment of collaboration and demonstrate those behaviors.

Regards,

Paula Bell

Effective Elicitation

As of late I have received questions on how to effectively elicit requirements.  I get asked the questions, how do you know the right questions to ask and how to effectively get people to tell you what they want?  I will admit it can be challenging to get subject matter experts (SMEs) to tell you what they want.  Let's first start with some of the reasons why it may be hard to get individuals to tell you what they want:

1. It may be because they actually may not know what exactly they want.
2. It may be because they feel the project is going to take away their job.
3. It may be because they don't understand the purpose and scope of the project, the WHY.
4. It may be because they don't agree with the project and don't buy in to the need.
5. It may be political as some of the individuals may have ulterior motives.
6. It may be because they don't like you. Let's just be honest, if there is no connection to you they may not want to interact with you.

The above are just some of the common reasons I have encountered in my career.  Not only do you have the above, but you are dealing with different personalities, temperaments, communication styles, work styles and more.  The simple fact that you are dealing with people is what makes elicitation and decision complicated.  Here are some tips I have used that have made this process easier for me. It may take some additional time in some parts of the process but it's worth it.

1. Relationship Building - it's extremely important that you build relationships with those you are working with.  Getting to know the individuals you work with helps you to strategize and approach the work.  You take the time to understand what individuals like and don't like. You can determine their pet peeves.  You can uncover their communication styles and how they like to collaborate and work.  A lot of times we jump right into the project and start completing tasks instead of connecting with individuals you will be working with.  At the end of the day everyone on the project team is important and needed.  Every individual person is bringing something to the table.  Identify what this is and connect with them.  You know never the friendships you may make or long time connections you may have.  This step will help you when it comes to decision making as well.  You will start to build alliances and those alliances may be individuals who an help influence decision making.
2. Plan - it's very important to plan.  Take a step back and plan how you will approach the elicitation and decision making work. Take time to determine the type of system you will use to conduct decision making.  In addition, understand the type of techniques you will leverage to conduct the elicitation based on the project team. This links back to building relationships as your approach may change based on the audience you are working with.
3. Set Clear Expectations - frame up every meeting to ensure everyone understands the purpose and the outcome.  Ensure that individuals understand the purpose of the project and where they fit into the project.  Take time to explain the "WHY" as that opens up a lot of doors for people to buy-in and collaborate.
4. Actively Listen  - sometimes it's better to listen than to talk.  Take time to listen to the SMEs concerns and overall to what they are saying.  It's not just always about getting the tasks done and getting your work completed, it's about listening to what those who are the experts have to say as that can help bring so much clarity.  You are the expert in the business analysis space, but the SMEs are the experts in the subject knowledge, or at least should be, so give them their time.
5. Ask for Feedback - during the process ask for feedback. Feedback is a gift and asking for it is extremely important.  Determine a rhythm throughout the process to ensure you are meeting the expectations of those you are working with and the project as a whole.  If things need to be tweaked, then tweak them.   It's better to tweak early on than to find out later that you should have tweaked awhile ago.
6. Be Adaptive and Flexible - I'm sure you have experienced this already, but projects tend to have change. 😀 The change could be in direction, scope, budget, etc...It's important to understand that you may need to change your approach at a drop of a hat.  Be prepared to have to change direction at any point and time.
7. Stay Humble - in all things stay humble.  You bring a skill set to the table, but you need others to help you be successful.  Ensure to stay humble and true to yourself through it all.

Taking time to do these things will help you determine the right questions to ask and approaches to take to get decisions made. You are not just leveraging the technical, but also leveraging interpersonal skills to aide in getting the job done.  As I've said in the past 80% of what we do is interpersonal while 20% is technical.  Go forth and conquer!

Regards,

BA Martial Artist

Don't Let Your Dream(s) Overwhelm You

The last few weeks I have had the opportunity to talk to many people who have big dreams they want to pursue.  The common words I hear is "there is something burning on the inside of me" or "I have a fire stirring up inside of me".  When I hear statements like these in my mind whatever this "fire" is, is something the person is extremely passionate about it and need to bring forth.

It's also great to have that fire stirring, but sometimes that fire feels like it's blazing because the dream is so overwhelming.  The sheer enormity of the dream and what it would take to execute the dream can be extremely scary.  Scary to the point it stops you from pursuing it.  You may ask yourself, "what if I fail?" or even yet, "what if I succeed, am I ready?"  The reason there is a fire inside of you is because that particular dream, or vision, is yours, and yours alone.  Though it may be scary walking in to your destiny you are the only one who can do it.  No one can do what you have inside of you to do.  So though the dream may be overwhelming, and executing on that dream may seem daunting, you can do it.   Whether you know it or not, people are depending on you to birth that dream.  When you bring forth your dream you may be opening doors for others to birth theirs.  So you may ask what do you do with these overwhelming feelings? Here are some steps you can take to keep your passion and dream ignited despite the enormity and bring forth that fire that is burning on the inside of you:

1. Accept It - accept that you, and only you, can bring forth this dream. There is a reason you have this burning inside of you.  Only you can articulate the "why".  Only you can bring it forth because it resonates within you.  Only you can understand it at a level no one else can.  People are depending on you to bring it forth so they can experience your dream.  Own your dream.
2. Acknowledge your concerns - my cousin once said to me that he doesn't like to use the word "fear".  Fear is an emotion where you are expecting something to go wrong.  So if you already expect it to occur you have already extinguished some of the fire you will need to drive it forward.  Instead of going in with fears, think about the parts of the dream that are concerning and how you are going to overcome those concerns.
3. Break It Down - don't go in with the mindset you have to do everything at once to bring forth you dream.  Break the dream down in to manageable parts so that you are showing progress throughout.  When you can show progress that will keep you on the course of execution.  If you get overwhelmed by the enormity and bring forth nothing, you could begin to stop believing in your dream.  Sit down and think about all the tasks that need to get done to bring forth your dream. Then prioritize and create a plan of action.  It may take a couple of years before the full dream comes to fruition, but trust me the end product will be a masterpiece that will impact so many lives.  
4. Don't Give Up - you will FAIL.  It's okay to FAIL.  Failure has such a negative connotation, but every failure gets you closer to your success.  Every successful product out there has had some sort of failure.  These failures teach you new things and makes you stronger.  Don't give up if during the process of execution you fail.  Take time to do root cause on why you failed, pick yourself up and keep going.  Remember, someone out there is waiting for you to bring forth this dream.
5. Commit - with anything you need to commit with perseverance and discipline.  Even when times get hard you have to push through and see it to the end.  What doesn't kill you will make you stronger.  Take every obstacle as a chance to get stronger for the next obstacle that will come your way.  There will always be challenges, but how you react to the challenges is what will make you or break you.
6. Help Others - I have found that while you're working to manifest your dreams if you help others along the way your dream will manifest stronger than ever.  You may ask, "Paula, what on earth are you talking about?  I have to execute on my own dream and now you are telling me to help others.  Won't that take away from the time I should be spending on manifesting my dream?"  You can look at it that way, but I offer a different perspective.  I'm going to tell a personal story.  I have a lot of different dreams I want to accomplish before I perish from this thing called life.  I have a passion to help others reach their goals, whether personally or professionally.  I have a day job and run two businesses outside of that day job.  One of which is my consulting business.  For those who don't know, my consulting business is 4-tiered.  This means I have 4 very distinct components that I do consulting on: event planning, business planning for small businesses, leaderships and career development coaching/mentoring/speaking and finally business analysis coaching/mentoring/speaking/authoring.  As you can imagine, especially in the speaking space I have to prepare content which takes time.  In the event planning space I have to create templates and plans for the different occasions.  I believe you get the picture.  However, though I have this work to do, I'm still giving back to the community in which I live focusing on the youth.  I want our youth to succeed.   Now how does helping youth help me with my dream?  As you recall, I said my passion is to help others reach their goals.  In helping the youth I'm learning exactly how to do that.  You learn a lot by helping others.  Different perspectives are brought forth as you share your gifts and talents with others.  Some of the conversations and volunteering I have done has created some great scenarios for content in presentations that I have leveraged to bring forth a point.  The youth sowed a seed in me and now I'm sowing that same seed in others with the hope, someone will continue to sow and spread the word for a great harvest of knowledge.  So you see, helping others has helped me to bring forth my dream even stronger.  Most successful people will tell you they didn't get their success on their own.  They had others who helped them achieve their ultimate success.  

I want to encourage you today to bring forth that fire that is burning inside of you.  Don't let the sheer size of the dream, or your concerns, stop you from bringing forth what you know you have inside of you.  People need to experience the dream that only you can bring forth, because it lives inside of you.  There are many people who are counting on you and many people who will help you if you just take the step to bring it forth.

No go forth and conquer!  We need your dreams!!!!!!

Regards,

BA Martial Artist

BA & Leadership Martial Arts Revealed in 2017

Many of you know, some may not, that. I have been studying martial arts (Ryukyu Kempo - Okinawa Japanese martial arts) since 2012.  I started as a way to do something with my kids.  My kids and I did it for a couple of years and then they decided to pursue other interests, which I definitely supported.  When they chose to leave though I decided to keep going.  I saw a black belt in my future and I couldn't just stop for fear I would regret not going continuing on to see if I could achieve the black belt.  However, I have learned way more than I expected going throuugh this journey.  You see, martial arts is not just about receiving a belt, or having the ability to fight, but rather it is a state of mind.  The first step in martial arts is preparing your mind.  It's not about how well you fight, how hard you can punch, how hard you can kick, how much of a beating you put on someone.  Martial arts is about discipline, perseverance, integrity, self protection and more.  Much more than just fighting.

So you may ask what on earth does this have to do with business analysis and leadership?  I'm here to say everything.  I have created a framework that shows the parallels between martial arts, business analysis and leadership.  I created this framework because it allowed me to bring two of my passions together to show how martial arts has helped me to take my business analysis and leadership skills to the next step.  The framework is quite simple actually.  It's based on 4 main concepts: The foundation, the techniques, the skills and the transformation.  If you think of this from the standpoint of martial arts let me break this down this way:

1. The Foundation - as stated earlier the foundation of martial arts is the mind.  The dojo is the sacred and respected training area to learn the art.  Before you enter the dojo you bow in to show respect.  When a black belt enters you bow to that black belt to show respect, and when you leave the dojo you bow out.  The rules that should be following to train in the dojo, there are ways you should conduct yourself in the dojo (guiding principles and tenets).  Those guiding principles, tenets, dojo rules is what prepares your mind to train.  It gets your in the right form of mind to learn the techniques and skills needed to become a great martial artist and see transformations based on the techniques and skills.
2. The Techniques - the technique is the way of carrying out an activity.  Once you understand how to conduct yourself in the dojo and guiding principles, you can then start to learn the techniques to carry out the art.  Examples here would be our covers, kicks, stances, pressure points, reading your environment your environment so you ar alert and how to use weapons to name a few.  Perfecting these techniques are critical because in order to demonstrate the skill (which is next) you must learn and understand the techinques.
3. The Skills - the skill is the ability to do something well.  As you are learning the techniques and working to perfect them, you can demonstrate your understanding by showing your skill through 2 person drills, katas or weapons training.  
4. The Transformation - the transformation to show you have the techniques and skills needed is belt advanacement, special responsibilities in the dojo, or even special recognition.  Each belt reflects a certain level of techniques and skills.  Even at a black belt you are still learning and perfecting.  Actually once you reach black belt you start all over again because you have a different level of responsibilities and expectations.

The same is true for business analysis and leadership.  They are both disciplines that have a foundation, techniques, skills and transformations.  The difference is that we tend to short change understanding the foundation, learning the techniques and the skills to have powerful transformations.  It's easier to do it with business analysis and leadership opposed to martial arts.  If you don't take the needed time to learn and perfect these concepts in martial arts the consequences could be injuries or unfortunately death depending on the situation.  So why wouldn't we take the same level of care to learn and perfect a craft that we have a passion around?  The answer is we should.  In everything we do we should take the needed time to perfect the craft.  That is what this framework is about.  Let's take time to perfect our craft of business analysis and leadership and become the high performers we know we are.  Throughout the year the framework will be unveiled.  Stay tuned for more to come....


Signing off,
The BAMartial Artist

Understanding the Unspoken

Imagine that you have prepared for a week for the perfect requirements workshop. You know your agenda is on point and the techniques you are going to use are perfect for the group you will be facilitating. You are confident that this will be a successful workshop.  You also know that all the participants were prepped prior to the meeting on the purpose of the meeting and the changes that will be coming through this project.  The morning of the workshop you walk into the room confident. You start to set up the room ready for the day. Individuals start to arrive for the meeting. You smile and greet them as they walk in. Some greet you back and others do not. You start to wonder why there are some that are being cold and you haven't even started the session yet. You begin to get concerned as now you are beginning to wonder what this session will really be like.

As you begin the session you go through the agenda. You can tell that some are engaged while others are clearly disengaged. You begin to slowly get discouraged as this session might be harder than you expected.

I'm sure everyone has experienced this before. I have found that the unspoken can be just as telling as the spoken.  Truly, actions do speak louder than words.  However, you can still maintain your composure and confidence even in this environment. Here's how.

1. Your response - how you respond to the dynamics in the room can define the environment.  It's important you still maintain control and composure.  Your reaction is more important than anyone else in the room. Facilitate the workshop with confidence, engage those who are engaged and those who are not by asking for their insight, ensure that all voices are being heard in the room even if his takes you of your agenda.
2. Observe - It's really important in all that you do you observe.  In this type of situation though you need to observe quickly. Scan the room and carefully watch the body language. If you see individuals not making eye contact, arms crossed, leaning back in their chair or even checking their emails on their phone, there is probably a reason to be concerned. This may be telling you their mind is elsewhere when you really need it to be in the room.  When a person is engaged their body language may consists of sitting up straight, leaning forward, head nods, taking notes and making eye contact to make a few. If you are getting mixed body language in the meeting you may need to adjust your style quickly. The key to this is doing it quickly. Time is of the essence so it's important to be comfortable that your well laid out plans may need to be adjusted on the fly. So how do you do this you make ask? Great question! Move to number 2. 
3. Adjust your style - You have to be comfortable changing up your agenda at a drop of a hat. If you are too bound to your plan without any flexibility your life as a facilitator is going to be rough. You may need to pause the agenda and do an exercise or ice breaker to lighten up the mood in the room or you may just need to go around the room to hear what is on the individuals mind. The focus here is to adjust you style to the environment to a place where everyone is somewhat comfortable. Everyone may not be totally comfortable, but your goal is to get the disengaged less disengaged and more comfortable. In order to do that you will need to drive it. Maybe tell a person story that relates to the topic you are there to talk about, or go around the room and ask everyone what is the one problem that keeps them up at night, or maybe find out why they feel they are a part of the workshop. You may find out why the disengagement is occurring. Once you lighten the atmosphere you want to seek to understand which is #3 below. 
4. Seek to understand - Based on the questions you asked as you tried to lighten the mood you might have gained some insight on the disengagement, but if you are still getting resistance you may want to have a 1:1 conversation with the individuals who are disengaged after the meeting. Depending on how bad the disengagement is you may want to take a 15-20 minute break and pull the individual aside to have a conversation. You may find they did not want to share their concerns in front if others and having a more private conversation they are willing to open up. You need to continue to focus on the objective at hand without getting off your game during the meeting, but you've got to take time to understand why there are some who are disengaged. 

Once you have an understanding on the dynamics in the room and the concerns then continue to adjust your style.  Adjusting your style doesn't mean you are weak, it means you are taking into consideration everyone in the room who has a vested interest in the project.  It means you are creating an inclusive environment to understand the business needs to ensure an optimal solution is created.  

Remember, you need to ensure you are flexible and adaptable to your environment.  That is what takes you from good to great.

Regards,

The BA Martial Artist

Where Do I Start?

You've finally landed that business analysis job you've been waiting for. You get up the morning of your first day and you are so excited to start this new adventure that you are almost skipping around the house. As you get ready you start thinking about the new people you will meet, the projects you will be assigned and how to make a great first impression on your manager. You grab your keys and walk out the door. As you drive to work you can't hide your excitement. You pull in to the parking ramp and head inside to embark on your new journey. The security guard is waiting for you with your badge and one of your teammates is waiting for you to show you to your desk. As you walk through corridors you see people working on their laptops or on conference calls. You feel you will fit right in as the environment feels like home. As you are shown to your desk you begin to put everything in order. You are impressed with all the supplies and materials already on your desk ready for you to get to work.  As you organize the last thing on your desk, you get a tap on your shoulder. It's one of your co-workers. She introduces herself as the project manager for one of the projects you will be assigned to.  Your excitement is bursting within you. She takes you around the office to meet your fellow co-workers.  As you meet the last one she motions you to head with her to a conference room to discuss the project you will be working with her on. She explains this a multi-million project that is a high priority for the organization.  So there is a lot of visibility.  She explains the scope of the project, stakeholders involved and timeline. The timeline is very aggressive. She excited to have you onboard because you have to start requirement workshops in 4 days and she is ready to get this project rolling. 

As you leave the room to go back to your desk your excitement turns to panic.  This is your first business analysis job. Reality begins to set in. You really don't know where to start. You start sweating as questions start coming to your mind faster than you can handle. You look around the office as you are walking and it appears everyone has it together and knows what they are doing. You are not feeling like you fit in anymore. As you reach your desk you sit down slowly, feeling defeated before you even begin. 

How many of us have felt that way at some point in our career? How many of us have let fear overtake our confidence? How many of us claim defeat before we even begin when faced with a difficult task? 

We have all experienced this feeling at one point in our life if we are truly honest. Though this post is specific to business analysis work, there are concepts here everyone can use regardless of the situation. As I mentor and coach business analysts this is one consistent question I get (especially the junior business analysts), "where do I start?"

Let's go back to our scenario and I will present some ideas on we can help this new business analyst get their confidence back.  

Breathe - when presented with a challenge where you are panicked take a few deep breaths. Breathing will calm your body and clear your mind, detoxify your body and relieve pain to name a few benefits. It sounds simple, and maybe even silly to some, but many of us don't stop during the day to regulate our breathing. It's important to first get calm before you tackle anything. If you don't the situation can overcome you and leave you feeling defeated.

Absorb - once you get to your "zen" moment, take a moment to absorb the information that was presented. Hopefully you were taking notes while information was being explained. Even if you weren't just take a moment to digest the information you heard. 

Request - request from the project manager documentation about the project so you can start reviewing the information. In addition to the documentation start to do research on the organization as a whole. Understand the mission and vision of the organization. Look at the organizational charts to understand the key players. Learn the methodology used in the organization to do project management activities. Determine the artifacts that will need to be produced. Also, take time to meet the other business analysts on the team. You can learn a lot from the other business analysts. Start building crucial relationships.  Who knows you may create a mentoring relationship out of it. 

Plan - not that you've done your research start to determine your approach for the business analysis activities. This is where you start to determine how you will prepare for the workshop, how you will conduct the workshop, how you will elicit requirements, how you will document the requirements and how you will validate/confirm the requirements. This is the area I want to spend a little time because this is the area where my clients in the past have had the most challenge getting started. 

• Stakeholders - it's important you understand the stakeholders and their role for the meeting. Know who the decision makers are because that will make your life easier. A tool you can leverage to document this out is the RACI matrix. 
• Logistics - determine if this meeting will be face to face, virtual or a combination. If face to face look at the room it will be held so you can determine how best to set up the room. You want the room set up in such a way that everyone will be engaged. If virtual make sure you know the software available to you to facilitate the call/videoconference. If you've never used the software before find someone who can help you get acclimated to it prior to the meeting.  Make sure you have someway to capture items that need to be discussed a later time (parking lot items). Ensure these items are addressed and dispositioned. 
• Agenda - think through the agenda of events for the workshop. It's often a good idea to do an icebreaker (that's not offensive) as a way to get to know individuals. Also start with working agreements (also known as ground rules), but ensure you give a couple of examples and have the group come with ideas as well. This allows the team to feel that they are contributed.  Make sure the agenda lists out the timeframe for the agenda item, the agenda item and who will be leading that part of the agenda. An example of agenda may look like the below (Please note this is just an example and depending on the organization timeframes and tasks could be different. For example, if current and future state maps were created you may just review them opposed to creating them.): 

• 8:00 - 8:05 am - Welcome -Business Analyst
• 8:05 - 8:20 am - Icebreaker - Business Analyst 
• 8:20 - 8:30 am - Words from sponsor - Sponsor
• 8:30 - 8:50 am - Project Overview - Project Manager/Business Analyst
• 8:50 - 9:00 am - Explanation of requirements workshop approach - Business Analyst
• 9:00 - 10:00 am - Document current state - Business Analyst
• 10:00 - 10:15 am - Morning Break
• 10:15 - 12:00 pm - Document Future State - Business Analyst
• 12:00 - 1:00 pm - Lunch
• 1:05 - 3:00 pm - Continue with future state - Business Analyst
• 3:00 - 4:00 pm - Elicit requirements - Business Analyst
• 4:00 - 4:30 pm - Recap of the day and next steps for Day 2

Set Expectations - sit down with the project manager to set expectations on how you will work together and how you plan to approach the project.  Make any changes to your approach based of feedback from the project manager. If you the ability to meet with the sponsor and stakeholders prior to the workshop then take advantage of that. You can learn a lot about a person from just having a conversation. This may help you understand how to facilitate the workshop. I have created a template called the "PM/BA Agreement" that helps to have this conversation.

Execute - execute on your plan. If things are not going as smoothly as you would like then tweak as needed. If the workshop is the first time you are meeting the audience you will start to understand personalities and communication styles. You may also realize that the room may need to be set up differently for engagement so you may to rearrange the room or use a different approach for those who are joining on the phone. 

Document - document what you think you heard and validate that information as correct as you document it.  Try not to take feedback personally as your job is to document the needs of the business.  Remember, diversity is powerful and helps create powerful solutions.

Retrospective - take time to request feedback throughout the process. These are lessons learned. You do not have to wait until the requirements are completed to ask for feedback. Getting feedback early is a "gift" and can help you be a more effective business analyst. 

As you continue to learn the organization and the stakeholders the fear you once had will turn into confidence. It's important to take a moment to collect yourself so you can be as effective as possible. It's okay to initially not know how to approach a task, but be confident in who you are and the skills you bring to the table. Secure a mentor who can help you through the process. Even if you do fail, dust yourself off, square your shoulders, hold your head up high and go for it again. Failures are not weaknesses, but rather bring you one step closer to your successes. You can do this as long as you believe in yourself and put in the work. 

I have templates for the RACI matrix, agenda, PM/BA agreements, requirements documentation, how to approach working agreements and capturing retrospective. If you are interested in any of these templates please send me an email (paula@paulaabell.com) and advise of which templates you want. 

Regards.

The BA Martial Artist

Email: paula@paulaabell.com

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Overcoming the Distractions

I think everyone can agree that there is SO MUCH going on in this world today.  From violence, racial discord, political unrest, just to name a few.  It's very easy to get caught up in all of the chaos with access to social media, conversations you hear as you are out and about or even at work.  However, some of this can take you away from what you are truly trying to accomplish in your life.  Distractions come in all shapes and forms.  Some can add value to your life, while others clearly do not.  Distractions can come in your personal life and take you away from taking care of yourself or your family.  Distractions can come at work and take you away from the true tasks you need to achieve.  Distractions can come when you are trying to reach certain goals in your life and take you off course.   So how do overcome those things that are distractions to ensure you maintain focus?  Here are a few things I have learned through this journey called "life".  Without focus you can easily become distracted and lose precious time that could have been used to reach your goals.

1. Acknowledgement - in all things the first thing you need to do is acknowledge a distraction is present.  This is easier said than done in some cases.  Sometimes you may not even recognize there is a distraction as you go through the motions. So you may ask, "how on earth do you acknowledge something you may not even know is there?" One clear way to recognize a distraction is to find yourself in turmoil, distress or constant chaos that is adding absolutely no value to your life.  If you find/feel in your gut that something isn't right, something probably isn't right.  If there is something that is constantly pulling you away from what you want to achieve  you need to 1. listen to your gut 2. take a moment and stop what you are doing - be still 3. reflect on that item that is giving you the angst in your gut to determine what to do next.  Our gut tells us a lot of things, but it's up to us to listen to it.  You have to take time away from the situation, just sit and be still, in order to take control back from the "thing" that is giving the turmoil and chaos.  The "being still" part is allowing you to just sit and think outside of the noise.  Then you must reflect.  What part are you playing in the chaos? Who are the additional players in the chaos? Is this particular situation adding value or taking value away from what you're  trying to accomplish in life?  Depending on the answers to these questions you need to fully acknowledge the issue.  Don't beat yourself up over it because we all go through chaotic times in our life where we allow unnecessary distractions in. However, if you don't acknowledge the issue it will continue to reek havoc in your life.  So the first step is identifying and acknowledging you have a distraction that is adding absolutely "no value" to your life.
2. Remove the distraction - once you have acknowledged you have a distraction that is not adding value to your life you need to remove it.  This could mean removing friends, acquaintances, organizations, companies, etc...This can be extremely hard depending on who or what you are removing.  If it's not adding value to your life, and just more turmoil, do you really want that to be a part of your life?  Why would you keep unnecessary drama in your life, unless you just like that sort to thing?  If you have distractions that are causing you to perform horribly at work, not meet you personal or work goals, stress, changing your attitude about yourself and on life in general, why on earth would you want to keep that distraction?  DO NOT let a distraction alter the joy you have.  Now I know there will be some situations that are harder to navigate depending on the distraction.  For example working with a co-worker.  In work situations if you have individuals that just make it hard for you to do your job, but really have no influence on the ability to remove them it can be challenging to remove the distraction.  However, there are behaviors that are under your control.  You have the ability to control one's self and how you interact with that individual, and those around you.  Don't feed into that individual when you know they are doing things to push you buttons.  Step away and determine what you need to do to calm down (taking deep breaths might help).  The more you feed into that person, or alter your behaviors, the more control you are giving that other individual.  I'm not saying this is easy to do, but if you want to keep your sanity and peace you may need to alter your behaviors in situations where you don't have as much control to remove the distraction.  Ultimately you control "your behaviors" and what you will and will not allow to take away your peace of mind.
3. Accountability - find individuals who will hold you accountable.  I have accountability partners that keep me set on my goals and what I want to achieve  The reason I have accountability partners is sometimes while you're in the mess you don't see as clearly as you could.  My accountability partners are on the outside looking in and can alert me to things I may not clearly see.  They are trusted advisors that know what to say to get my attention.  I had to find a way to hold myself accountable from not allowing distractions to take me off focus., as I have a lot I want to achieve.  With social media and other vehicles that easily feed into negative energy, if used incorrectly, I had to be careful not to be sucked into that world.  In order for me to do that I hold myself accountable, but I also have others who hold me accountable as well.
4. Retrospective - in all things do self introspection.  If there are distractions coming at you, what are you doing to either feed into those distractions or attract them.  It first starts with you.  You control "YOU".  So don't blame others look at yourself first.  Once you have a true session with yourself then identify what you need to do to remove the distraction.  Also, reflect on why you allowed the distraction in to begin with because you may see a pattern.  

Sometimes we allow individuals to take advantage of us because we are a good natured and caring.  Sometimes we allow our goal to overshadow our life and take away the joy and peace we could be truly experiencing.  Sometimes we allow individuals opinions of our goals or aspirations to stop us from achieving what we KNOW we are meant to do.  Sometime we allow conditions to dictate how we react and take us away from enjoying life.  Sometimes we just give people too much control over our own life.  Sometimes we just allow enormous amounts of distractions to come our way because we don't believe in ourselves.  Sometimes we don't even recognize we have a distraction.  

There are a lot of reason why we do what we do and why we react the way we do.  However, you control "YOU"!  You can control and overcome these distractions that are adding no value to your life.  You were put on this earth with a purpose.  You have goals and visions you want to achieve.  Don't allow distractions, in what ever form they come, to distract you from fulfilling your purpose and vision.  

There will always be distractions, but the question is how you will handle them?  Will you allow them to overtake you or will you overtake them?

Regards,

The BA Martial Artist

Paula A. Bell Consulting, LLC