Putting It All In Perspective

Unfortunately, I have not been doing the best with my goal of being consistent with my blogs, but I'm definitely working on it.  As I've had the opportunity over the last month to do quite a few speaking engagements (face to face and webinars) my time has been quite busy.  However, despite that, I took some time this evening, as I was baking and cleaning, to reflect over my past couple.  I must admit that I have had quite a bit of stress over the last few weeks.  Stress from all areas of my life. This is HUGE for me to admit by the way.  As I reflect on that I had to put some things in perspective and I hope this blog will help you do the same.

1. What I do is NOT life and death - there are professionals who truly do work that are life and death, and I'm not one of them.  I'm not that doctor that has tell a family they just lost their loved one.  I'm not the emergency worker that has to witness fatal crashes.  I'm not the person from the military that has to pay a visit to a family to advise their son or daughter was killed in the act of defending their country.  I'm not the cardiac surgeon that has to be so calculated and precise, every day because one minor mistake, could literally take someone from this earth. I said all of that to say this, "don't sweat the small stuff".  It's not worth it.  If you find that individuals always act as if the sky is falling when it's not, you may want to remove yourself from those individuals.  If you don't you will be adding additional stress to your life that is unnecessary.  For those who do have the "true" life and death jobs, I appreciate all you do.  I also admire what you do because you truly need to have a passion for that type of work.  That is the truly some hard work there.  For those who don't I'm not diminishing what we do, I'm just putting what we do in perspective.  Sometimes we make things bigger than they need to be and sometimes you need to step back and put things in perspective.
2. Put your energy toward things YOU CAN CONTROL- The only person in this world I can control is "ME".  I can't control what someone else is going to do or say, but I can control my reaction to it.  I can control how much energy I put toward it.  I can control if I will allow it to control me.  It's amazing to me how many times we give people control over us.  They could be in the grave and still have control over aspects of our life.  You can't sleep, eat and stressed over someone and they are going about life not even giving you a second thought.  You are ALWAYS in control of you.  You make decisions on whether you will allow others to control you.  If you find you are miserable constantly you may want to do some self reflection to determine what is the root cause of that feeling.  
3. Life is too SHORT - I have watched friends commit suicide, lose family members to terminal illness, I've lost friends to terminal illnesses or going through that right now.  I've watched families go through losing their young children due to senseless violence and more.  Tomorrow is NOT PROMISED to anyone.  Actually, the next second is not promised to you.  So why spend time in spaces where you are not enjoying life?  I'm not saying life doesn't have it challenges and curves, but some of the things we go through in life is no one's fault but our own.  Some decisions we have made in the past isn't the brightest, but that is how we learn.  However, again life is too short to sweat the things you cannot control.  If you are not enjoying life it's time to turn that around.  Life has so much to offer.  It's not always going to be sunshine, but YOU set the tone on how you go through life and how life will treat you.
4. Someone is ALWAYS going to have something to say - no matter what you do someone is always going to be a critic.  Take it with a grain of salt and keep on moving if it's not constructive feedback.  I said "construction feedback", not someone's opinion.  Sometimes we mistake opinions for feedback.  There is a difference.  Don't let someone else's opinion of you define who you think you are.  Be confident in who you, love yourself and know your self worth.  If you don't love you, respect you, know you, how on earth do you expect others to?
5. It's TIME for a change - sometimes you just need to make a change in life to get out of the environment you are in.  If you dread going to work every day, then maybe it's time for a job change.  If there are people you dread being in contact with, maybe you need to change your circle of friends/acquaintances.  If you find that you dread doing your hobby, maybe it's time for a new hobby.  Moving on doesn't mean you have failed, it actually might mean you have grown.  You've closed one chapter of your life and moved on to another.  Sometimes going through the words of that chapter are painful, but once you have completed that last word and moved on to the next one you have a perspective.

So this blog entry is totally off the topic of interpersonal skills, which I'm supposed to bringing this year, but I really felt compelled to write this one at 9:30pm.  I want to be able to come back to it months or years from now to see what occurred in my past, how I addressed it in my present and how it impacted my future.  Life is way too short to be miserable.  Life should be a source of energy that we enjoy.  Life should be an experience and journey with challenges and successes.  Life should be refreshing.  However, there are external forces at play that can totally skew what life should be.  It's TIME you take back your life, your control, your happiness and your joy if it's been missing.  If it hasn't been missing and you are enjoying life find ways to even enjoy it more.  It's time to live and enjoy living.

I know I have some opportunities to truly live life to the fullest. It first starts with YOU and everything after that will fall in place.  Continue to PUT IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE.

Regards,

Paula B.

It's Been Awhile

WOW!!!!  It's been awhile since I have written a post.  2012 got really busy for me as I took on a new role at work.  A role I had been working toward for 4 1/2 years.  I moved into management and into a role of operational excellence with a focus on business process modeling and compliance.  This is unique in that we (myself and team) get to create the infrastructure, approach, etc...from scratch.  We get to be creative and used our past experiences to meet our goals.  So far I have learned a lot and we have created an infrastructure to get started that we will be tweaking as we continue to learn and experience how things work.  I plan to write me in my blog throughout the year with some lessons learned as I go through this experience with my team.  I will probably write on topics related to team member development, leadership, building an infrastructure, partnering, building relationships and more.  I'm excited about 2013 and what it will bring.  Though there will be challenges, I know, there will be many successes.  

The one bit of advise I leave you now is that if you haven't done so already do some self reflection on what went well in 2012 and what didn't.  Determine some goals for yourself for 2013 and try to meet those goals.  It's not about how many goals you can write down but how many you can actually achieve that will have the impact you need in your life journey at this time.

Continue to press forward.  Learn from your past, focus on your present and walk into your future!

Talk to you soon!

Paula Bell
paula@paulaabell.com
www.paulaabell.com

Taking Time For Yourself

One thing I learned while doing self reflection at the end of last year is the importance of taking time out for self. I am excited about taking a family vacation over spring break this year to visit family and just get reengerized. It's so important to do this to avoid burn out. I know it's sometimes easier than said, but it's so important. There are benefits of doing this and consequences of not.

Benefits
1. Gives you down time to just relax and reenergize
2. Makes you more productive as you come back fresh to work and a better attitude
3. Allows you to do self reflection on things that are going well and things that are not
4. Allows you to just sit back and enjoy life. All work and no play can make for a journey through life where you don't enjoy it
5. Increases better health in that you are taking time to rejuvenate the body

Consequences
1. Potential health issues for not taking time
2. Bad attitude because of constant work
3. Lower productivity
4. Fatigue
5. Life passing you by

The consequences are definitely not worth it. Especially since those can be controlled. It's worth taking time for yourself. Whether its a day dedicated to yourself monthly, a quarterly vacation or a bi-monthly vacation, it's doesn't matter, just take time out for yourself.

I am and so should you See you in two weeks.

Regards,

Paula Bell
www.paulaabell.com

First Post of 2012 - Great 2012 To Come!

I'm excited about what 2012 is going to bring. Last year was a great foundational year for Paula A Bell Consulting, LLC. I consider 2012 a continuation of building a strong foundation. I have some new ideas and some real specific goals I want to achieve throughout the year. This year I'm excited as this company is multi-faceted and all my services will be tapped into. I have a couple of weddings to direct, quite a few people to mentor, speaking engagements, articles to write as well as a concept that I would like to bring forth through blogging and potentially a book. One of my main goals is to consistently blog.

I took some time at the end of 2011 to reflect on all the things that occurred in 2011. 2011 was a year of a lot of changes, life altering events and to be totally honest chaos. I was EXTREMELY stressed and just not happy overall. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what was causing the stress but it was impacting my health, emotions, physical and spiritual well being. The last 1 week and a alf I took off from work and I found that I wasn't happy because I wasn't happy with me. Meaning, I just wasn't feeling good in where I was at because I felt like my life was out of control with so many changes. I did self introspection and got my life organized, even down to my earrings. The family and i started working out again and have lost 4 lbs in the last two weeks, as well as eating healthier. I listed out 12 priorities for this year and will only focus on those 12 priorities. My motto this year is to eliminate people and things that are causing unnecessary stress. I had a lot of that in 2011 that seeped in that I didn't even realize.

So look for great things in 2012. As I'm feeling good and very focused this year.

Great things to come in 2012 for everyone!

Paula Bell