Flo

We must always change, revew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden. 

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On any given day, it’s likely I’m in the midst of some self-evaluation process.  I search inside myself the endless list of things I’d like to change, improve or drop entirely and then, develop a gameplan for how-to-do one thing.  On some days, like last Saturday, the list became inevitably long.  I needed to overcome my paper-clutter issues, improve my marriage, create more positive self talk, and on and on.  As I said, the list was endless.  Being in such a state of introspection isn’t always good.  It can take my focus off the positive things in my life, as well as create an environment (in my brain, of course) where all I do and think about myself needs changed.  Fortunately, when I’m introspective, the thoughts are typically corraled into the “let’s see what I need to work on” part of myself and negative self talk is not part of this process.

So, how to address something I want to change?  I recently made a lengthy pro/con list when trying to make an important job decision.  This shed an enormous light on my reasons for wanting to make the move into private practice (vs. working a job and private practice).  The list gave me visual confirmation of what was going on in my mind and provided order and organization to the process.  The list became a validation tool.  There are other evaluation options such as sometimes it helps to get feedback from mentors, from friends, from family members who are insightful about you or the issue you want to change or create.  This was also a big help in my process and part of the pro/con list was created on the telephone with a co-worker, which provided an amazing amount of support and (again) validated my thought process. 

For today, focusing on the idea of change or improvement, I believe the first two steps are (1) identify what you want to change and (2) create a manner for evaluating the options (i.e. pro/con list, feedback from others) and I’ll continue this topic later.

 Flo