Identifying Your Challenges and Obstacles

"An unfortunate aspect of life is that we often create obstacles, usually unconsciously, that may serve some sort of immediate purpose, but end up being long-term liabilities.
You may need to step back and consider that you're getting in your own way".
(excerpt from Mastering the Best You Personal Development Course)

Often times we don't know that we're getting in the way of progress. We wonder why things are not progressing for us even though we are doing all the right things.......so it seems. But have you ever though that maybe, just maybe we are self-sabotaging our own gains? Sometimes we have to step back and take an inventorying of our thoughts, surroundings and what are goals truly are. We have to be patient and set timelines of what we want to achieve. We have to make sure that we are not getting in our own way by making moves that are contrary to what we are trying to accomplish.

For instance are you trying to advance on your job but you and your boss can't seem to see eye to eye. Instead of taking the high road and keeping your goals in mind, you continue to respond sarcastically via email. Or you respond when you want to......self-sabotage. How about your hope is to one day compete in a 5K run, you need to loose a little weight but your love of all things fried and sweet won't allow you too......self-sabotage. Last one, you just recently got out of a relationship that was not healthy. You were verbally and mentally abused and now you want to help other women break free and find their voice but........when he/she calls you become weak and find yourself right back in the situation you thought you have gotten out of.........self-sabotage.

These are all obstacles that we have allowed to self-sabotage our progress. Trust me, we've all been there but we have to 1. recognize it for what it is GETTING IN OUR WAY OF PROGRESS. 2. Make a conscious decision to recognize what the challenge is and find ways to move in the opposite direction. 3. Make up in your mind that you are not going to allow anyone, anything and not even yourself to get in the way of you realizing your goals. It can be hard to break old habits, but the old saying goes WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER, YOU DO BETTER!

Stay tuned for the Master The Best You Personal Development Course for a more in-depth understanding of Identifying Your Challenges and Obstacles.

#personaldevelopment

Sonya Cooke
Life Strategist and Mentor
sonyacookethementor.com

The Importance of Mentors

Mentor: an experienced and trusted adviser

Mentors play an important role in the life and the development of young girls and women. A mentor described above is a older trusted adult that can provide sound advice, guidance and encouragement. Mentors often have the uncanny ability to help us become more than we thought we could be; they  encourage us to stretch ourselves outside our comfort zones, to open our minds to new ways of thinking, and help us realize that the world is much broader and more diverse than our little corners of it.

Well isn't that role reserved for the parents?

Yes....but as parents who are willing to provide guidance to our kids and always have their best interest at heart, sometimes our children find it hard to talk to us about some things. They find some topics embarrassing, they feel they may get in trouble discussing some topics, or they're convinced that their parents are old fogies that just wouldn't understand. That's where mentors come in.

Today mentors are especially important for young girls trying to navigate through life littered with images that are contrary to real life issues. As girls try to find their way through adolescents, they face the challenges of moving through physical, psychological, sexual, and emotional development with a healthy sense of self worth intact. A mentor at this stage in a girl's life can have a
wide-ranging impact on her successfully navigating those years to adulthood.

A mentor-mentee relationship provides a protected space for the adult woman and the girl/young woman to connect through shared experiences. The mentor has the opportunity and privilege of offering feedback, teaching, affirming, empowering, motivating, guidance and support. Other benefits of mentoring include improved confidence, leadership, and communication for both parties.

As you can see, mentors play and important roll in shaping a young girls life. Make sure that you trust them, that the mentor you/or your daughter chooses reinforces your morals and values. Make sure that they don't diminish your role as a parent but enhances it by reinforcing family values and encouraging the teen to honor the relationship with her parents. That if your daughter choose to emulate anyone other than you, you would be proud.

Be A Mentor, Find A Mentee

Stay Focused

In your pursuit towards Personal Development you have to continue to remind yourself to stay focused and not get sidetracked by the distractions that try to get in the way of reaching your goals and success.

In our day to day lives we have projects that we complete daily to get us to our end goal. Most days we can never go without a distraction that pulls us away from our planned assignment. Whether it's the kids needing care, or a spouse/significant other needing your attention......interruptions will always be around the corner. That will happen from time to time and it's ok.
One thing we have to remember is that in life we will always have things and situations that will try and take our mind off what's important. With social media, phone calls that interrupt, a family emergency or a last minute deadline that you forgot about on your job; interruptions are the norm

We have to make sure that our goals are priority number one. We also cannot let these distractions get us down and mess with our confidence in terms of getting fed up and quitting. Just know that there will always be obstacles and challenges that get in your way.

Make sure that you don't allow them to stand in the way of progress. Remember STAY FOCUSED!

Reflection

As a human being, daughter, mother, wife and mentor I am a flawed person.........but my heart is pure. I've made mistakes in my life, some were of my own doing, others were not; but at the end of the day my heart has remained pure. I've made decisions that didn't have favorable outcomes but I've also made decisions that have made me proud. I have a few regrets but for the most part I believe all of my life experiences have made me the woman I am today.

I love people, helping and wanting the best for everyone. I am thankful for the servants spirit that I've been blessed with and my goal in life is to continue to contribute to the success and personal development of girls and women. I may not get it right all of the time, but with the love and support of true friends and family I know that my best will always prevail.

I want to continue to be the best wife, mother, daughter and friend that I can possibly be. And if I fall short please remind me in love vs. malicious criticism.

Personal reflection and introspective thinking will always make you a better person if you are willing to do the work. I have found that at times the work seemed a bit overwhelming, but if I wanted to excel in my personal life as well as my professional life I had to stop making excuses, own up to my failed decisions, embrace the successes, learn from both and make changes where needed.

It has been an eye opening process, but one well worth the tears, laughter, pain and triumphs. I am a better person for it all and will continue on the road of improvement and personal development.

Just my thoughts.

What has your personal reflection revealed about you?

The Truth vs. Our Reality

It's amazing how we don't accept the things that are put before us as truth in order to teach us something. I've recently been involved in a conversation where a person clearly showed everyone who they really were, but because her behavior had not shone itself before, it was a shock to everyone and they just can't accept it.  Mya Angelou once said "When people show you who they are, believe them".

Why do we find it so hard to accept people for who they really are? Whether it be a husband/significant other, a friend, or a co-worker. We would rather hang on to the false reality that the person we know is the genuine person that we see and talk to daily, as if they have it all together.  For instance, the young man that lives next door. Everyone always says he was so quiet, always kept to himself and never bothering anyone. But then you hear about him causing mayhem at the school or the movie theater or even against someone. You'll hear neighbors, friends and even teachers say that they never would have thought he would do something like this or that. He was a really nice person.

Or how about the husband/significant other; to everyone on the outside he is loving, caring, polite to you (in public) and everyone else. He loves his mother, sisters and all other female family members; he takes care of you financially and you want for nothing........except peace in your home. He has lead everyone to believe he is the perfect partner but behind closed doors he's a menace, being verbally and sometimes physically abusive.

Or in the case of the above conversation that I was having via social media. This instructor was well liked by it seems many, she was very helpful, a good instructor by many accounts. But this instructor lost her cool over a difference of opinion so to speak. This instructor lost her cool regarding a student to the point she allowed herself to be fired from the University and caught an assault case against said student. There were a few terms being thrown around to describe her character, going off of her behavior and actions; by all accounts the terms are spot on. For some reason others continued to make excuses for her behavior and not accept her for who she is.

The instructor showed her true character, why is it that some choose to not accept it? What attachment, emotional or otherwise, do we hold with people as to why we don't want to believe a person for who they really are. Is it that we've formed our own opinion and ideas about them and those formed ideas make us comfortable. Or is it the image that we've formed in our minds, then once their true character shines through our judge of character is flawed by our misjudgment?

Oprah amended the saying stating "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the FIRST time".

Whatever the case, at the end of the day we have to accept the true reality of a person and live with it.

Work/Task Overload

Work/Task overload can be damaging to us as it causes stress and a lot of pressure, due to the fact that it reduces our recovery time between workdays.

Here recently I've found myself in this very position. Multitasking.......trying to juggle the very tasks that are important to me, all while burning the candle at both ends getting worn out. At times it is important to ask ourselves whether we are managing our time as efficient as possible and if we are able to improve our productivity. Here are a few ways that multitasking is killing our mojo.

Multitasking is killing our brain
While trying to work, we often find ourselves doing 2-3 tasks at the same time. We're asking our brain to split its attention and it can't do that. Our brains are not capable of focusing successfully on multiple tasks at once. We think they are but what's happening is your brain is jumping back and forth between tasks, focusing briefly on one thing at a time. And not only can our brains not make it happen, but they get damaged when we try to force them.

Constant interruption brings on higher levels of stress. It's intellectual overload, and it dulls our brain and our reaction times. According to a study at the University of Sussex, constant multitasking is actually harmful to your brain. They found out that people who regularly multitask have lower brain density in the area of their brain responsible for empathy, cognitive control and emotional control.

The good news is that you can fix that damage, the study found that if you take up activities that require concentration or make changes to the things distracting you can reverse the damage. Work on one thing at a time, in a place where you can concentrate.

So NO, don't multitask. Don't damage your brain because that's going to have an effect on your writing, the quality of your work, as well as how you manage with the rest of your task.

Multitasking makes you less productive
According to Dr. Susan Weinschenk, the appropriate word is task-switching. She states that it takes more time to switch tasks then to stick with them until you finish. We think because we're good at switching from one task to the next that that makes us good at multitasking, NO. It actually makes us less creative. Studies have found that multitasking reduces your productivity by 40%....that means your brain is only operating at 60%. We're wasting intelligence.

So if you're convince that multitasking makes you super-productive than your super-wrong. It just means that you backtrack a lot because every time you switch tasks, you have to repeat a bit to find out where you last left off.

Multitasking lowers the quality of your work
When you multitask, your work suffers TERRIBLY!
A study done by the National Bureau of Economic Research discovered that multitasking reduces workers performance, makes project last longer, and creates that panic buildup because your to-do-list isn't getting done.

Peter Bregman wrote about his experience with multitasking in the Harvard Business Review. While sitting in on a conference call, Bregman decided to not waste time and email a client. He sent the email but realized that he forgot the attachment, he then sent another email apologizing and added the attachment to the email. He then had to send another email to the same person apologizing because the attachment he sent was wrong (he was doing too much). He proceeded to send the correct attachment. Now all while he was sending out emails and the wrong attachments, the conference call attendees were waiting on him to answer a question, specifically, the Chair of the Board.

I have realized, matter of fact we all should realize that we are not being productive trying to do more than one thing at a time, actually it's just the opposite. We are not operating at our full potential thus why the quality of our work is sub-par.

Regardless of what we are trying to accomplish, we need to be mindful that we can only achieve one assignment at a time successfully. When we give our all to one task at a time, it yields all of the hard work and effort that we gave it. So don't burn yourself out trying to do too many things at one time........you'll find yourself too tired and failing at them all.

Just Breath

Sometimes you just have to let your hair down and breathe.
This year has been an amazing year for me Girl Talk has been going really well, as well as Sonya Cooke the Mentor and my public speaking has picked up. I've taken Girl Talk into three IPS schools and I've completed two speaking engagements; I also registered to receive my associates degree in Human Services at Indiana Wesleyan University, which will assist me and add value to my coaching business. Talk about a busy schedule.......at times it has been a bit overwhelming but I am learning that you have to take a deep breath, let your hair down and enjoy the moment and all the accomplishments that you've been making.

As you know life can throw you all kinds of curve balls, but as long as you're prepared, optimistic and consistent in going after what you believe you deserved. Nothing can stop you or keep you from achieving your goals.
In spite of everything that's going on around the world and in our community you have to make sure that you don't let those situation and things get you down and allow you to lose focus from your dream.
Make sure you remain encouraged, stay positive and always speak life into all of your circumstances that surround you.  And remember there will always be things and situations that try to keep you from achieving your goal. Pay it no mind, keep your head held high, your shoulder back and a smile on your face that says to the world......I Got This!