Who do you want to be?

Become your Future Self

We often feel stuck in our careers and feel like we are spinning our wheels and getting nowhere fast.  I know this because it happens to me…. all the time.  There are times when I need to feel a little bit sorry for myself and blame the fact that I haven’t gotten that promotion or that great project (at least I thought it was a great project) on someone or something outside of myself.  In fact, it’s no one’s fault.  It’s my fault.  Yep…. totally my fault if I’m not ready to be the person I want to eventually be.

Where you are is the sum of what you have worked on in the past.  So, it’s only right to assume that where you will be in the future will be the sum of your efforts today.

I will give you an example.  Sally (not a real person or maybe she is) wants to be a writer.  She makes a goal for herself to write and publish a book.  She reads all about writing,  how to do it, how to organize it and how to get it published.  These are all good things but the first thing Sally should be focused on is to actually write the book.  It’s not easy.  Sally has never written anything more involved than a but a few essays for school and reports and legal summaries at work.  She has a full time job and by the time she gets home she’s too tired to write anything worth reading.  So she doesn’t.  Instead she reads about writing.  A few years go by and Sally has no book.  She doesn’t even have a chapter of the book written.  Sure she’s written a few pages.  That one scene she wrote when she was super motivated after watching that one interview with one of her favorite authors.  It’s not good but at least it’s something.  Yet, a scene does not a book make.  The next year Sally has the same goal.  To be a published author.  This goes on for many years and eventually Sally is so discouraged for not having written the book that she gives up and decides that it’s not what she wants to do after all.

I have felt like Sally on many occasions.  I’m sure you have also.  We all have.  So what is the trick?  Why are some people able to achieve their dreams and others aren’t?  Well, the reason, I have learned, is that they put themselves in the shoes of their future selves.  They do what their future self will be doing.  What about the stuff that their present selves need to get done?  what about if I have to go to work and don’t have time to write, or practice the piano because I’m so tired? or don’t have time to learn a new skill so that I can start my own business?  My answer to that is that there is always time.  There are people who do it so why can’t you?  And those things that you HAVE to do today will still be there in a few minutes or a few hours after you finish what your future self needs to get done today.

We all have the same amount of time per day.  Some people manage to work a full time job and start a new business.  Some people manage to have a full time job and write books at the same time.  Are they magical?  Nope.  They have figured out what their future self will be doing and so they find those little bits of time when they can practice being their future self.  They write as if they are already writers when they have a break…. at lunch.  They wake up an hour or two earlier and write before going to work.  There is always a way…. at least that’s what I’ve been told.

Telling yourself that you have so many other things to do is a trick you play on yourself. You don’t want to do the hard stuff, the stuff you are not very good at yet.  Your brain knows that you are afraid of will happen…… you’ll get frustrated and angry because you are not awesome at it, other people will laugh at you….. so, your brain comes to the rescue.  Your brain is set up to protect you from harm and when it senses that there is “harm” it starts coming up with ways to bring you to a safe place.  My brain has done this to me on many occasions.  What if I told you that I AM Sally??????    I waste so much time on YouTube and email and Facebook.  I tell myself it’s research or I have to check email because there may be something there that needs my attention, or I check Facebook because my family who is out of the country may be trying to get in touch with me and that’s how I keep in touch with them….. you may different reasons.  We all have them.

Doing something for the first time is scary.  The only way to stop it from scaring you is to work on it a little bit at a time.  Learn concepts, stay with the discomfort until you feel comfortable.  Put yourself in the shoes of your future self when this new thing you started today will be second nature to you.  Sooner than you think you will be so good at it, you won’t even remember what it was like when you weren’t.  Then, it’s time to focus on another future self.

If you want to grow you have to become your future self.  The present self is already awesome.

See you in my next post

Ana

 

 

 

What is Calendar Blocking

Last week I published a post about my travels into calendar blocking.  It’s been a struggle but one that I am pretty sure I’m going to win… or better yet that I AM winning.

I didn’t realize, until I was speaking with some of you on Facebook last night that some of you may not be familiar with calendar blocking and I think it’s worth sharing here what it is and how I use it.  I hope you try it and if you do please let me know how it’s working out for you.  I’d love to hear.

Calendar blocking is taking the things you have to do and putting them on a calendar so as to give them a designated time to be done.  I know we all have heard that the only things that should go on a calendar are events.  If you really think about it, aren’t to-dos or tasks things that need to happen?  and if they need to happen, in my mind they are events.  If I need to get something done I have to make sure that I have time in my schedule to get it done.

Things on a to do list are great.  I love my to do lists and I love being able to cross them off at the end of the day.  I feel so productive when I look back and see all the check off marks.  As great as I feel about looking at my checked off items on my to do list at times I can make myself crazy with the amount of things I think I can actually get accomplished.  Having a very large to do list makes me overwhelmed and honestly drives my husband insane because I can be very compulsive and feel like I need to accomplish everything on the same day.  Some things are more important than others and not everything on that list needs to get done….. Get a grip Ana…..

By taking those things on the list and placing them in time slots on my calendar/schedule I can actually see how many things I can actually accomplish.  It also makes me assess the list and actually figure out what it is that I NEED to do and what are things that perhaps can wait a few more days or sometimes even months.  Figuring out my priorities at the end of each day help keep me productive and keep the needle moving forward without driving myself and those around me completely insane.  It also helps me with making sure that I don’t burn out….. and in a way keep some sense of work/life balance (if that’s what you call it).

How I calendar block!

On a weekly basis I review my goals and my calendar both for work and personal and begin plugging in things that I know are going to happen.  For example, I know that every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, I have to get up at a certain time and be out of the house in order to catch the train by a certain time.  So that goes on my calendar as recurring appointments.

• Wake up
• shower and get ready
• coffee and morning pages
• leave the house
• Train

I also know what time I have to catch the train at night and what time I get home.  That also goes on my calendar as a recurring appoint.  Then I add any hair appointments or doctors’ appointments that may be coming up.  At this point the calendar is a bit fuller and I can see where I have time to plug in other things.

I know I want to read and review at least one book per month so I try to schedule reading time.  I also know that I want to make sure I have time with my husband so I schedule time with my husband.  I know that part does not sound very romantic but honestly it’s less romantic if you wind up not having time for your husband if you are all over the place trying to get through your to do list.

On a daily basis I review my schedule at the end of each day and prepare for the next day.  I know it sounds a bit much but doing this at the end of each day allows me to reschedule anything I know I won’t be able to get to as well as make sure that any appointments that were originally scheduled in the beginning of the week have not been canceled or changed.  We know things change often so having this time at night to review makes sense to me.  It also allows me to get things out of my brain so that I’m not thinking about them when I’m trying to sleep.  I really like sleep and if I can help not have that interrupted you better believe I’m going to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal :).

I also have a full-time job and as we all know meetings and court dates get rescheduled often which in turn may mean that doing that one thing tomorrow may not make sense anymore so why not replace it with something that may be more urgent?

Why Calendar Block?

Calendar blocking is not new.  Ben Franklin actually used it.  Maybe he wasn’t as anal as I am and kept things more general, but nonetheless he saw the importance of scheduling things.  If you want to keep things more general like Ben and if that’s what makes sense to you, by all means.  You should arrange and develope your own form of calendar blocking.  The goal is to help you achieve your goals and be happier and more relaxed.  Hey, it worked for Ben!

Have you heard of Parkinson’s Law?  it’s not really a law but it might as well be.  The “law” states that “work expands to fill the time allotted.  To me this means that if I don’t schedule a time to complete a task I’m going to be working on that task for as long as I want…. or as long as I allow myself.  When will I know that I’m done and I need to move on?  I don’t so I just keep going.

Have you sat in a meeting that seemed to go on forever?  That is the perfect example of the law in action.  Digressing for a bit here.  I have started scheduling my meetings for only 30 minutes.  if we need more time then I find time on the calendars for another 30 minute session but I have realized that if I schedule an hour we will talk in circles for the full hour and other work is not getting done.  We can more often than not accomplish our goal in 30 minutes.

The same is true for your to do list.  When you allow yourself all day to do the things on the to do list more often than not the tasks will take longer because there’s really nothing telling your brain to stop the task.  Your brain, at least my brain, feels like I can just take my time.  By putting that task/appointment on my calendar I know that I have a limited amount of time to get the thing done.  If I want to achieve a goal then I’m going to make sure that I get that done because right after that there will be other things on the calendar that are just as important to me.

Yes, I schedule time for a bubble bath, relaxing time and television time and I make sure I stick to it by setting alerts to remind me that it’s time to get to the next task.  Go ahead, laugh….. my husband does so far this is keeping me on track.  Calendar blocking has helped me greatly in being able to achieve my goals and I’m sure it’s going to help me achieve my goals in the future.

Some things I’ve achieved with calendar blocking (just for your reference)

• I began working at one of the largest financial institutions in the world;
• Received a promotion within two years;
• Started Paralegal Organization at that institution in 2016;
• Expanded the Organization to our international offices in 2017;
• Started working with non-profits to organize local events for fundraising;
• Another promotion and lead a team in 2018;

I am not saying all this to impress you.  Believe me, it’s been a whole lot of hard work. I am sharing this to show you that if you want to make things happen the best way to do it is to make sure it’s on your calendar and that you are dedicating as much time to it as you can possibly do.  If it’s important to me, it’s going to be on my calendar.  You better believe that.

How do you achieve your goals?  What’s your secret?

Thanks for reading!

Ana

 

 

 

Goals and Plans …. Ohhh My!!!!!!

Start of the New Year is a time when we are all setting goals and making plans or maybe you’re not. However, if you’re not, you should. Well, only if you plan on accomplishing something and succeeding at something. Don’t worry, this is not another one of those articles that will preach to you about how to make goals or what goals you should be making. Goals are very personal and without being you, I could never tell you what your goals should be. I can tell you that studies show that people who make goals (notice I said goals, not resolutions) tend to become more successful than those who don’t have goals.

So what is a goal? A goal is the end of result, the idea of what the future is going to look like. Sounds easy right? Well…. it’s not hard to make goals and then just sit back and wait for the goals to happen. However, that to me sounds more like a resolution. In order to accomplish a goal, one must create small steps which when put together will bring you to your goals. We’ve all heard of SMART Goals (I won’t bore you that). But it is smart to set SMART goals….. just sayin’

From the picture above you can see that TheParalegal has a few goals. This is is going to be dedicated to you, my readers and friends. 2017 was dedicated to my day job. I achieved all the goals I set out for myself…. not to say that I no longer have goals in that department, I do. There are few lofty goals I want to achieve in my day job but I’m going to put in more effort here. Even those lofty goals are things I can take less time to create. 2018 is dedicated to TheParalegal and to you.

I can hear you all telling me to stop talking and list on the goals I am setting for TheParalegal:

1. Write an e-book
2. Post at least once per week
3. Create a section on the blog for templates we all use
4. Develop Webinars on Paralegal Training and Maybe even Lawyer Training

For each of these I will have to set manageable steps. Keeping in mind that they will be accomplished at the same time as the other goals for my day job. Not an excuse but a reality which I have to take into consideration. Then there are those other smaller things I want to try to accomplish, like only using my own pictures. That means I will also need to take more pictures and learn how to edit them (thinking of take a photography course). I also want to be a little more active on Facebook so go join me there and keep me accountable.

I think 2018 is going to be a great year for TheParalegal and for all of us. I think we are going to accomplish so much together.

Send me your thoughts. What forms do you reach for the most that would be helpful to have here? What is the thing you’re always looking for help with that I can help you figure out? What types of webinars would you like to see? Should we start with live videos? What platform should we use?

I want to end this article by thank you all for spending some time with me in 2017 even though I know the articles were sporadic and I was all over the place. Happy New Year to all.

XoXo

— the photo above is of my actual planner while I brainstormed ideas for the blog.

Things have been busy here at The_Paralegal

I thought I would write a short note to you, my subscribers/readers.

I have been busy with lots of ideas recently running through my head and I am finally going to put them into motion.  Let’s see where they all bring us.  Why wait until the first of the year to start a list of things you want to accomplish?  Here is a list of things that The Paralegal is planning:

1)  The first thing I have done was create a Facebook page for The Paralegal.  Please go and keep me company by becoming a friend.  The plan is to keep you annoyingly (is that a word?) updated on what is going on in my day-to-day as well as what I am planning for the blog.

Now we have 4 ways to keep in touch, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and this blog.  I’m sure I’ll think of other ways.

2)  I am working on starting a podcast for The Paralegal.  This will take a little bit of time, since I really have no idea how to even start one. I’m starting now to figure out what and how to do it.  Maybe you can use Facebook and Twitter to comment what you would like to hear in the podcast.  I want to keep it fresh and relevant so your input is really important.  We can create this together.

3)  Develop a seminar series.  This is an extremely ambitious goal for me but I think we all need a goal that will really make us step out of our comfort zones.  This is mine for the year 2011.  I am determined to be exactly what you need me to be, a mentor, a teacher and a friend.

I know that with your help I will be able to accomplish all these goals and then some.  So, if you still haven’t had enough of me, go and friend me on Facebook, go and follow me on Twitter and sign up for this blog.  The podcast?  Well, that I’ll have to learn a bit more but I promise that I will keep you posted as to the progress and I will let you know when I publish the first episode.  I’m counting on you all to keep me honest and help me achieve my goals.

Thank you so much for reading this blog and allowing me to come into your lives one blog at a time.

Sincerely,

Ana Pierro, The Paralegal