Join the Journey

Welcome to my 1^st post on Alignment Insights!  This blog is inspired by Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” My goal with Alignment Insights is to promote ideas that can help organizations (and people!)  get different results.  To get different results, we have to STOP the cycle of doing the same things over and over again.  We have to find new and better ways of doing things, and most important, we have to START doing these new things!

But like they say, “change is easier said than done.” And I need to practice what I preach if I’m going to be credible with my clients.  So I’ll this opportunity to kick off my new blog by sharing little bit about the personal and professional changes I implemented for myself over the past year.

I left my job in April 2015 without knowing what I would do next.  I just knew that I wanted something different. It was awful to wake up in the morning and not want to go to work anymore.  Despite the fact that I worked for a good company, with great people, and got to do work that I enjoyed, I was no longer content.  I wanted more control, more flexibility, and more meaning in my career and in my life.  So I quit my job and “retired”. Lucky for me, my husband and I have been big savers for many years, so planning to go without my income, while an adjustment, would not be a financial disaster.  But despite assurance from our financial advisor that we’d saved enough for me to make this change, and the strong emotional support I got from my husband, and the excitement of moving toward a lifestyle I desired, pulling the trigger to change my situation was still VERY SCARY.  Big change isn’t for the faint of heart!  It would have been much easier to keep doing what I was doing, but I knew that if I did that, I would not achieve the results that I wanted, so I walked away from a good situation, so that I could start doing things differently as part of my quest to achieve new results.

Fast forward 9 months to now.  I’m definitely doing things differently than I was a year ago, and good news, I am making positive progress toward my new personal and professional goals.  So I guess Albert Einstein knew what he was talking about J  I am blessed to have a great network of family and friends who inspired me during this year of transition (you know who you are – and I THANK YOU!)  Since last April, I’ve spent countless hours coming up with answers for some very important questions, including WHAT results do I want to achieve, WHY are they important to me, HOW can I measure my progress, WHAT do I need to do differently, and HOW will I do these things?  And most important, I took action and STARTED doing different things.  My journey isn’t perfect, I continue to make adjustments as I go, but I am happy with my progress. And what am I doing differently?  On the personal front:  I’m exercising more, spending more time with my family, learning photography, and am a new volunteer at the Great Plains SPCA.  On the professional front:  I set up my company, Alignment Business Consulting.  I successfully completed my first project, my second project is underway, I tested some new methods for driving change in both projects, and I created this cool new website so that I can share how I’m helping organizations improve their results. (Well – I created the website content – KUDOS to Mike & Jacob for the technical work!)  Some days are still a little scary, but this sure beats continuing to do the same things over and over again and expecting different results!

I hope you’ll follow my posts, participate in the conversation, and join me on the journey to help others achieve desired results!