Thursday, April 06, 2006

balance

So I've set a goal for myself this quarter: balance. It's not a SMART goal. It's not a particularly interesting goal. But it is my goal, nonetheless. I've been working on a few things over the last few months. One is my personal strategy. Those who have taken the core strategy course would know what I mean. The basic thrust is having enough focus to know what's for me and what's definitely not. This focus would mean knowing what to reach out and grab, and what to leave on the table. A second is structure. I've been struggling to organize myself efficiently, and am starting to do a better job at it. A third is authenticity. This means being my authentic self in interpersonal interactions, and integrating the personal and professional personas that I present to the world. Another aspect of this is being honest with myself about what's important, and doing my damndest to be real with myself about what it means to honor that.

I'm working on getting the right rhythm, figuring out how to make space and time for those things that require some of both, and sticking to it. This means, in a lot of cases, giving some things up. And I'm getting to the layer of giving up that's the hardest to get past because it means challenging some habits I've had for a long time. Like procrastination. Even writing it down hurts a little. The great thing about the internet is that once you write something down, it's there forever, somewhere in a cache or a server.