Janice Aull
R & R (Reflect & Regroup)
The Holidays are over, and the new year has begun. Have you taken time for R&R? Quality time to Reflect and Regroup for your coming year?
As you create your professional goals, I encourage you to include reflecting on where are you with your responsibility to nurture yourself and others. How can you leverage your strengths and passion to give back to your community?
Here are a few thought starters for your mindful moments of reflection to regroup for this new year:
Physically – How we treat our body has a direct impact on our health and how we show up.
- Are you actively pursuing opportunities to ensure you are in your best possible health?
- What additional healthy habits (food, exercise, water, and sleep) can you add to your daily routine?
Mentally – Our mind and mindset can be a powerful influence on how we treat ourselves and others.
- Are you expanding your mind with continuous learning?
- What new activities can you add to challenge yourself and step out of your comfort zone?
Spiritually – Pursuing a spiritual connection can allow one to create and experience a sense of purpose.
- Are you building a relationship with your inner being?
- What can you do to nurture your faith and belief?
Emotionally – Our emotions guide how we show up for ourselves and others.
- Are you learning about, embracing, and experiencing the wide variety of emotions we are capable of experiencing?
- Are there activities you can add to your daily routine to teach yourself to focus on being fully present in the moment?
Goal setting can be beneficial in all aspects of your life. As I reflect on my life I can contribute my achievements to the results of setting, working towards, and reviewing/updating my goals on a consistent basis.
Besides my career goals, I have the good fortune to leverage my skills and passion with the creation of a non-profit organization to protect and restore wetlands in our community. Go to Aull Nature Preserve to learn more about this delightful opportunity and adventure.
Transformation
Life itself is a privilege, but to live life to the fullest – well, that is a choice. ~Andy Andrews – Author
Transformation is going beyond form, it is taking a step into chance. When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone and took a chance to transform yourself in some way?
Taking a step outside your comfort zone can conjure a wide variety of emotions; excitement, fear, anxiety, relief, nervousness, and wonderment to name a few.
We all have the capability and capacity to go beyond our form; to leverage the strengths and energy within ourselves. For some, the challenge is identifying where to start. Start with focusing on what you are passionate about, the things that give you energy. Ask yourself what you can do to take your passion and strengths to the next level.
Stepping out of your comfort zone to achieve a transformation can take effort. Have you seen a butterfly work to emerge from its cocoon or a chick struggle to hatch from an egg? They put a lot of focus and effort into their transformation, with spectacular results.
Taking time to create and implement a vision and strategy that focuses on doing what you are passionate about will bring you energy. This energy will translate into self-awareness, agility, and innovation; propelling you into transformation. People will be drawn to your energy, creating an engaging environment that supports bringing out the best in yourself and those you interact with.
Are you exploring life outside your comfort zone? Are you inspiring yourself and others to transform beyond your current form? If so, enjoy and savor the journey. If not, take a step, and challenge yourself to the next level, your path is in front of you.
NOTE: In 2019 I went through a major life transformation with a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. This link will take you to videos documenting my life-changing experience that has resulted in me being at my best physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally.
If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place. ~Nora Roberts – Author
How would you rate your performance?
“Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead.” ― Yvonne Woon
When was the last time you stepped back to reflect on your performance? Are you meeting your own expectations? Better yet, are you exceeding the expectations you set for yourself? Reflecting on your performance towards your goals on a regular basis will ensure you stay focused on your path to your defined success.
Reflective practice is a skill that can be developed. Learning to reflect will help you move your goals from theory into behaviors that help your goals become a reality. Reflective practice will also help you increase your self-awareness, a key component of emotional intelligence.
Do you have people you can turn to that will provide you with candid feedback? How you see yourself and how others see you can be different. Create a list of people you can rely on to help you reflect and stay focused on your goals. Offer to do the same for others.
During your reflective practice are you keeping track of your progress through documentation? Capturing your goals and accomplishments in writing provides tangible results you can focus on when you need a boost or want to challenge yourself to go to the next level.
Schedule time to reflect and ask yourself:
- What am I doing well?
- What do I need to do differently?
- What have I been doing and what type of emotions have I been having?
- What prompts them?
- Do I need to make changes?
Personal development is a lifelong process that requires you to be honest with yourself. Taking time to reflect and measure your performance towards your goals provides you opportunities for continuous learning and growth. Taking time to reflect means slowing down enough to stop, enjoy the adventure and figure out what is really important to YOU.
“Learnin
g without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous.” ― Confucius
Stay the course
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. “ ~Zig Ziglar
For some of us we have three months left to complete our goals. Where are you at with these goals? Are you on target to achieve them? Do you need to make some adjustments? To quote Henry David Thoreau – “It’s not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we busy about?”
Your end destination may remain quite similar over the long term, but the action plan you set for yourself along the way can change significantly. Make sure the relevance, value, and necessity remain high.
Now is a great time to step back and analyze the progress you are, or are not, making with your goals.
- Take time to clarify your priorities. Identify and focus on the goals that will add the most value.
- Acknowledge your wins and learn from the progress you have or have not been making with your goals. Maintaining a learning mindset will promote continued growth and movement towards goal completion.
- Tell people what your goals are. Announcing your intentions will increase your chances to achieve your goals.
- Be realistic. If you’ve discovered your goal is too big, make adjustments. It is better to achieve something than nothing at all.
- Build in reminders to keep yourself on track and make regular time-slots available to review your goals.
Make a commitment to yourself. There is only one person in this goal-setting process that matters. You! It is all on you; make an ongoing commitment to yourself.
“Day by day, nothing changes but when you look back everything is different.” ~Unknown.
What can you do with your goals today that will make looking back to today feel really different and really satisfying?
Personal Accountablity
I recommend taking time to explore John G. Miller’s book “QBQ! Wha to Really Ask Yourself: Practicing personal accountability in business and life“. This book aims to help eliminate blame, complaining, and procrastination and addresses what he feels is a major issue: the lack of personal accountability.
Miller writes that “Sometimes people think they have no choice. They’ll say things like, “I have to” or “I can’t.”
We always have a choice; always. Realizing this and taking responsibility for our choices is a big step toward making great things happen in our lives.”
Miller believes the mindset that brings personal accountability to life is take ownership of the situation, explore and question it to find a solution. He provides three simple guidelines for creating a QBQ:
- Begin with “What” or “How” (not “Why,” “When,” or Who”).
When we ask “When,” for example, we’re really saying we have no choice but to wait and put off action until another time. Questions that start with “When” lead to procrastination. Procrastination is a sneaky problem. We put off a problem until a little later, and then a little later, and then a little later, until before we know it we have put off action so long that we have a serious problem. Miller quotes a friend who likes to say: “Let’s take care of the little things while they’re still little.” When we ask “Who” we deflect to someone else and take the responsibility off of ourselves. We’re looking for scapegoats and someone else to blame.
- Contain an “I” (not “they,” “them,” “we” or “you”).
Personal accountability is about each of us holding ourselves accountable for our own thinking and behaviors and the results they produce. Blame and “whodunit” questions solve nothing. They create fear, destroy creativity and build walls. There’s not a chance we’ll reach our full potential until we stop blaming each other and start practicing personal accountability. No matter what we’re trying to accomplish, there’s always a barrier of some kind to overcome, and it’s often something over which we have no control. Instead of focusing on the barriers, let’s work to become so good that we’ll succeed no matter what. Who do accountable people blame? No one, not even themselves.
- Focus on action.
To make a QBQ action-focused, add verbs such as “do,” “make,” “achieve,” and “build” to questions that start with “What” or “How” and contain an “I.” This focus will create questions like these:
| “What can I do to help you do your job better?”
“What can I do to make a difference?” “How can I support the team?” “How can I help move this forward?” “How can I provide value to you?” |
“What solution can I provide?”
“How can I do my job better today?” “How can I improve and/or adapt to the situation?” “How can I better understand you?” “What can I do to find the information to make a decision?” “ |
Taking action may seem risky, but doing nothing is a bigger risk! Even though there are risks involved in taking action, the alternative, inaction, is almost never the better choice. Miller writes that:
- Action, even when it leads to mistakes, brings learning and growth. Inaction brings stagnation and atrophy.
- Action leads us toward solutions. Inaction at best does nothing and holds us in the past.
- Action requires courage. Inaction often indicates fear.
- Action builds confidence; inaction, doubt.
QBQ is the practice of personal accountability: We discipline our thoughts. We ask better questions. We take action.
Practice it…and may it serve you well.
How can you support your learning and growth?
Adding Value
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every day you make decisions. The d
ecisions you make come in a variety of ways; people, events, or things vying for your attention, time, or resources. Hopefully many of the decisions you make add value to you and your world. What happens when they don’t? What can you do to ensure you are in your optimal zone and adding value to your world? The answer – focus on what you can control and influence and let go of your concerns (things outside of you area of control or influence).
In life, there are many things about which you are concerned about yet have no control or influence over. Fortunately, however, there are many things you can control and influence. Highly successful people embrace this and spend their time and energy where they can make a difference. They realize they can influence a great deal; resulting a tremendous value being added to their world.
When you find yourself focusing on what you cannot control or influence; pause, take a deep breath, think, stay calm, and choose one item from your list and make a difference. You can’t always control the things that cause pressure, but you can control your reaction. Remind yourself that difficulties in life happen, they are a normal, unavoidable part of life.
Positive self-talk focusing on what you can control and influence is a useful way to help you stay calm while under pressure. It will also help you stay solution focused and avoid negative thoughts that may want to dominate your mind. Use your energy to focus on the present and what you can do to move forward. Focusing on what you can control and influence can help you to optimize your performance, increase your energy levels, recognize opportunities, and respond creatively to challenges.
Things you can control, right now:
- Your actions.
- How often you smile.
- Your level of honesty.
- The effort you exert for tasks.
- How you act on your feelings.
- How much time you spend worrying.
- Taming the negative gremlin in your head.
- How often you ask questions and listen to others.
- How often you show gratitude to yourself and others.
- How often you notice, appreciate, and share small acts of kindness.
Continue your control and influence list…….and then ACT on it! There are twelve months in a year. That gives you 52 weeks in 
which to choose your priorities. You have 365 days to decide where to focus your time, your attention, and your efforts. You have thousands of opportunities to choose, to try, and to learn. In twelve months you can achieve miracles. You can, to a remarkable degree, create the life you want. Be courageous and show determination to take the time needed to modify, impact, transform, and reinvent things in your life. You may not be in complete control; that is no excuse to deny the power you do have. Choose well. Use your power.
“It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Mid-Year Review
“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well lived.”
~Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s the middle of the year, are you on target to achieve the goals you set earlier this year?
Now is a great time to step back and analysis the progress you are, or are not, making with your goals. Use the below looking-back and looking-forward questions to identify how you want to spend the second half of your year.
Looking-Back Questions:
- Key Accomplishments
- What are all of the great things that I got done over the past six months?
- What goals did I achieve?
- What things am I most proud of accomplishing?
- Which of my goals did I really miss the mark on?
- Learning
- What opportunities to learn new things did I take advantage of?
- What were the things I learned most?
- What mistakes did I make and what did I learn from them?
- Time Management
- How well did I manage my time?
- Have I been focusing my time on the most important things in my life?
- Are there any significant “time wasters” that I need to reduce or eliminate from my life?
Looking-Forward Questions:
- Top Three Goals
- What are my top three goals for the remainder of the year?
- Why are those goals important to me?
- What habits and processes do I need to adopt to support those goals?
- Learning and Knowledge
- What areas of learning do I most need to focus on?
- What new skills do I need to develop or strengthen?
- What things do I need to “keep current” on?
- What one skill, if mastered, would have the greatest impact on the achievement of my goals?
- Habits
- What time management habits do I need to develop and strengthen?
- What three habits, if developed and sustained, would have the greatest positive impact
on my life?
- What habits do I need to drop or replace?
Taking time to check in with your goal status provides you an opportunity to celebrate your accomplishments and regroup where needed.
If you are having challenges with meeting your goals taking time explore why, how, and where will help you create an action plan to overcome your obstacles. Methods to overcome hurdles:
| Recognize |
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| Reaffirm |
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| Refocus |
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| Resume |
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Taking time to be mindful with your goal pursuit will give them a more gentle, realistic, and achievable tone. Find a quiet place to sit, take a few deep breaths, relax, and visualize what it
will be like when you achieve your goals. Imagine what it will feel like to be in this space of accomplishment.
“I’ve always found that anything worth achieving will alw
ays have obstacles in the way and you’ve got to have that drive and determination to overcome those obstacles on route to whatever it is that you want to accomplish”. ~ Chuck Norris
Embrace Awesomeness
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” ― Marcus Aurelius
When was the last time you had an awe-inspiring moment that made you say “WOW!”? When did you last feel a moment of wonder because you were in the presence of som
ething vast? Do you have places that spring to mind when you think of moments that left you in awe?
Awe has been described as an emotion in the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear. Awe consists of two qualities: perceived vastness (something you think to be greater than yourself), and accommodation, a need to assimilate the experience of vastness into your current mental structure.
Experiences of awe can change the course of life in profound and permanent ways. It’s an emotion that can have a tremendous impact because it takes you out of your own head. It minimizes your individual identity and attunes you to things bigger than yourself. It shifts your focus from your individual needs to a greater good. Awe helps you to see things in a new light; giving you a sense of hope and the ability to see the bigger picture of life. When you experience awe, you are more likely to feel that you’re rich in time because awe expands your perception of time, anchoring you in the present moment.
The actual feeling of awe and experiences that inspire it benefit you in all sorts of ways, from stronger health to improved relationships. Awe experiences make you more generous and more humble. Recent research is showing that positive emotions such as awe may help increase your immune system, lower inflammation and reduce the risk for heart disease, arthritis, depression, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
There is awesomeness in your everyday life, take a gander at your miraculous body. Look at yourself in the mirror, stare into your own eyes and contemplate what it takes for them to work at all. For many of you, it is awesome that water pours out of a faucet with the turn of a knob and you can have heat and cooled air with the turn of a dial. It is awesome that communication is beamed through time and space right into your hands.
Some peak experiences can be once-in-a-lifetime… but there are also everyday peak experiences that are equally amazing and available to you if you have your antennae up for the sense of wonder and awe that is everywhere. You are capable of experiencing awe, which can be invoked by anything that takes you out of your usual mindset and allows you to experience a connection with something greater.
Here are tips on how to attract awesomeness into your life:
- Reminisce – Awesome experience. Perhaps it was a pristine place or a time you connected deeply with others during a special moment. Recall the details. Where were you? What touched you about it? What did it sound like? Feel like? When you can draw on your memories of awesomeness, you experience those feelings again.
- Seek out beauty – Beautiful music, amazing art, or stunning natural views can invoke feelings of awe, so seek them out. Surround yourself with things that inspire you and make you feel good. Take time to notice and savor them. Common triggers for awesome experiences come from nature; in particular, water, mountains, trees, and flowers; dusk, sunrise, sunlight; dramatically bad weather and spring are often a catalyst for feeling awe.
- Become present to the awesomeness in others – Look out for awesome performances. Surround yourself with people doing amazing things. Tune into the peak moments of life such as watching a baby being born, or someone you love triumphing after challenge. Savor the amazing and you will be elevated by awe.
When you experience awe, you are filled with positive emotion. You feel happier and more fulfilled. You are also healthier and experience greater vitality.
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ― W.B. Yeats
Alter Your Mind With Music
What songs inspire or nurture you? Do you have a theme song that captures the essence of you or your day?
When you play music, you are exercising your brain. Music is strongly associated with the brain’s reward system; influencing the brain to release the chemical dopamine. Scientists have found music and mood are inherently linked, listening to happy or sad music can change the way you identify with the world. Music can also be used to treat illnesses and restore harmony between mind and body. Recent scientific studies have found listening to music:
- Can have a beneficial effect on your body by slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the levels ofstress hormones.
- Can relieve depression and increase self-esteem ratings.
Music can be a tool you can use to dial up a mood or mindset on demand by choosing music that elicits a specific emotional response. Emotional responses to music is very individual; not all ‘happy’ songs are universally perceived as being uplifting or are guaranteed to put you in a good mood all the time. Experiment with music to find songs that strike a particular emotional chord in you, use music to create a targeted mindset. Ask yourself: “Does this song make me feel like the glass is half empty or full? Does this song make me feel energized or depressed? What state-of-mind do I want to be in right now?”
Take constant inventory of how a specific song affects your mood and mindset. Play around with a variety of songs, artists and different genres to create a playlist of ‘power songs’ that are anthems when you need to trigger a specific state of mind on demand.
One caveat, by overplaying any song you will dilute the original mindset associated with that song. This is why a song that you haven’t heard in decades can take you right back to all the emotions, and feelings of the original time. (The same is true with scent.) If you want a song to have an emotional impact linked to a specific person, place or experience from your past listen to it sparingly and make it part of a time capsule memory vault that you consciously preserve.
Have fun searching the vast amount of music to find what works for you. Use music to click into a desired conscious state-of-mind. 
Choices You Make
“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt – 1884-1962
When is the last time you stopped to reflect upon the type of choices are you making? Every day you make choices, more choices than you may realize. Some choices may not seem like choices at all. These mindless choices are our habits or normative behaviors. Habits are choices we make so regularly that over time they demand less and less executive control. As a consequence, they start to seem automatic. But they aren’t. When it comes to habits, you may even be motivated to make an excuse that you are at the mercy of the automatic choice that has become a habit.
There is always a choice, even when life gets bumpy because of choices you had made along the way. When you reach a bumpy path or fork in the road, take time for yourself to reflect and evaluate the choices you had made and identify alternative or new choices you can make to bring you back to your desired path. Use positive energy to focus on solutions and positive changes you can make. Choosing to turn bumps and forks in the road into an experience that will put you back on the path to success will inspire you, enhance the quality of your life, and bring positive transformation.
Taking time to reflect on the daily choices you are making will also motivate you to achieve more in life, to reach new levels of learning and self-awareness. This can then lead to an increased sense of self-esteem, confidence, courage, wisdom and inner peace.
Here are some tips to help you reflect and determine which path to take next time you find yourself standing at a fork in the road:
- Listen to your intuition. Tap into your intuition. You intuitively know what you want.
- Weigh the pros and cons. Take time to thoroughly analyze the pros and cons of each situation. Work to determine which situation will provide you with the best choice.
- Get outside input. Seeking input from others may provide different perspectives on your choices. A variety of opinions and words of wisdom may help you make your decision.
- Don’t let fear decide. Change can be scary. Making choices can be intimidating. Fear tries to convince you that keeping things the same is better and that change is not worth the risk. Learn to push fear aside and recognize that you need to make a choice that’s based on what’s best for you, not a choice based on avoiding what you are afraid of.
- Do what’s best for you. Do what’s right for you. This can be hard to determine sometimes when you’re weighing all of the options and getting various words of advice, but ultimately you have to focus on yourself. Tune everything else out and really ask yourself, “What is the right choice for me?” If you took away all of the details and distractions and “What if” questions, you’ll come to the realization that you know what’s best for you. Once you determine what’s best for you the question is: are you going to do what’s best for you? Sometimes this is much easier realized than acted upon.
- Trust in yourself. This ties in with the first point, but it’s not entirely the same. Once you’ve done all of the things above and you reach a decision, you may find yourself stepping back and questioning the choice your about to make. Even after all of the work you’ve done to get to this point, your mind might be filled with doubts. Don’t let those doubts overcome you. Remind yourself that you are doing what’s best for you and you’ve taken great steps to come to this conclusion. Believe in the choice you’ve made and, above all, remind yourself that everything is happening just as it should.
- Don’t ever look back. Once you’ve made your choice, make sure that you commit yourself to it and refuse to look back. It’s easy to begin doubting your choice, but looking back and wondering about what could have happened if you had made a different choice will do you no good. Realize that there is no such thing as a bad choice – if you choose with the right mindset then every choice brings learning and growth. When you accept and move forward on your journey then choosing loses some of its daunting weight and becomes a joyful experience.
- Choose something. Analyzing, assessing and agonizing are important, but can only go on for so long. Life is lived through actions; acting on your choice is the most important.
Life is a journey, not a destination. 
Aull About U, LLC 