Freedom and managing my mind!

A grand day (two actually) out of the office

When you're a PA you don't get let out of the office very often, in fact I barely make it past the boundaries of the third floor before my electronic tag goes off.  So when the opportunity does come along, you grab it with both hands.  Not only was I let out of the office for two whole days last week but I went to a conference / training event purely for PA's so everyone there 'got me'.  We all shared the same challenges and there were many sympathetic nods and "hmm, I know what you mean" throughout the course of the two days.

Joking aside, it's so important to make the time to attend such events.  I'm very lucky in that both the company, and the directors I work for, are very supportive when it comes to learning and development.  Although your ego will lead you to think differently on occasions, the office won't fall apart if you're not there.  Not only that, but when you do return to the office you'll be adding value to your company with your new found skills and knowledge.

It saddens me when people put learning and development way down on their list of priorities.  I hear people utter the classic phrase "I haven't got time, I'm too busy".  Really?  You haven't got the time to better yourself and make a positive impact to your career and your company?  Hey, I've got a million pounds for you but could you come and collect it please.  Bet you'd find the time then wouldn't you?  The message I'm trying to get across is that you have to take responsibility and be pro-active.  There's never going to a right time, there's always going to be something happening at work but that's no excuse for not doing it.  I'm guilty of this myself by the way, I've been in my job for 14 months now and it was only recently that I took control and said "erm I think this conference sounds really interesting, is there a budget for the likes of me".  Yes, I really said that, how pathetic!!  Anyway, the good news is that my request was met with a resounding 'yes, absolutely' - so do it!!  By the way, if your company doesn't want to invest in its employees then you might want to question whether you're in the right job.  It's so important to their progression as well as yours.

One of the conference's training sessions which really resonated with me was called 'Managing your mind' and it was all about the limiting beliefs we put on ourselves.  I've touched on this subject before in my blogs but it really brought it home when the speaker quoted this little gem:

"We live our lives on the perception of reality"

In other words, we perceive ourselves and others in a certain way and it's not always true!!  We are conditioned to the limits of our believed potential.  All too often we believe we don't have a choice in the matter - we do, but we decide not to act on it.

We're not born with limiting beliefs, or with the confidence that we can change the world for that matter, we develop both of these as we go through life.  So how do we stop limiting beliefs?  It's going to take a lot longer than this blog to sort this one out as I'd probably need a degree in psychology, but I can give you a few tips to try out and set you on the right path hopefully.

• Identify your limiting belief and take personal responsibility for it.  For example, do you believe you're too old, too young, too unfit etc to do the thing you want to do?
• Challenge your limiting belief.  Why do you believe you're too old, too young, too unfit etc?  Has that belief come from yourself or from others?  Stick to the bare-faced facts.  For example, has someone told you that you're too old to go to University?  Is there an age limit on going to University?  No!!  So why can't you go to University?  Can't afford it?  Then look into bursary options.  Don't qualify?  Then start saving / find a part-time job and fund yourself.  Do you get the idea?  Challenge every single obstacle you come across until you run out of excuses for not doing the thing you want to do.
• Replace your limiting belief.  Using the method above, replace every single obstacle with a reason why you CAN do something.
• Identify, Challenge, Replace ... Repeat.  Your limiting belief may have built up over many years so don't think that by doing this exercise once, you're going to leap out of bed tomorrow morning screaming "hell yeah, let's do this".  You need to keep repeating this exercise over and over again until you do start to believe.  It will happen but you have to persist.

Oh and by the way, one of the best things I took away from the conference?  Have you ever had that annoying thing happen where someone comes and stands right behind you when you're working and they don't say anything, they just wait for you to stop?  Yep.  Well next time, just roll your chair back over their toes and perhaps they'll be a bit more polite in future!!  This was a genuine problem from a fellow PA and this is the solution we came up with!!  Never mess with a PA.

#jubilantjuly