Getting Out of My Own Head

This time of year - with me leaving for the first tradeshow a month from this morning - I find it incredibly easy to let work be all-consuming. It's hard for me to stop working on the business or thinking about the business. At night I find it's hard for me to turn my mind off as every brain neuron seems to be firing on high speed. Basically, I can be a pain in the a$$ to live with from now until the end of November.

Despite being this immersed in my own little business world, last night I had to attend a training meeting at a local no-kill animal shelter. I joined the shelter's board back in May when I had much more time on my hands and am excited to serve on it....but it's just so hard to tear myself away from work right now. I can't lie and will say that I brought some work to do with me figuring that in the course of a 2.5hr meeting I could easily slip in a little work and make it look like I was taking "notes."

Thankfully at some point on the drive over there it dawned on me that if I were going to be a good Board member and serve the organization to the best of my abilities then I had to be there fully - 100% - at every meeting. That meant turning off my brain from business and focusing on the needs of the nonprofit. Yeah, I know, this should have been obvious from the get-go but apparently I'm a slow learner.

Turns out I went into the meeting looking to "give" something to the organization and instead found myself "getting" something I hadn't planned on. It may have only been 2.5hrs but it was 2.5hrs where I was able to turn my brain off and focus on something else. Turns out when I turned my brain back on it was much refreshed and ready to work in a productive manner.

Which in turn got me thinking, on the drive home, about how I also need to be willing to turn my business brain off and focus on my family as well. While I may feel like my time is limited, I need to make sure to spend some time every day giving 100% of my focus and attention to my husband and my dogs.

Yep, as I've already noted, I'm not always the quickest learner.