What I Learned This Week…
Every Friday I ask my son to write five things he has learned as we wrap up our lessons. I conduct virtual school with my son at home. At the end of the week, I like for him to give me feedback on what he feels were the most important take aways he took from our week together. It’s very enlightening to see what he has retained from the work we do together and for him, it’s a great reference to look back and feel a sense of accomplishment of all that he has learned to date.
So this week, I decided, I would write five lessons I learned and see what I could take away from my own week.
1. Boundaries matter.
Creating boundaries are not meant to be cruel to anyone. It’s not to be cruel, personal boundaries are the limits we set in both personal and professional relationships protect ourselves and others to keep us from over promising and under delivering. Our boundaries come from having a good sense of our own self-worth. They make it possible for us to separate our thoughts and feelings from those of others and take responsibility for what we think, feel and do. Boundaries allow us to relish our own uniqueness. Boundaries are flexible. They allow us to get close to others when it is appropriate and to maintain our distance when we might be harmed by getting too close. When the boundaries are in place, and used for good, boundaries protect us from abuse and pave the way to achieving true intimacy and successful outcomes in business.
2. Never count the amount of friends you have, count the friends you have when it matters most.
I prefer not to count friends. I’m not in the habit of collecting friends for the sake of numbers. Social media tends to make this a competition at times, while others seem to have a difference of opinion in how they use platforms to connect with individuals. How many followers do you have on Twitter? How many folks have “liked” your page? etc.. If you are only “friending” others on Facebook because you feel that’s a good business model…maybe you could define what is a friend for me. I define a friend as one who has that’s not just on my virtual radar as a metrics or simply to pitch a product. My personal facebook profile is for friends and family…in fact, , I’ve known every person on that page on average 10 years and we know each in real life…it’s not just virtual. There are maybe three people who have let into my page because we have connected another level that I felt they were at the friend level that we could connect on that page. I do not use Facebook profile as place to pitch my friends, rather, we discuss what’s happening in our lives and it’s a place to connect through the miles that separate us when time and space doesn’t allow us to see each other in real life as we would normally do.
When you open up yourself to others, be sure you to know who you are letting into your world. Remember, you have the right to say no. And more item, if one is “blowing smoke”, and you feel that that something is just off about the attention you are receiving, trust your gut. Our intuition is the best defense we have to protect ourselves from those who may try a little too hard to be a friend. Do your due diligence, vet it out and if it doesn’t feel right to you, walk away.
3. Be prepared for stones to be thrown when you stand up for your principles.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you (Matthew 5:12) this week I stood up for my faith. Apparently, when others feel their own principles do not align with yours, be prepared to be have to stand your ground. Not everyone is going to agree with you. If you feel strongly about your values, do not back down. It’s not to be rigid; rather you should never feel that you must weaken what you believe in your heart to pacifier another. They have their right to their own belief and you have your right to yours. In the end, judgment comes from one who has a higher pay grade than us.
4. It’s gratitude that sees you through the darkest of hours.
When it seems that the world is in total chaos and nothing is going your way…be grateful. When it appears that you are at the end of your own rope, be grateful. There are so many things out of our own control, yet, we can be grateful for all things big and small that we do have in our small part of the world. Find solace in what you do have and focus on what matters most.
5. You never know who is listening to your message.
With the power of social media platforms, you never know when the right word will touch someone. Our words in short bites or long form like this blog has significance with others. We should mean what we say and say what we mean. There is power in language and be sure you are communicating what you want to say and in a way that makes it very clear to be understood.
#4 has been big for me this week -finding things to celebrate no matter how easy it is to find things that are going the wrong way.
Great post, Jen!
Thanks, Dale. #4 had a big impact this week for me as well. I’m so glad gratitude helped you as well this week. When it appears all is lost – I fall back to gratitude and right the ship to get back on course.
Number 1 hits home. Its not a race or a competition
Nicely done Jen.
Thanks, Gerry. No competition, except with ourselves to be our best.
Number 2 when it comes to social media resonates the most for me right now. What a learning curve journey that has been!
FB has been the platform that I have had the most tricky trouble with for a couple of reasons. So at this time, I still have an active profile, meaning…it’s ‘visible’. However, I’m no longer that active when it comes to posting on it.
I remember when I first joined at the prompting of my mother-in-law. We were both clueless as to what ‘social media’ even is. Then because my husband had passed away, people that grew up with him were initially crawling out of the woodwork to connect on FB. The majority of which I do not know PERSONALLY, since I didn’t grow up here. A separate group page was created in honor of his memory to allow people to connect there.
Then more confusion happened when it came to the work I was doing at that time. I no longer work for the company, yet I’m still connected with old clients as ‘friends’.
Toss in a couple of women’s groups that I’ve joined. We all added each other as friends…yet I found that I just didn’t feel comfortable posting things with the same ease as I could when in the women’s group due to the nature of things we talk about. I just don’t feel comfortable communicating at that level of intimacy with the part of my audience I’ve mentioned above on my main FB page.
And for me, that doesn’t have anything to do with being fake, or not keeping it real. I just believe that in life we have different levels of intimacy in our relationships. Some things, like the post I shared about the day my husband died, I reached a place where I could feel good about sharing that vulnerability with the world. Yet I don’t feel that way about ALL aspects of my life. (like what I could share in a more intimate setting in a womens group..for example)
So FB can turn out to be very tricky depending on how ignorant we are with it when we first joined!
I’ve considered just starting up a whole new profile. Perhaps I will eventually. As it stands right now, I rarely post on it anymore. Just not really happy with the way FB doesn’t really delete anything either. Even when you choose to deactivate your account, FB doesn’t actually delete it. The information stays.
Thanks for sharing your post Jen.
Thanks Jen for another wisdom post, one filled with insights that speaks to each of us we continue on our journey that is most often filled with daily challenges. I see an important common thread of Self Worth woven into the fabric of your reflection. The more we are able to value and love ourselves, we are in a better position to set boundaries, discern friendships, deal with persecution from those who might disagree with our values, discover gratitude, even during the darkest hours of our travels, and be centered and clear on “meaning what we say and saying what we mean.” Regards, EdC
Self worth – that seems to be the theme this week, Ed. Yes. When we come from a place of love of ourselves, gratitude for what we have and ground ourselves in value of our time and commitments, we tend to be working and living from a place that gives us the best ability to serve others very well.
Wow, this must’ve been an incredible week Jen! I love the idea of looking back and reflecting on the week past. I’m always asking, “What have I / we learned today?” Few ever seem to do this at all and I’m inspired to see you teaching this valuable kata.
Many of the lessons here are intertwined and suggest we need to be truly in touch with and aware of ourselves – “to be our own best friend” first. We all need our space – a time and place we hold for ourselves, a time to reflect, a time to “just be”.
I have often said (and tweeted) that “We are the company we keep.” Not all followers are friends in the true sense of the word but many friends are followers. I highly regard and respect those who stand for their principles and cringe when I hear people who apologize for holding to them.
So often have I heard, “Surround yourself with the best people.” For that, I’m grateful to have many wonderful friends on twitter and in the blogging community who I count among the best and who also believe that to stand for nothing is to fall for anything.
We need more principled leaders who don’t cater to every whim simply to be “popular”. Attempting to be all things to all people is to be nothing to no one.
Inspiring post Jen and thanks for sharing your lessons learned – perhaps learned for all of us.
Excellent! All of these ring a loud bell with me…….yet this past week it was #3.
Thanks, Caroline. It was quite a lesson for #3 for me as well. If we do not stand on our principles, what foundation do we stand on? We have to be honest with ourselves and keep true to who we are within. Thanks so much. I’m glad this resonated with you.
Thanks, Redge. I believe this is a very valuable exercise for all of us. To take a step back and look at the lessons we receive, dissect them and make sense of what we have gained through the experiences we have endured.
You are very much on point – we are the company we keep and in that regard, it is so important we are mindful of the circle of trust that we create. I respect my circle and keep a mindful eye to who is in and who is not. So many are pretenders, yet with a good BS detector as I call it, we can separate those who pretend from the real deal.
Very inspired by your comments as well, Redge. Always look forward to your points. Cheers.
Thanks, Samantha. Every platform is different and it’s up to you how you connect with others. For Facebook, my personal profile originally started out years ago as a way to connect with former classmate as I am on my high school reunion committee. The evolution was that I connected family from Canada as well since we live in Maryland and they live on the West Coast as a way to share pics, updates and keep in touch. From there, I added in business friends whom I’ve known personally from various companies over the years as we have become personal friends. I like to think of my personal profile as my own space – and think many do this as well – it is a way to connect with those whom distance has become an issue and many of us cannot see each other in IRL but this keeps us in touch. I’ve had several clients and business associates try to connect to the personal profile – while I appreciate it – I use the Fan Page for those contacts. I’m sure they are not interested in my son’s latest school updates. It comes back to boundaries as well. I know many who disagree with this strategy and that’s fine, but I refuse to go with some ”
guru” or “expert” opinion. I have counseled clients to do the same and many appreciate that information.