Follow Your Own Plan: A Guest Post By Libby Spears

From the time I was a small girl I gravitated to microphones, audiences and being the center of attention.  I suspect I was a little annoying and I am certain my sisters would agree.  Fortunately my educational journey allowed me to channel my love for getting in front of people into a successful teaching career at the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington and TCU.  I love teaching.  It is my passion.

Five years ago I started a new chapter in my professional life.  Bravo Communications and Consulting (CC) was born and I refer to it as an adventure more than a company.  I want to be the go to communication and training resource for individuals and organizations that need help “managing their message”.  This happens in a variety of ways from presentations to interpersonal skills development to social media messaging and when I work with a client I bring my 15 plus years as both an instructor and student of communication to the table.  I help liberate my client from the dead end practices they are currently using that keep them from their ultimate success.

Today I wanted to share with you a few lessons learned along the way that hopefully you can apply.  Instead I am going to focus on just ONE. This stood out to me more than the others because it is what I struggle with the most. My “lizard brain” trips me up when I  continue to:

Compare myself to everyone else.

Ouch.

I get the opportunity to be around some amazing people who are very successful, smart, energized and they inspire me.  There are times (everyday pretty much) that I worry that I will never “catch up” with other people in my field of work who seem to be so much further along on their journey.  I have to remind myself that I made choices that meant while they were working 40, 50 60+ hour weeks to grow their business, I was at home being mom first and college professor second. Being mom first, for the years before my girls went off to kindergarten and really beyond that was priority number one.  The payoffs were many–those are years and memories that I could never re-capture and I am glad that I made that choice.

At the same time it meant that while I was taking my girls to the park, the library, the zoo and other adventures my counterparts were growing their businesses.  I did continue to teach two days a week and pursue my love for teaching.  I had the best of both worlds really.  Mom first, but with a professional outlet where I could go and teach and be around “grown ups” for a few hours each week.

I know that  I am on my own journey and I will get there eventually, but it doesn’t happen all at once.  It takes time, persistence, vision and commitment and I have all those things. What I need a little more of is patience.

We all have a lizard brain that tells us we can’t, we don’t deserve, we haven’t worked hard enough, we will fail and there are days that it is incredibly loud and obnoxious and good at what it does.  Seth Godin, whom I admire a great deal and follow religiously, talks in great depth about our lizard brain in one Linchpin, one of my favorite books of 2010.

If you suffer from im-patient-itous then I feel ya!  It is hard to be patient when we see the possibilities.  But know this–every step along the way is building a solid foundation for you so that when you do arrive at the mountaintop you will have firm footing.  You should have a plan, you should work that plan but remember–it is your plan! Your time line! Your rules!  You will get there.

Best,

Libby Spears

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