Going from Idea to Reality! - Development Counts

A little over ten years ago, I was working for a K-12 school system doing prevention & intervention work. I also had a part time counseling practice.

I found my work in schools to be:

meaningful,
important,
and challenging,

but it wasn’t my long term vision of what I wanted for my career.

What it gave me was a foundation for which I am eternally grateful:

a work family filled with life long friends and mentors (who showed up in force last year when my father died);
the practice and ability to put together training and facilitate presentations;
and the confidence to engage with professional people in authority (communicating with school leaders about social & emotional learning during the time of “No Child Left Behind”).

In 2002, I had a life altering experience. I was in an automobile accident. As a result, I suffered severe damage to my left knee.

I was hit on the driver’s side front door head on, by a driver who lost control of his vehicle in the rain.

The worst part was watching him lose control as he careened toward me. He regained control and then lost control again.

I am truly fortunate to have survived this traumatic incident. I consider it to be a “wake up” to your life moment.

Like so many people in this circumstance, I needed to focus first on recovering and then on meaning.

I spent many months in physical therapy to stabilize my knee and many years learning to overcome chronic pain.

During that early recovery period, I asked myself “what do I want to do with my life that I am not already doing?”

The answers were:

Stop chemically processing my hair (a practice that began when I was in the 5th grade),
and launch my counseling practice full time.

Neither of these goals were as simple as I naively thought them to be at the time. But since this isn’t a hair blog. I’ll leave goal # 1 for now and speak to goal #2.

I met with a Psychologist/Life Coach for 12 meetings over a 3 month period to uncover my ideal work/life. I was asked to develop 30 day, 1-2 year, and 5-10 year goals.

Last year, I found a copy of my original 10 year goals. It is truly a reflection of my practice now.

The goals included:

branching out from counseling to training;
having a work space that allowed me to do both;
as well as colleagues who were interested in and would show up for my continuing education events.

The journey from “ideal” to “real” has been an all consuming endeavor.

As I look ahead to my current 5-10 year goals… “being” is just as valuable as “doing.” It takes a lot of “doing” to move from idea to reality.

But I’ve come to learn that who and how I am “being” has a far greater impact on both the outcome and my fulfillment.

Don’t make your sole focus what you need to “do”… give attention to who you need to “be” or rather who you really “are.”

When you consider your goals… who do you need to “be” to move from idea to reality?

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