Excelling Personally and Professionally

by Kristi Willis

One of the key lessons I’ve learned at The Effective Edge is that we have one life, not two. I joined the business world during the era when we were taught that business was business, personal was personal and the two did not mix. Nice idea, but that doesn’t work anymore. Now that we carry our e-mail with us on our phones and have the speed of the 24/7, global world, we carry work with us everywhere.

Many of us have let work squeeze out our personal lives, making us unhappy and unfulfilled. I was one of those people and what I learned is that you cannot live by work alone.

When I joined the TEE team, I learned that I needed to dedicate myself to my personal life and growth as much as I did to my professional work and growth. I thought I’d never have time to do that, but using my EDGE system helped me accomplish what I needed to at work in a timely manner so I had time to do those things I wanted in my personal life.

It isn’t always easy though. Particularly when I’m traveling for work, it is easy to ignore the home life and give it lower priority. Yet, while I’ve worked for this team, I have accomplished some enormous personal goals – I’ve written a cookbook for friends and family each year, started a blog about cooking and increased my fitness enough to complete three triathlons last year. How did I manage all of that? I created projects for my personal goals and treated them like I do my work projects.

I noticed that I was very good at staying on task with my work projects and decided to apply the same tenacity to my personal and home projects. Using the EDGE methodology, I create Project tasks, write meaningful desired outcomes and mind sweep all the steps I need to complete. Then, each week, I review my progress on the project. Even when I’m on the road, I find at least one small thing I can do to make progress that week. And, one baby step at a time, I get them done.

Now, I may never be a celebrity chef or grace the cover of Triathlon magazine, but I am moving forward and achieving the things I want for myself. And, I’ve noticed that when I’m happy with myself and at home, I’m much happier at work, which means I’m happier at home. Hmmm… maybe you never could separate the personal and professional, we just didn’t realize it.