By DeRondal Bevly, Community Outreach Executive

At the start of each calendar year, most people sit down vigorously sketching out resolutions to improve their lives.  Some resolutions include more time in the gym, spending more time with family, eating better, and other habits meant to help us lead healthier, more productive lives. 

As I plotted my own resolutions, I came across a blog post written by a good friend of mine, Ryan Blanck.   Almost a year ago, Ryan started a firm, Deviate LLC, dedicated to helping people get the most of their lives and environments.  The pursuit of realizing the highest levels of human and organizational potential has been a deep passion of Ryan’s for as long as I have known him.  The intensity in which he works to reach his potential is eclipsed only by his willingness to give his time and resources to help others.  The post helps recalibrate the thought process being getting into shape, staying healthy and realizing the benefits of a healthier lifestyle.

An avid yogi for nearly seven years, I became reminded of lessons where my instructors advised us to reach a point just beyond our level of comfort and then push just a little bit more.  While practicing this week, I thought about how this simple idea could apply to our personal and professional lives.  Often, many of us, myself included, have grand intentions of maximizing each moment and creating better lives only to resort to our comfort zones, pushing those visions of a healthier, better, more productive self back into the depths of our consciousness.  We might take brief strides toward the person we want to become, but often times find ourselves falling back into the same bad habits and behaviors that led to creating those resolutions in the first place.

It is not my intention to knock being comfortable, quite the opposite.  Life, at times, can be difficult. Our media provides up-to-the-moment, daily reminders that we are in unprecedented times as a nation and world, with uncertainty lurking at every turn.  While we cannot immediately control those outside factors, we can control our reaction to them.  When faced with times of adversity, our core beliefs and skills will help us maintain, but imagine stretching yourself beyond your personal and professional limits just a bit.  Over time, you will develop new skills and abilities that will strengthen your core competencies, helping you reach new heights.

I believe this is especially true for communications practitioners.  Often as consultants and advisers to clients, our task calls for us to deliver advice derived from our skills and experience.  Providing the client with the newest information, techniques and technologies not only helps them make sound business decisions but also further solidifies the existing business relationship.

So the next time you hesitate about taking on a task, signing up for a class, or even introducing yourself to a stranger, a weakness of mine, think about how stretching yourself just beyond how you normally would can impact you personally and professionally, as well.