Be Patient With Yourself

When I was younger, the choir used to sing a song that included the phrase, "Please be patient with me, God is not through with me yet." I have thought of that song often when other people don't seem to understand what I am trying to say or to do. But today, I want to remind you that those words apply, not only to others, but to yourself as well. We sometimes forget to be patient with ourselves - particularly through times of change. We might think, "Well, this is a change I decided upon, so I should not be struggling with it." I encourage you to keep in mind that change, even those changes undertaken happily and/or voluntarily, can cause mixed or even negative feelings.

Change is change, and that means doing/having something different in our lives. For most of us, that requires a period of adjustment. We may find that we are experiencing unexpected emotions in conjunction with a new relationship, a promotion, a new job, a new boss, retirement - even retirement from a job we disliked. It is often because of the change associated with the new situation that we have mixed emotions, or feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, etc.

So, in times of change, I encourage you to be patient with yourself. Don't expect that you will feel all roses and sunshine, even when it is seen as a positive change that you wanted. Allow yourself some time to adjust to the new and different circumstances/situation. I would also encourage you to keep that in mind when a loved one or close friend is coping with a change. Allow them some time to adjust.

Something new and different can be fun and exciting, but it can also be scary or unsettling. I believe that the more plans you can make for your change the less anxiety will accompany it, but that may also depend on other circumstances, which I will discuss in the next post.


Mary Ann Davis, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, coping with a job loss, preparing for a return to work or to school, or planning for retirement or non-retirement. She meets with individuals in person and via telephone to assist them in planning and preparing for changes. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor. For more information on her services, please visit her web site at www.YourCareerPlan.com. To contact Mary Ann, please call 513.665.4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential voice message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

So, for those of you who know lyrics to songs, you may recognize that as a phrase from a holiday song from long ago. In that instance, it is a somewhat romantic song, that I think is very pretty. But my question has a little different purpose - what are you doing New Year's Eve in relation to your plans for you for 2012. Well, maybe you plan to create your traditional New Year's resolutions. Or maybe you just have a party on your agenda. Maybe you plan to watch whatever sporting events are on TV. The fact that New Year's Eve falls on a Saturday this year may change your approach to the day.


But whether you work on this on New Year's Eve or some other day - before or just after the beginning of the new year, I encourage you to think about what you plan to do for you and with your life during the exciting year of 2012. We may not know what to expect in terms of some predictions, but we can make the best of our days that we can. Think about what you would like to accomplish - and this might be at work or in your family or your other personal life. What happens to so many people is that we have ideas and sketches of plans in our heads, but in my opinion, until we get it down on paper, it is not really a plan. (Of course, that reference to paper, could also include a computer file, for those who have forgotten what it is like to write things on actual paper!)


So think about what you would like to accomplish, be it something small, medium sized or really big, and begin to develop some plans to make it happen. I really find that having things written out help me to think about what steps I actually need to take to bring the plans into reality. I think it also helps to identify some time frames for when you will complete each part of the plan and develop a system of checkpoints to increase the chances that things will happen in a timely manner.

Happy New Year!




Mary Ann Davis is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, coping with a job loss, planning to return to work or to school, preparing for retirement or non-retirement, and other life changes. She has been working with adults in person and via telephone for over 25 years to assist them in finding solutions to their life planning issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). For more information on her services, please visit her web site at http://www.yourcareerplan.com/. To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

Winter Solstice

This year the Winter Solstice will occur on Thursday, December 22. This is generally thought of as the shortest day, thus the longest night, of the year. It is considered by some as a time of rebirth or of reversals. As such, it seems appropriate that I should encourage you to think about your life and plans you have made, or intended to make. This opportunity for reversal could be a time when you decide you will no longer tolerate a situation that is not healthy for you. Or perhaps just adjust some circumstances that have gotten out of hand and beyond your reach. It could be a time when you decide to take better care of yourself - perhaps resume that exercise program you had started in the summer or the act of leaving your work at work. Maybe you had promised yourself that you would start watching what you eat and adding more veggies to your diet.


Perhaps you're one who wants to spend more time with family or friends but haven't actually gotten around to doing things differently. Maybe you just want to disconnect from technology so you can reconnect with people who are important in your life. Or maybe it is time to start that college program you have been looking at or finish the book you started reading last spring. It could even involve cleaning out your closets to clear the way for new things or clearing your mind to be open and available to new thoughts.


It could be any number of things that you either have not gotten around to or have started, but not completed, or have gotten off the track of your good intentions. You may even need to make a list then you can determine the order in which you plan to do those things that still matter.


Take this opportunity of reversal/rebirth/realignment to regain some control, or order, or peace, or whatever in our life could be improved upon and make 2012 a better year for you.




Mary Ann Davis, M.A. is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, preparing for retirement, planning to return to school or to work, coping with a job loss, or other life transitions. She meets with individuals in person and/or via telephone to assist in their life planning issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). To learn more about her services, please visit her web site at http://www.yourcareerplan.com/. To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential voice message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

The World is Just Not the Same

I know, that is no big announcement. Anyone over the age of 10 probably realizes that the world is just not the same today as it was yesterday. And that applies if your yesterday was actually just 24 hours ago or if you think of it as 30 or 40 years ago. But the basic statement applies to our daily lives, our families and friends, and our ways of thinking about the world.

As we approach the end of yet another year, we may tend to think about what this particular year has brought and what it has meant. For many of us who are over the age of 30, this year flew by faster than any of the previous years - that is partly because time seems to do that as we continue to mature - and I think partly because we have managed to speed up our lives by taking away some of our own personal "down" time.

So many people these days are constantly "plugged in" which leaves no real time to yourself. That time when you can just sit with your thoughts and let them lead you wherever they will. Those quiet times when you can remember what your daydreams used to entail, when you had high hopes for your future. Without those times, we may lose track of our dreams or forget them entirely. Then when we are thinking about what we should be doing with our lives, we are often at a loss. We may have lost that ability to create something different from our own thoughts. We may have become afraid to think about what we would like to change or do differently in our lives.

If this applies to you, I suggest you unplug for a while - try it in small installments - maybe just 15 or 20 minutes at a time and spend some time with your thoughts. If this needs to be sitting in your bathroom or bedroom with the door locked, so be it. Spend some time thinking about how your life has developed and what, if anything, you would like to do differently. After you have done this for a few days, begin writing down the thoughts that come to you during your quiet time. After a while, you can begin to put together a list of those thoughts and determine which ones you are ready to develop into actual plans.

Find some time for you - time is still going to fly by too quickly, but maybe this way, when you carve out some quiet time next December, you will be able to smile about ways in which you have made changes or at least developed plans to do so. Best wishes.

Mary Ann Davis, M.A. is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Ohio providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, planning to return to work or to school, coping with a job loss, preparing for retirement, and other life changes. She meets with individuals in person and via telephone to assit them to find solutions to life transition issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). Please visit her web site at www.YourCareerPlan.com for more information on her services. To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444- x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

What Will You Do Tomorrow?

As of this writing, tomorrow is 11/11/11. That is a significant date in terms of many issues, and I encourage you to think about what creative energy you can utilize to make changes in your life. Know that you have the capability to make changes - but you must believe and act. It is not sufficient to believe and sit back and wait for things to happen differently. If you do the same things the same way, you will likely get the same results. Also if you act differently but do not believe it will make a difference, it probably won't. That's why you need the combination of belief and actions to make changes in your life.

I, like so many others, encourage you to take some time, preferably today, to think about how you would like your life to be different in the future. You can begin to plan for a different future, but you need to know what you want and what should be different. You may wish to consider your personal relationships and your other life situations to determine what is working for you and what is somewhat lacking. If there are people in your life who are always down on life in general, consider how much time you need or want to spend with that person. Negativity tends to bring on more negativity. If there are people you have met who are positive and forward thinking, you may want to consider how you could increase time spent with those people. A positive attitude is very contagious.

Also think about the other aspects of your life. If there are areas in which you are not happy, think about what it would take to turn that around. Is it something within your grasp? Do you have the ability to bring about the change you desire, if you put your mind and your efforts into it? If so, develop your plan for a new way of acting and thinking. Make tomorrow the beginning of a better life for you.

Mary Ann Davis is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, planning to return to work or school, preparing for non-retirement, and other life planning issues. She meets with individuals in person and via telephone to assist them through her change guidance system. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). For more information on her services, please visit her web site at www.YourCareerPlan.com. To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential voice message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

What Do You Want? (part 2)

Once you have narrowed down your list of things you would like to add in your life, I encourage you to find ways to create the life you want. I encourage my clients to develop plans to bring about the necessary change. Some of you may be more into planning than others, but I find it works well for most people.

Start by figuring our where you are now in relation to where you want to be in life. Are you just a few steps away from getting what you want, or will it be a long hill to climb? Only you can decide if the distance is within reach. If it is, then write out what you need to do to get you where you want to be. You may need to do some research on the topic, but through the Internet you can discover information about so many topics, that it is not as difficult these days as research used to be. So do some reading, if need be, and figure out what it will require.

Then think about how long you will allow to get where you want to be. Do you need to be there yesterday or will sometime in the next 18 months or 3 or 5 years suffice? What kind of time frame can you work with? Once you have that, you can begin to chart out what you need to do in smaller increments to get you where you want to be. Some people work best with a monthly planner. Each month they assign a task from their "To Do" list to move them closer to their goal. If you are working with a short time frame, you may need a weekly "To Do" list.

It helps many people to include as many details as possible in their plan so it is less likely they will miss a step. I also encourage you to include some check points in your plan - times when you will make a conscious effort to check on your progress. That tends to eliminate looking up in a few months or next year and finding that you started on your plan but somewhere along the line got derailed and it has been on the back burner ever since.

The other suggestion is that the items on your "To Do" lists should be things that are within your ability to do or to make happen. That way you are not dependent on someone else to help you get to where you want to go.

Life is short, I encourage you not to spend it wishing and hoping but planning and doing.

Mary Ann Davis is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, planning to return to work or to school, preparing for non-retirement, and other life transitions. She meets with individuals in person and via telephone to assist in developing solutions to their life planning issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). Please visit her web site at www.YourCareerPlan.com for more information on her services. To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential voice message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

What do You Want?

In the last post, we talked about what your heart desires. This is a very similar line of thinking - what do you want? When was the last time you thought about that? What is it that YOU want? Is there something that you have wanted to do but have been too tired, too busy, too shy, too whatever, to try? Perhaps you feel that you are too young to do that, or too old or would look too silly. What is it that you would really want to do that you have not done?

I encourage you to give that some thought. It may help to sit in a quiet place where you can think and either talk out loud as you sort through those thoughts or where you can write down your thoughts. It helps some people to work with a blank sheet of paper and just start writing down - in your own short notes - what it is you would like to do. Don't censor your thoughts or not put something down because you don't know how to do it or think you would look silly doing it. Just write things down as they come to you. If you are more of a talker than a writer, then get a tape recorder and blank tape or whatever mechanism you could use to record your voice and go to a quiet place where you can be alone. Then begin to speak aloud the things you would like to do. Again, don't omit things because you would feel foolish if others knew it was on your list or because you wouldn't know where to begin to make it happen.

That first step is designed to help you bring thoughts or dreams - that you may have buried - up to the surface where you can recognize them. Once you have created a list of possibilities, then you can go through it and think about whether or not it is really something you would like to do or if it was a dream long ago, but no longer. Keep on your list only those things you would still want. Then go through the remaining items and figure out what you would need to do if you actually wanted to do each one. If you don't know what it would take, or where you could start, find someone to talk to about it. When you have some more information, then you can decide if it is a reasonable idea or something that is just a dream but you don't plan to make it a reality.

If it is something you do want, is now the time you will reward yourself and pursue it? If not now, when? Can you put a partial plan together before you put it on the shelf? That partial plan should include a time frame when you will revisit the idea to determine if that is the time to go for it. Find ways to create the life you want by including the things you would like to do in your life, in the near future.


Mary Ann Davis is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career change or job search, planning to return to college or to work, preparing for non-retirement, coping with job loss, and other life plans. Mary Ann meets with individuals in person and via telephone to assist them to find solutions to life transition issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). Please visit her web site at http://www.yourcareerplan.com/ for more information on her services. To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.