Speak up!!

My mother loves to tell people that when we moved into our house in Florida she had to tell the neighbors that they weren't beating me...I just had a set of lungs on me that rivaled a banshee and was prone to temper tantrums. You can imagine their surprise when I started school and they were told that I was incredibly quiet and needed to speak up more. I spent more years than I'd like to admit finding a balance between those temper tantrums and speaking up, but I like to think that I have found it.

The past few weeks have been a bit rough - lots of decisions to be made and many of them out of my hands (which I HATE). I'd been using my de-stress tips to keep sane, but I realized that it also might be time to speak up about some of them. These conversations aren't easy ones, but at least I would know that I was making an effort to change the situation. With that in mind, I emailed a variety of contacts and set up a slew of meetings. I reached out to people who had been where I was and asked them how they decided what to do and what they wish they had known. I got some great advice and began to feel better about the decisions I needed to make and felt more comfortable about the ones that were out of my control.

Since I was on a roll, I decided to also address some situations at work. I have been having trouble with a co-worker recently and ignoring the situation wasn't solving it - so I asked her to coffee. 25 minutes and two Starbucks later and we were back on even keel. From there I decided to go for gold and made a meeting with my boss. Reviews are in the Spring, but I figured it couldn't hurt to start the conversation with my boss now to discuss where I am at, where I'd like to go, and what I need to do to get there. She is a great boss and incredibly savvy woman, and she thought it was the perfect time to start the discussion and was happy that I was speaking up. It was certainly not the week I expected at work, but served as a great reminder that by speaking up I was more in control than I realized. 

As the month comes to a close, I hope that you all can take a look at your life and speak up about whatever is bothering you or on something that you have been putting off - you might be surprised about what comes of these conversations!