Harder Than I Ever Imagined

Wow – this move and reaching my goal is harder than I EVER imagined it would be. I had really underestimated how difficult it would be. Through it all, I have loved and lived every moment of this past year. It has been incredible.

I am so thankful for this experience, but PHEW, it has been hard. I’ve had my share of tears and triumphs.I have made wonderful new friends here in North Carolina and had wonderful experiences. I am so happy to have moved. But damn, this is hard.

I’ve missed my friends in Colorado more than I could have ever imagined. Let me say that again, I miss my friends. I thought that since I’m so integrated into social media that I’d be able to keep that sense of connectedness. It isn’t the same. Life gets in the way. Time differences change waking hours.  I miss getting drinks, listening to other people’s problems and venting my own.

I miss the familiar places and foods of Colorado. I watched the Colorado Girls spoof on the California Girls video and wiped away tears. I lived in Colorado for 25 years. It was home.

Now, North Carolina is home. I am very thankful to be here and I naively thought that the difficulties would end once we moved. Wow, I was wrong. New streets to navigate, new places to eat, new cultural norms to accept, new terrible drivers to accept.

I have lived every day that I’ve been here. We pack every weekend full with events or beach trips or get together with friends. We’ve gone out on “school” nights and I’ve put in long hours at work. I go to sleep everyday knowing that I’m getting the most out of this experience.

When working towards a goal letting yourself acknowledge how hard it is to achieve is also important in reaching a goal. The down slope of reaching a big goal and the maintenance that follows is a challenge in itself. For a long time you have been working towards one single goal. Once you’ve achieved it, now what? What is the next mountain to climb?

My next mountain is to just “be.” For a long time I’ve been pushing to personal and professional goals. I need to figure out how to just be good at my job, good at my life, good at being a friend, good at being a wife.

I am working in the weeks to come to download lots of great tips to this blog – back logging the dates so I have 52 weeks of tips for “Living a Networked Life.” Living a Networked Life is a phrase I’ve come up with to describe how I live my life. I am constantly making connections online and offline to build a web of support for myself and for the people in my network. I am always buzzing around putting together the pieces of my puzzle.

Now the network I’m building is my life network. New friends and creating a support group in our new home. My work is to be in the present and find joy in being me.

Have you ever achieved a huge goal? How did you deal with the maintenance phase? Did you just mount another goal? I’d love to hear your advice!

Social Connections Check

If your goal is career orientated, you will need to get your social connections in line. This does not mean delete crazy photos or bleach your online personality, it just means be conscious of what you are putting out there.

It’s important to not take this to an extreme. Make sure you are still being you on your professional accounts. Your future boss wants to hire a person not a robot. Be professional and personable. If they don’t like something you say, you probably don’t want to work for them in the first place.

I’m going to do separate posts on tips for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging, but here are some general tips on getting your social life in shape:

• Create a professional name for yourself – I use my first name, middle initial, last name as my professional handle – Dawn A. Crawford. (Granted, even I’m not consistent with this one since my professional Twitter feed is under that handle and my professional Twitter is actually @SocMediaRckStr. Oh well, we can’t be perfect). Having a consistent way of identifying your professional accounts and resumes will increase your SEO and make you easier to find by employers.
• Add a professional photo – Make sure it’s a very attractive, professional, CURRENT photo of you. It will help put a face to your name.
• Google yourself - It’s not vanity, it’s essential. Make sure no crazy stuff pops up with your name. If it does, bring it to your personal networks.
• Grab your Google profile – You can make a free Google Profile about yourself – great for SEO. This just makes sure that people find the real you.
• Open up your professional accounts – If you are choosing to have a professional and personal accounts, open up your professional ones so people can see those more easily. People are curious, so if you bait them with a more open account they will gravitate to this account rather than dig any further.
• Lock down your personal accounts – Lock down your personal accounts to only people who can help you achieve your goal. Unfriend and block people to keep your innermost circle free of people who can negatively impact your goal. By doing this you can use your personal accounts for venting and blowing off steam without recourse.
• Connect your professional ecosystem – Add your Twitter and Facebook to your LinkedIn and blog. Connect your Facebook to your Twitter. Creating an ecosystem for your professional connections will keep people looking at the content you want them to see rather than digging for personal pages.
• Consider starting a blog – Creating a blog about your career interest can help set you apart as an influential. It can be in many forms – written, photos, video, reviews – just adding professional content about your interests is helpful in solidifying your expertise in an area.

Having a social presence is essential for anyone who wants to live the networked life. It makes it easy for people to find you when they have new opportunities for you.

Warm This House

Throwing our house warming was our way to Raleigh this week. Officially, we are settled…right?

Regardless, it was great to connect with new friends and enjoy an evening together. We kicked off our evening with a delish shrimp boil, some chow-chow and lots of beer.

The best part of the party was how everyone kept saying, “hey, you look really familiar. Have we met before?” Most of the group are active Twitter users and had all either connected online or seen each other at local events.

I am so thankful for all my new friends here in NC. It feels so great to be in my new home.

It warms my heart to know that I can add to the Raleigh network by being a pivot point for others to grow their own network. Networking is such a powerful and rewarding practice. I love being a community builder.

The best request of the evening was from Becca – “So you’re going to connect us all on Twitter, right?” Oh, you know it!