Finding Time For Me, My Friends and Credibility Building

I often get asked how I find the time to create all this amazing content for LinkedIn in the midst of my busy personal life and a demanding career? I am going to let you in on a secret… While credibility building is not my absolutely most favorite thing to do, I worked out a GREAT structure with my coach and mentor to make sure we get it and have fun along the way. How? Once a quarter, I make a road trip, and the trip gets me three things >> a time for me, time for my friends, and time for some credibility building.?

Reconnecting with Myself

How does taking a trip for credibility building help me reconnect with myself? Plenty of ways, I say! For one, I take full advantage of the time in the car where I control both the climate and the entertainment! This is no small matter as anyone with loud and impatient friends, pets, families, and kids would know. Sometimes we just need to be alone and in full control of at least our immediate surroundings, am I right??

So, I get on the road, and it's quite a lengthy ride, four and a half hours and I put my best audiobook on and I just cruise down the highway. Traffic or not, I am not bothered at all, because it is truly my “me” time. What could be better?! Yes, hilarity ensued more than once when I’ve missed exits and made wrong turns because I am so, let’s call it, in the moment, but it was worth it every time and makes for great stories when I finally get there. And that’s how I rejuvenate while on the road trip for coaching and credibility building!

Time for My Friends

On each road trip to see my credibility building coach and visit her studio, I make a point to plan a rendezvous with my old friends and colleagues. After a long drive in the car, to me nothing is better than great food, delicious drinks, and an engaging conversation with former colleagues, longtime friends and their families. If I can crash with another one of my friends for the night, then, BONUS, I get to visit, reconnect, and catch up with them as well!?

Time with my favorite people can include going out for a long run, grabbing Starbucks, talking about the latest books we’ve all read, movies and shows we’ve seen, and restaurants we’ve tried. In other words, it’s just plain picking up where we left off, which, after all, is exactly what you do with good friends. So, while I don’t absolutely love doing credibility building, I am super incentivized to make these trips happen on a regular basis, because, well, I’ve come to crave this reconnecting with some of the best and favorite people in my life.

Time for Credibility Building

After rejuvenating through my alone time and reconnecting by visiting with old friends and colleagues, the last, but not least, phase of my credibility building road trips is spending a few hours the following day recording my videos at my coach’s studio. The best part of having a coach that “gets” me, is that recording videos and creating content for social media doesn’t feel like work at all. Quite the opposite! It’s more reconnecting for me. When we brainstorm topics I’d like to speak to, I get to reconnect with my values, reconnect with what's important to me, how I'm going to get to my next goal, how I'm going to improve on something or build on something I've learned or found out. Who knew that credibility building could be so…therapeutic?! But that’s exactly how these trips have been for me!

It is such a fulfilling time for me that, again, on the way home, I think about what a great time I had, how well spent it was and how I just can't come up with a better model for doing something that may otherwise be an arduous task I’d rather put off, well, indefinitely!?

So, if you are wondering how I create such amazing content for LinkedIn, it really is a gift to myself of all of those things. Do you do something like that for yourself? Do you combine your personal happiness and your professional goals and achieve those together? Do you think it’s possible for you? Let's talk in the comments.