TGIM, Seriously?! Yes, Seriously. Top 5 Reasons Why I Love Mondays!

I know you might be thinking... "What is this?  Just some sun-shiney social media BS?"  Don't get me wrong; I love Fridays too!  But indulge me while I share my top 5 reasons why I so appreciate Mondays:

1) Back into my routine -  I admit it, after I sweat through my extra-long Saturday morning workout or long run, I have earned my relaxation for the rest of the weekend.  I enjoy sitting on patios, having a cheat meal or two during the weekend.  We have the best Tex-Mex in Houston (www.lupetortilla.com - best beef fajitas EVER, dont miss!).  There are also multiple food parks with awesome food trucks, some even healthy (www.rawveganchefrenee.com - and she even delivers to your house!).  Most of all, I enjoy spending time with family and friends when in town and traveling when we have time.  But we humans are creatures of habit.  I enjoy getting back on my daily schedule for workouts, healthy eating and most of all, back to what challenges me and where I can make a difference.

2) The Cenikor mission and my Cenikor family - (www.cenikor.org) I know when I show up on Monday morning, I get the opportunity to contribute to something bigger than me.  I get to be of service to a wonderful group of people -  I get to be a resource, sustain our culture, help develop our leaders and ensure the entire family's needs are met - so they can serve our clients and help them overcome addictions and mental health issues.   I work with an amazing senior management team, all driving to be of service and make a difference.  Some days we are able to do that because of our commitment to healthy conflict and some days in spite of that! :)

3) Fresh start on goals for the week - At the beginning of each day, but especially at the beginning of each week, I feel like I have an opportunity to push myself to achieve more than I did yesterday or last week.  Same thing for our team - what can we do better or differently than we did before?  Before diving in, I re-evaluate where I am on annual strategic goals, where we are on current department goals/priorities and current HR needs from our facilities.

4) I love HR - So, I am no "pollyanna". I have good days and bad, just like everyone else (the workouts help ensure more good than bad!).  I am conscious of my strengths (see Strengths Based Leadership) and strive to lead with those and create flow for myself and others when I can. But mostly, I thrive when I am around people.... positive, productive, fun, competitive, genuine and passionate people!  So you can guess the type of culture we hire for, train for, measure and role model for as an executive team.  An organization so focused on our mission to our clients and equally committed to its employees (family), actually makes the daily transactions of HR easier and makes us laser focused on the strategic aspects of HR.  The lives of our Cenikor family and lives of Cenikor clients depend on it, without question.  Failure is not an option and it is the ultimate motivation.

5) I love the balance - Of course I say TGIF too!  As with everything, it's all about balance.  I wouldn't appreciate Mondays like I do if I didn't get a chance to relax, regroup, recharge over the weekends (see #1).  If I never had any days away from the rest of exec team, our conflict might not be so healthy. :)

But I can tell you, my passion for HR and people and Cenikor doesn't turn off at 5 pm on Friday.  I might be reading a new leadership book, following my favorite HR/leadership/legal pros on twitter, or thinking about ideas for my next blog post.  Because HR and service are my passion, it's not a chore or a task.  It's who I am, it's what I enjoy and I will not apologize for it.

So if you are not currently fired about Mondays, it's OK.  Obviously the first step is to pick a career where you love what you do and it builds on your strengths.  As Gardner says in Self-Renewal, "Abundant resources of energy seem available to those who enjoy what they are doing or find meaning in what they are doing.  Self-renewing people know that if they have no great conviction about what they are doing they had better find something they can have great conviction about."

Once you have found your passion, I recommend focusing on areas where you can effect change, whether it's helping to shape the culture of your organization, being aware of and leading from your strengths to find your best flow, or even changing certain personal habits (see Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg) to create the most productive environment for you and your team.

                                       

I hope you have the opportunity to serve and make a difference today!

Kellee Webb, SPHR
PurposefulHR@gmail.com

The Rewards Jar - Short Term and Long Term Goal Achievement

For today's post, I'm sharing a process that I use personally for both short-term and long-term goal achievement.

As my husband Ron (@rwebb_apqc) and I were discussing our new year's resolutions earlier this year, he came up with an idea based on the concept of a curse word jar.  Instead putting in money as a punishment for doing something wrong, we would put money in when we achieved desired short-term goals. The money would be used to save for a longer term goal.  We love to travel, so we set the long-term goal as a vacation in December if we achieved and saved consistently throughout the year.  We named our revised version/method "The Rewards Jar". 

Now in order to make this effective from a budget perspective, we had to setup some of the short-term goals such that we saved money which would then be redirected to the longer-term goal of vacation.  Since we typically go out to dinner and/or lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we set a goal that if we ate in on Friday evening, or all day Saturday or Sunday, we put $50 in the jar for each day it was achieved.  I typically enjoy a glass of red wine with dinner in the evening, so if I did not, I put $5 in the jar.  Ron had his separate goals to redirect funds to the jar as well.

Then we both had self-improvement goals (i.e., the new year resolutions) that we wanted to put in place to help us set new habits and we set dollar amounts for those goals as well.  My goals included spending time doing my daily devotional ($5/day), logging all my food for the entire week ($25/wk) and working out all 7 days each week ($100/wk).  

So by redirecting some of our short-term desires/expenses (going out to eat, glass of wine with dinner), we were able to fund the achievement of both short-term and long-term goals.

I'm happy to say we are at the mid-year point and have already saved over $4000, paid for our airfare to NYC as well as our small apartment overlooking Central Park and some of our entertainment while we are there.  Not to mention the mental and physical benefits of achieving the short-term goals.

The success of this on a personal level has translated to an increased awareness of where I spend my time at work, managing the daily HR operational items with the longer term strategic initiatives of the Foundation.  There is only a finite amount of time, and I am more diligent about leveraging my resources to be successful for both short-term and long-term objectives for the Foundation and our clients.

And for next year, we're are definitely continuing this new process of goal achievement, setting our sights even higher: Queenstown, New Zealand, the "Adventure Capitol of the World"!

I hope you have the opportunity to serve and make a difference today!

Kellee Webb, SPHR

PurposefulHR@gmail.com

The MoneyBall Leadership Retreat

I recently had the opportunity to do a podcast with one of my favorite HR pros and blogger, Kris Dunn, HR Capitalist.  Kris used a clip from the movie Moneyball in one of his blogs posts, and the idea was born to use the movie as part of our annual manager conference training and team building activities.

After two days of the conference, the team building portion included a trip to the Skeeters minor league baseball park, batting practice on the field, then dinner and watching Moneyball in the club house.  Click through to the HR Capitalist to hear the podcast and the details.  I've also included a picture of us at the field, right after batting practice.  It was a really fun event and great tie in with our training sessions!  Have no idea yet how we will top this for next year....


http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2014/06/steal-this-idea-the-moneyball-leadership-retreat-podcast.html

I hope you have the opportunity to serve and make a difference today!

Kellee Webb, SPHR
PurposefulHR@gmail.com