Over the last few weeks, I realized that for most of the last 20 years or so, I have been on-call or connected 24x7. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of balancing my professional and personal demands. In fact, I regularly saw evidence that things were going well.

But now that I’m in a different professional position and am able to look back, I realize that while things weren’t completely out of alignment, my choices to be constantly connected had side effects that I just didn’t see.

First, it did impact my professional productivity and second, it really impacted how present I was for things outside of work.

Maybe my thoughts on this subject will help those of you that maybe in the midst of something like this to take a step back and figure out a way to do things better than I did.

Last week I started a new professional chapter. It definitely qualifies as a transition. As I went through last week and then looked at my post about transitions, I realized that I missed one very important aspect - being patient with your self and the transition.

This is so critical and after having not done a good job of that last week, I have a few suggestions that may help you.

Anyone else feeling like they and those around them are going through a lot of transitions or entering new phases in their lives? I certainly do for me and my family.

All of us go through change like this in our lives. So here are a few thoughts I have on how we can make the transitions a little smoother and maybe a little more meaningful.

Everyone had a problem deciding which path to take because you didn’t have all the information or because you wanted to have everything mapped out before you started on the journey?

I face this challenge regularly. I can easily overthink key decisions in my life and I have had to learn some ways to help calm my mind and to allow me to move forward, even when the “right” decision is not clear.

In this weeks post I give some background and then share a few thoughts on what I’m trying to do when I face these situations.