Holiday stuff

After taking the wellness assessment and having my learning partner coach me, I focused my vision on career as the main priority because (a) it's easier to tackle and (b) the other stuff (weight, health, etc) might improve as a result. Maybe. I did it last weekend, the weekend before Christmas. I also got to relieve my mom of a piece of furniture she didn't have room for anymore – a bookshelf that fit nicely in front of my window and next to my desk. It was fun piling my books, DVDs, CDs, and textbooks / notebooks on it. It was kind of an early Christmas present in itself :) On Monday night Josh and I opened our presents to each other (which were also great). Wednesday was Christmas Eve and my dad flew in and we did family presents then. On Christmas day we went to see my grandma and just hung out. I worked yesterday and today I did the next lesson for my coaching (which still isn't for another couple weeks, but hey). I also watched one of my movies I got for a gift. Tomorrow my parents go up to see Pam, but I won't be going because I still have to work. That's okay, though. At least I can do video with her and them, hopefully. And work is starting to slow down which is good. And I'll have the house to myself for a few days. So there's still New Year's this coming week (and a little belated Christmas stuff), but then the week after will be a return to normal, non-holiday time. But it's been fun. Just wanted to do a brief post mentioning some of my festivities as a little break from my normal posts :)

Goings-on

So last week was another practice session and tomorrow we move into the actual wellness assessments that clients fill out for us prior to the first session. And working on our interpretation of them / preparation for first session. We were provided a sample (filled out by a client) in our materials. It had so much stuff on it! Nevertheless, we're supposed to figure out what the client's successes are (in addition to noting what areas they want to work on). That's a key thing I have to keep in mind. It's really easy to get caught up in some of the other things we've been taught, like staging the client with the TTM and seeing if they have motivation and if they know their barriers and possible solutions, etc. Can't forget about figuring out what worked for them before! It's also really easy to paint a picture of the person in your mind based on what you read on paper (like I did with the sample). But then the experience of talking to them turns out really different. (I say that because we had to listen to another recorded session and I'm pretty sure the session was with the client whose assessment we looked at). It's getting intense now! I say that because our materials this week included a section on setting up a practice client relationship. I guess we're up to the part now where we find actual people to practice on. It's scary to think about - like taking the training wheels off the bike. But I'm sure I'll be able to do it. I guess our assignment after tomorrow night will also involve filling out the assessment for ourselves and giving them to our learning partners so we can coach each other. I've been really curious to take it for myself (and to figure out what my own vision statement will be) so it should be interesting.

I believe tomorrow is our last class for like 3 weeks because of Christmas and New Year's. I haven't talked about the holidays or work lately. I had a nice Thanksgiving in which I surprisingly didn't have to work the Friday or Saturday after. They kept saying we'd have all this overtime, yet I only worked 2 Saturdays the whole time (the second one was last week, the day before the last day of open enrollment for medicare). I guess that was good considering how the job usually takes up so much time anyway. What's crazy now is that open enrollment is over, yet instead of the workload slowing down, it's skyrocketing even worse than it was DURING open enrollment. And it's so frustrating when you feel like you push yourself to the limit and still don't make a dent in the work that's piled up. Why isn't management freaking out? They put the pressure on before, and now that the work is worse, we're suddenly taking it easy? Weird. And Tuesday I'm taking the afternoon off to go to the annual conference for the Tampa Wellness Council. And Friday we're having a gift exchange and potluck. And on the 23^rd the company is providing a holiday lunch. Sounds like a lot going on when the work is crazy. But I guess I'll leave it at that. Oh – and how long are we seasonal employees gonna stay? That's another thing I haven't found out yet. All I know is that I'm really ready for it to be over. Really ready. I've got some wellness coaching to get serious about.

So one more weekend before Christmas and Dad coming. I'll spend it with him and my mom and grandma. Not sure if I'll see my sister or not (mom and dad are driving up to see her right after). Have to figure out a time to see one of my bffs too. And my bf hopefully a short time after. Busy, busy!