What I love about attending conferences and conventions is that feeling upon departing. The best conferences leave me exhausted yet energized and full of good intentions. The bad part is that I have never quite figured out how to maximize my energy around intention and ideas while minimizing the exhaustion part.

So this time I am going to try something different. As I return home from the Girls and Women in Sport Conference hosted by the Tucker Center at the University of Minnesota I am going to ask myself these questions: How am I living my values? Am I pushing myself out of my comfort zone?

The things I really want, how I want my life to look, requires me to enter the zone of discomfort. That is how we grow. We apply a stimulus, introduce stress, and it allows us to change and grow and become stronger. And if I am living my values,  if my words and deeds match up, then opportunities seem to appear out if thin air.

I often talk about the power I have to create my own story. Getting out of my comfort zone not only allows me to remember that truth but gives me a chance to evaluate what kind of story it is I want to create for myself in the first place.

So instead of merely attempting to catch up on sleep on my flights home, I will be making a post-conference list. Not just of action items to do but if ways I want to be.