September, 2018
I’m dreading the fun, career-boosting event I signed up for tonight. I’m not the only one that does this, right? Surely at least some of you have also read about a great event, signed up, and then on the day of thought you’d rather go home and watch mindless TV with a bag of chips and a glass of wine. Or maybe you never even signed up.
PR is exhausting. Between strategy, measurement, research, crisis, social media, pitching, coaching, and everything else that we do every day-and do excellently-it’s no wonder we are tempted to skip the career-boosting events.
I bet you’re also like me in another way: if you push yourself to go, you’re glad you did. Attending professional events outside of your organization helps widen your perspective away from your day to day challenges and remind you of why you wanted to go into public relations in the first place. Even if you set the program content aside, there’s something about mingling and sharing experiences with like-minded professionals that helps you re-calibrate and refocus. It’s refreshing.
Next time I see you at a PRSA-LA event, I’ll understand if you tell me you dreaded coming and congratulate you on pushing through the exhaustion to make time for growth and re-calibration. We’ll both leave the event glad we came.
Diane Rhodes Bergman, APR
2018 PRSA-LA President
