About a year ago, I was in a quandary.
I was stuck.
I was lost.
I wrote the following, but didn’t publish it.
It’s sat in my drafts since.
Today, I decided to finish it.
I don’t watch a lot of television.
However, recently I’ve been drawn to programmes that focus on people wanting to change – what they do, who they date, etc.
It’s surely related to that age-old question people like to ask: if you could do any job, what would you do?
Or if you could live anywhere, where would that be?
Of course, there are a lot of unknowns that, when you scrape beneath the surface, demonstrate that as a question it’s not actually that easy to answer.
And, if you’ve already worked out what it is that you want to do, why would you consider stepping backwards, or changing direction?
The longer I stay working how I want, the distance I put between myself and my old working life.
I often wonder where I’d fit in these days, or what job I could conceivably do.
The question I’ve been posing internally is: what would you hire someone like me to do?
I’ll admit, this was originally because I was considering a move back into the corporate fold, or even a move away from anything I’ve done before – perhaps even to what I began describing as a ‘car park attendant’, by which I mean a job that requires little responsibility.
However, that could be short-sighted.
And short-sighted it was.
One of the best things I’ve ever done is be open to change, to accept that nothing remains the same and to take the opportunities this brings.
I good friend, Benita of Create Radical Love, said to me: when you feel lost it’s when you grow the most.
She is so right.
Shortly after that conversation, I re-evaluated where I was.
And I realised that I wasn’t finding intellectual stimulation in my work, or in my everyday life.
It was an easy decision to take: go study.
That’s how I found myself signed up for an MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice.
It got me far out of the comfort zone I’d nestled myself in.
Because the safe space I’d created for myself was incredibly comfortable.
It felt wrong, though.
I’d allowed my past health issues to hold me back, to define me, to take the wheel and determine my direction.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
While I can’t change the past, I know I don’t have to accept the future.
I can’t be sure that I actually have any control over what happens, but I know that if I’m not happy I can create the action that shifts that.
It wasn’t my work that was wrong, it was how I approached it that was wrong.
I hadn’t been clear, with myself or anyone who wanted to work with me.
I’m taking steps all the time to change that, to make my point clearer.
It’s paying off.
I know I’m back at square one again.
Yet, the past five years hasn’t been a waste.
I’ve learned a lot.
I’ve got lost and I’ve grown as a person.
I have a better idea of the path I want to take, and while I’m nervous of the mistakes I’ll invariably make, I know that being wrong is the way to be right.
I can’t pretend to have the answers if what I’m helping my clients with is learning how to learn as they themselves learn.
I need to get writing more.
To get the ideas out of my head.
To work out loud and be wrong (and I will be).
To pay more attention to demonstrating my way of thinking.
My next module on my MSc is about strategy and systems.
It’s perfect timing.