It's been a half-year of two halves! The end of 2016 was very busy, mainly in Italy and travelling aroung the UK a lot. These last few months have been a marked contrast; a gentler, more organic balance between thinking time, holiday, sport and work.
It's made me realise that I went freelance still in a 'Good-People-Work-Fulltime' mindset. I'm not any more. (OK, my 'saying-no' muscles are still puny, but they do now exist!)
Module 3 of the Ignatian Leadership Programme in Rome was brilliant – potency in the people and the places and the mutual learning.
The offshoot leadership programme for North-West Europe is taking shape; I’m leading on the planning for that, and we had really useful creative and reflective time in Ghent and Birmingham in January and February.
Again, guiding on retreats has been one of the quiet but grounding joys of being freelance. It might be the most useful, important work I do.
There have been some nice eclectic highlights too: I wasn’t expecting to run a free coaching workshop round a ping-pong table for a group of fitness trainers, but it’s led to some fascinating insights- and a stream of coaching clients!
I think I’m proudest of impact for my coaching clients. Lightbulb moments are great, but they need to expand what’s possible. Real truth moments come alive in positive change. Seeing people’s new careers, workshops they’ve created, powerful choices they are making, is inspiring.
This choice of career places me in the path of remarkable people. Possibly my favourite “networking” moment was a chance encounter on the train with someone who turned out to be a trainer, facilitator and coach who owns a retreat venue… And there are the people I met through ULab, who have become a real source of solidarity and support to me. And I’m working with a group of nuns on group dynamics, and their open-heartedness and sense of fun is wonderful to be around. (No, I didn’t make them get up the tree!)
I suppose I ‘network’, but it feels more like investing in friendships I really value, or enjoying new fascinating people (on trains, at concerts, at work, out cycling) and having a lovely time, and then discovering that’s where work comes from.
There’s a growing coherence; leadership, team building and coaching are interweaving naturally.
As you’d expect, there is a much better balance between paid, unpaid and low-paid work now. I will always donate time intentionally to retreat work, and coaching leaders in low-resource environments, for example. But it needs to be carefully managed or my values will run away with me and I’ll do everything for nothing.
I’ve been reading more around my work, and loving it. I train other people all the time about the balance between knowing, doing and being, but my own balance hasn’t been quite right. I’ve missed learning new information. There had been plenty of focus on building skills and developing self-awareness, but less growth in knowledge. It makes a refreshing change.
After a nice, uncomplicated West-European 6 months, I’ve got both the Middle and Far East coming up, in June and July. These 6 months will focus heavily on leadership, with the final module of the ILP programme in Lebanon.
We’ve got more design work for the 4-country leadership programme that is the offshoot of it, in Amsterdam in May and then Dublin.
Coaching will be the other big element- I’ve completed my ICF client log and mentoring component, so have only the exam to do to earn my international coaching accreditation. I’ll then be signing up as an associate coach with talent development agencies in Leeds and Manchester.
I’m training to be a supervisor in May. Then in July I’m off to China to train retreat guides, so improving my Chinese is going to be a focus over the next three months. And finally, to spice that lot, I’ve got cycling in Tuscany and North Italy, and singing in London and Paris. Delicious!
Thank you so much for your support.