Starting again

How does time fly? I have so many things on my do list that are meant to help enrich my life and career, and here I sit wondering what to do first.

Ever have too many outside interests? From outside, I mean outside what you need to focus on in your job, or to keep your home and life running.

My interest in health and wellness has grown a lot in the past few years. Perhaps this is my new career direction? Or possibly a side hustle? Maybe I'll never make money at this.

But onwards we go!

Two years ago I focused on my own health by enrolling in personal training and Pilates classes. Wow what a difference. My back issues were taken care of and I loved bouncing on the reformer.

Last year, I signed up for the Precision Nutrition Nutrition course. It covered overall health and fitness by focusing on eating habits. A great year of transformation for me.

This year, I am about to undergo the Precision Nutrition's Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Program. I have 3 inches of textbooks to crack open and start the training program. This course usually leads people to becoming nutritional coaches.

Wish me luck!
SHH

www.corebodyscience.com
www.precisionnutrition.com

Getting Back at it!

I've written many blogs over the past couple of years; only they were in my head. They were brilliant! Enlightening and funny. If only Siri read my thoughts as I composed them. There are many things I'd like to get back into the habit of doing regularly. This blog being one of them. I'm at a point where I'm so busy with all aspects of life: work, theatre, fitness, nutrition. Where to start and what to do first is mind boggling. Obviously prioritize. Need food and shelter, so work comes first. Well, brining home a pay cheque is top priority. Doesn't mean I'm in love with my job, just that I need to not lose it! Work is beyond busy. I'm not the only one in that situation. As my mother would say "at least you have a job." Yes, thanks Mom. I've been at the same workplace for over two years now. That's a new record for me in the past ten years. I have a strong team that I've built up over that time. We do good work, have interesting and challenging projects, and we all get along. But it's in technology. Yes that old topic again. Do I do it cause it's all I know? Or is it just easy? It pays me a decent salary. Sorry. If someone would pay me the same to sit on the couch at home, I'd do that! Well, I might get bored after awhile. At least after I had caught up on the movies and series I've missed. But changing jobs takes time and energy; neither of which I have right now. At all. I'm working on no less than three major projects at work, two theatre productions with two in the wings, and I'm trying to get back into the health and fitness regime. So job hunt off. I still like my current one. No, that line is not just for my boss who might read my blog. Ok, maybe a little. Hey, I keep telling him I never thought I'd make it over two years! Hirer beware. My hurdle to battle today is getting my health back in line. I've had a few physical injuries in the past couple of years; nothing major, just pulled this or that. Plus several colds, and general energy blahs. So I'm commiting to get my eating habits back on track and to start working out regularly. My goals are to drop a few pounds of extra fat, and be able to touch my toes. Yep, don't need the six pack, but would love to have them, or the bulging arms. I have never been flexible. At all. I can't touch my toes. I can't sit on the floor with my legs crossed. So how to get started? I need some help. I'm looking at some options and will follow up here as I try them out. Now what's for breakfast?

Have your cake and eat it too?

It's been a while since I've sat to write here. I guess I can say that I was busy, and that's true. But doing things I WANT to do means I have to set time aside for it.

It's like trying to find time to workout. I used to be so diligent at working out every morning before work. So I would usually get in 5 days of exercise. Pretty good! Now I go to work earlier than before and can't manage to get up at 5:30am to workout.

I'm also notoriously bad at working out after work. Too tired. Of course, this has nothing to with age, right? I just have action packed days and need a little time to eat, rest, read, socialize, etc.

So can you really have it all?

I spent last year working on finding a new direction for myself, upped my education, explored working for myself, built up my coaching skills, and so on.

At the end of last year, during all my career searching, I ended up with two great offers for full-time opportunities. Both companies were good, the roles similar by different in responsibilities. I wanted one more than the other. And of course the first offer came from the one I didn't want as much.

It all worked out! I took a full-time job and started in January. The people are nice and the role challenging.

But I missed my free-spirited year as a coach. I knew last year might only be a temporary thing and I wish that it had been able to provide me the income level I was hoping to reach. The flexible hours, and yet more great people to work with and learn from was incredible.

So I now look for ways to use this great knowledge and sharpened skill set in my new role. Not hard to do. Most of us deal with people every day in our jobs. So I deal with people all the time, good.

The challenge I have in adjusting, is that I'm back in a Technology role. Within the IT group of a big company. I don't pretend to be an IT expert anymore. In non-IT groups, I tend to lean towards the techie side and assume more IT type side-line roles.

Technology is my friend and trusted toolkit. It goes with me and will always serve me. But now I have to kick it up a notch and I deal with IT people every day, so I have to sharpen my tech knowledge again. I knew one day I might be here again. It is fun and you get to see some cool results.

Now that I've gotten comfortable back in IT, I now have found an opportunity to balance my career goals. I can now spend some time back in the career coaching field on a part-time basis and stay employed pretty much full-time (okay, I'm doing a four day week at the full-time job).

Great balance. Focus on my career goals, near term and long term. Still people focused. Still having fun.

Now if I could just get back into the workout routine a little more.

Where is that cake - I'm hungry.
SHH

Pulling it all together

As the year comes to close, it's time to take an inventory of all that I've done for the year and go over the checklist to see what I've accomplished. Well okay, I don't really have a checklist.

This was a year that started off with a layoff, and then I ended up in outplacement and landed a contract with them! Not the usual path, but you have to look at opportunities when they come up.

I like to say that you need a path to follow to manage your career. Was this my plan? No way. But like any snowball thrown at you, you need to adapt. Sometimes I made quick changes and other times I took some time to map out the next step.

When you're thrown off the path and not by your my own choice, it can stall you or derail you. Maybe only for a little time, but then you have to get back on it and get going. I jumped onto the contract role; it was only part time, but it was related to where my path was taking me. I had been looking to move into a Human Resources type role, so career transition consulting was a good fit.

I thought at the time early this year that this would be a stop-gap measure. I would find that next great job and work happily ever after. Didn't quite work out that way. And I've loved it! The job, the people, the whole experience.

My immediate need was to ensure that the finances were covered, and the contract helped with that. Unfortunately the severance didn't last too long. It was done by the time I started working. It was part time and this gave me the time to continue my search for a full time role.

So now the seed was planted that perhaps I could manage working independently and just do contracts to keep me busy. I didn't really need the benefits, and I certainly should see by now that full time jobs are no more secure than anything else.

The year is coming to a close and I sit back to review how my year has played out. I took 3 courses in Life Skills Coaching at George Brown College, and I will get my certificate soon. I attained my Nutrition and Wellness certification, took a course on designing training and started the HR certificate program at Ryerson University.

It's been a busy a year. I see it as 'my year' to focus on me and doing all the courses added to my growth and, I was hoping, would put me back on my path.

I did note that there were many threads in common across all the classes I took. Each time I took a new class, the same topics kept coming up. It made me realize that everything somehow all comes together.

I grew my network, and met lots of amazing people this year. Many I would never have met if I hadn't been laid off and taken all these courses. The training was great, but the relationships and concepts were what really added to my path.

Perhaps all my various paths are coming together to lead me to some great new place. Maybe that full time job is around the corner. And all that I've gained this year and that's brought me to where I am right now, has all been part of my new converging path.

I still keep an eye open for the right opportunity to come along; with the right fit, growth potential, and all the great engagement values I'm looking for to start a long term investment. Until that happens, I'll keep adding to my path and looking for turns and twists that will add more to my travel.

I guess the journey is the important thing, but I still want to know what the destination is!

Crossroads

Are you at a crossroads? With your career, job search, life in general? We work and work madly to get somewhere, but when you put your head up to see where that is, it's not quite where you thought. How did that happen?

I'm sitting at a crossroads myself. I've been shooting in several directions and waiting for something to tell me that I'm on the right path.

I worked many years in IT and went into management and consulting. I think I was good at what I did. I seemed to be respected by my peers, staff and clients. But as I moved around (that's called job-hopping), because I could in the tech area I was an expert in, I found it eventually eroded my corporate climbing ability.

Now not everyone is a climber, and I don't profess to ever want to be the big cheese anywhere. But it would be nice to have earned that nice corner office.

So I have no one to blame, not even myself really. I didn't feel that I wanted to climb in any company I was in. But I have found in the last few jobs I have had, I was coming in at a level lower than my experience should have allowed me. I'm not getting egotistical here. I looked at my peers or those a level or two above me and compared experience.

What did they have that I didn't? They stuck around and rolled with the punches. Good for them. Staying power never seemed to be my strong suit. Now, I was the most loyal employee you could ever ask for. But slight me in the least, ignore my efforts, hold back recognition and I was brushing off my resume. Yeah, yeah, job hopper.

I have on several occasions tried to make it work. Hang in, talk to the boss or even HR in one case, to try and make the place work for me. I gave it my all. But the cards weren't in it. So I moved on before things changed. Part of it is I can bore easily.

So, here I find myself at a crossroads again. I like the part-time gig I have going doing career coaching. I find it rewarding and the people have been great. I have even adjusted to being a contractor/consultant and not being an on the payroll employee.

So why do I find my mind thinking about going back on the employee list? Well part of it is that the part-time gig doesn't quite meet the old salary level expectations. I have been searching for other part-time gigs to fill in the gaps. This would be ideal, if they were out there. But hey, you know what the job market is like, right?

I now have one foot down the consultant road looking for more work and the other starting back on the search for a full-time opportunity. Of course, it never hurts to have options. But I wish I knew which path was the one I wanted for the long run. Not just the one that helps pay the mortgage.

There really are a lot of things to consider when job hunting. Staying focused is one that gets harder the longer you're out looking. But try to keep the parameters of what you want in check. Just because you could do the job, doesn't mean you would want to again.

Keep driving forward in whatever direction seems the best. Or a couple if that's an option. I've found that my varied interests can actually compliment each other. They might seem at first glance to have no overlap at all, but they can if worked properly.

And sometimes you just need to let one path roll along on its own for a little while which could give me a little time to explore another one. The roads may eventually meet up again. I might need to force them somewhat.

But that's what makes us unique. Good hunting!

Life Skills Coaching third module

Day 1

One more time! I embark on the third module for the Life Skills Coaching course at George Brown. The ultimate goal is to gain the certificate for the program.

I reflect back to when I originally decided to start this journey and my thinking at the time was to just see how it goes. The course was just a week of time and if I didn’t like it or felt it wasn’t what I wanted, I could just not take the second module.

After the first module, I came away with the motivation to keep going. I was originally looking for a coaching program to help with my one on one coaching clients. This course was focused on groups. But I liked it.

Understanding group needs and working towards meeting those needs was very interesting. In module 2 we worked at building lesson plans. Keeping it simple and trying to build a lesson that will only run 2 hours seems to be challenging. Who knew? I’ve taught longer course workshops, but I thought a shorter lesson would be easier. Not so. Seems working a lesson plan to fit the time frame does take some work.

So we started module 3 tonight and there was only one other person from the module 2 that I took. In a way this was good as I now get to meet a whole bunch of new people. They all seem to know each other as they have worked together in the earlier modules.

In my module 2 there were 3 new people to our group that was already familiar with each other. It brought some interest to the group; the group discussions were lively and more interesting. So now I’ll see what it’s like from the other side in being the new guy.

The group was very welcoming. There was lots of great disclosure between the group members. The intention for tonight was for us all to get to know each other better. Oh, and we learned what to expect for the rest of the course.

I must have not been in the 'here and now' when we talked about the third module in earlier modules. I certainly don’t remember anything about an exam. Even the journal was a surprise, but that’s not something unexpected. I am looking forward to doing a lesson. Not quite sure how to choose what lesson topic to pick or whether I even get to pick it.

So I try not to worry about it for now, cause I tend to start planning what I’m going to work on. I was probably working on this as soon as heard we would need to do one. But I currently have no ideas in my head right now. So maybe I’ll be able to read the group and come up with something that the group needs.

Next week we’ll find out what night of the course we’ll present our lesson. From that I guess I can gauge what kind of lesson would suit the group depending on if it’s earlier or later in the course.

And I’m kind of missing the intensive week. I haven’t done a night course in many years. That alone is an adjustment, but I liked the intensive. It was concentrated learning. So now unthink and adjust to the needs of the group.

Life Skills Coaching second module days 2-6

I didn't do so well to update every day, so here are the last few days of the course.

Day 2

The air conditioning is on! It’s weak but better than the sweltering heat yesterday. We’re off to a good start today. We are each tasked to come up with warm up exercises to start the mornings and afternoons.

This is good practice in devising and running an exercise. We’ll also get feedback on what went well. “Appreciative inquiry”.

Feedback is good. I think it is hard to accept sometimes, but if I can remember that what we’re focusing on is the good stuff, so what went well, it should be easier than worrying about what went bad. Or the better way to put it – what could I have done better.

Learning to appreciate feedback is something I’m not always sure I’m ready for. Oh don’t get me wrong, I love compliments and hearing good things about myself. It’s taking that good feedback and using that to motivate myself to do better. I’m sure I’m like others in that it’s embarrassing to hear someone compliment you at times.

So the real lesson I take away from this is to genuinely thank the person for the good feedback and take that as proof that I’m doing something good.

We also tackled active listening this morning. Something that I keep seeing in every course I’ve done in the last month. It is such a powerful tool in a coaching or teach role. Simply hearing isn’t enough; keeping the group engaged is important as a speaker, but I’ve also got to ensure that I listen to the group needs from what they say in their feedback. It can help to redirect the group, clarify or to help create a new lesson.

Active listening is giving back to the speaker. Showing that I care about what they are saying. I can see that this can be ‘work’ to some as the topic may not be interesting or I’m just plain tired. So keeping focused can be a challenge, but to the listener it’s so important that they feel heard.

I’ve actually listened to someone as they had wanted to ask my opinion on something or advice, but after they got out what they needed to, they seemed to answer it themselves. I now see that my active listening and some probing questions, helped them reach what they were looking for. I still gave them the credit for it. And this seems to happen to me regularly.

Does that make me a good listener? Or a really good actor? Hmm. They may never know…
So I’m journaling the next morning about the afternoon as I got all excited about the third season opener of Mad Men; in HD no less. So you understand, right?
We started the afternoon with a warm up by Silvia. She had us each read a quote from a list and tell the group what our feeling was. The quotes were great; they were positive and inspiring. It re-energized the team for the afternoon. I have noticed, and the instructor mentioned it as well, that Silvia has really gained some confidence in participating in the class. It’s not that she doesn’t speak, she does. But in this module, as compared to last module, I noticed her stand out sooner. I think in module one, I only got to really ‘see’ her when we were working on our team assignment.

The group then went through a review of the theory from module one on building a lesson plan. It all came back pretty quick. The group seems to be right on the ball with this stuff. I do admit that I reviewed all the material in the car a Saturday as we drove to the family party in Niagara in the Lake.

The practice to build the lesson plans was a little scary. I mean, I’ve developed lots of different training material over the years, but I’ve determined what I’m really learning is how to develop life skills type training.

I started on this journey looking to backfill my technical group facilitation skills. Which are still being sharpened as we go along. I think that my ah-ha came as I realized that I can build some good life skills lessons into other courses that I teach.
The practice lesson was tough in coming up with goals, but the trick was to not get too complicated. It seems keeping it simple is the best way. Remember the lesson breaking things down. It’s not hard to fill a 2 hour session. And now I’m thinking of what topic I’ll use for my assignment – but now I need to narrow it down to something fairly simple.

Day 3

Today the class started with a group discussion on the lack of class dynamic. Again we need to reenergize the team, open up the disclosure floodgates, participate like crazy, and so on.

My personal challenge is staying in the here and now. I’ve trained to use past experiences to guide others on making choices. Using what I know and have done to advise on the future for others. Not so here and now, is it?

So my ‘ah-ha’ moment yesterday about how I’m going to take away the learnings of the class to better my life skills focus, comes in to play. I’m trying to be much more aware to stay in the here and now, be relevant to the conversations at hand, and to increase the quality of what I’m saying rather than quantity. I’m good at talking, adding humour, but I need to keep it in line with the group needs. Not just add to the talking but add to the content and experience the class.

Creativity was the lesson of the morning. How we use out creativity and in what areas of our lives is fascinating. Often I would think of creativity in art or drawing, or maybe even in my theatre work. But I can now see how it works in problem solving, either for myself or in a group setting. Thinking outside of the box is an overused phrase in work settings, so maybe I’ll start asking people to put their creative hats on when they need to work something out.

I am challenged by brainstorming. Why? I think I’m always trying to problem solve – jump to the end. When brainstorming with others, I let someone else start the ball rolling and then I jump in with ideas. Still, I seem to want to self-edit as others in the class do. I worry my idea sounds dumb or that people won’t like the idea at all.

The ground rules to brainstorming help. No criticizing is great. No idea needs explaining to justify it. The group can edit the items on the list later. Just pour out the ideas; let the creative juices flow. Team brainstorming is easier for me. They are a trusty resource of ideas.

Brainstorming alone is worse. I am my own worst critic and again try to jump to the end goal. The exercises to just list ideas out is good. No end goal; just pump out the ideas.
The group is much more energized this afternoon. There is more discussion which leads to great sharing. I am most energized when the group opens up and shares. This is some real learning. We’re also more focused and in the moment on the topic at hand.

Sometimes the group needs a little prodding to get working together. I don’t feel I’m one of 2 or 3 people answering first all the time. But don’t get me wrong, I do jump in and go first from time to time. Just let someone try to beat me!

Day 4

Revisiting yesterday’s topics, we discuss if we’re back on track and energized to go forth. We did a self evaluation at the end of the day yesterday. From the responses how we feel we’re participating, the range is from 2 to 10. And no, I did not put 10 on mine, so someone else thinks they’re participating even more! Great.

Someone brought up that they felt they were holding themselves back from participating as to give others a chance to jump in with their thoughts. This is so OD (other determined) and I do it too. I propose a competition over who starts first. I guess that’s a little too SD (self determined).

Our topic this morning is on problem solving. The emphasis is not on solving, as I would normally do. I’m told I’m a solver; I like to help fix it or make it work. Sometimes that’s not what’s wanted or needed. My other half likes to talk things out and wants me to just listen. It’s about process not solutions. I tend to jump to solve.

Consulting has taught me that as an expert I need to come with ideas already in hand to fix the problem. Again, this not always the need. What I seem to jump over or make assumptions on is defining the problem.

In our exercise today, we assumed the problem and then jumped to solve it. We then backtracked to justify our solution and to employ more lateral thinking. After the fact of course. Once we regroup and discuss, it becomes evident that we didn’t take the time to explore the problem. We as a team needed to work the problem over to ensure we understand what we’re trying to work on.

We still solved the problem, but there was a great option we totally missed as we didn’t see the problem from another perspective. Funny how I now think back to my IT days and how I used to be the one to propose looking at all the perspectives before tackling a particular solution approach. Maybe I need to listen to myself more often.

Problem solving was the theme for the day. We worked on the 6 WHs (who, what, etc.) and how to keep on with lateral thinking. We talked about how vertical thinking is like digging the same hole deeper where lateral thinking is starting a new hole.

We worked on puzzles and I found it fairly frustrating. It was fun; the group had a great time. Exploring digging deeper with questions was a great way to try and work around breaking barriers. Uh ha! Everything is coming together from the past few days. Don’t you just hate when learning sneaks up on you like that?

The group has also risen to the challenge and has engaged in richer conversation, more disclosure, and much better energy. The sharing is good. Not everyone is up to the level of the whole group, but most are trying to be more involved.

My big learning of the day is that I need to challenge my set assumptions when tackling a problem. My tendency to jump to the solution can hinder the options I might come up with. Understanding the true problem and questioning to break the assumptions is important.

Day 5

We roll into decision making by consensus. First thing I learn is that what I thought was consensus was not. It’s a true group decision making process. And everybody involved needs to know how to play the game.

Seems many of us have experienced meetings that were in the guise of consensus. But usually they had some people that were out to promote their own agendas. The main goal is to achieve win-win for the group.

It’s not about me getting what I want, but giving the group what it wants. Or can accept. So I don’t inflict my wants on others, I get involved and promote a balanced approach. I may have some definite things that I believe in and cannot live with. But many times, even if the option presented is not my favourite, so long as I can ‘live with it’ it is consensus.
This doesn’t mean that I give in to what others want all the time. If I have a strong belief, I can make myself heard by the group and as a group it’s considered, analyzed, until the group decides (and I as part of that group) that we agree on the final choice.

This was a very hard topic and exercise for the group to digest. I think I’m still digesting and wondering how I could ever apply this to a group setting outside this class. At least here, I have people who try to stay in the balanced self determined frame of mind. Out there, my mind fills with past experiences of people inflicting their agendas on me and others.

Perhaps what I need is how to defuse a situation that could benefit from a true consensus process and put it back on track to a win-win.
Continuing in the afternoon with more problem solving, we get into the 6 step process. This is much easier to work with than consensus. Perhaps because on the wheel to working the problem, we have a feedback loop.

Everything we’ve learned and experienced this week is all coming together now. All the tools and techniques that we’ve practiced are coming into play. We’re crossing the hump over from being students to being coaches. We’ve worked on the angles and practiced all the things we need to be effective coaches.

I think we have some of our richest discussions this afternoon. We actually practice solving real problems with a couple of examples from people in the room. Real problems meaning they are actually looking for some help in making a decision or coming up with a plan.

As we had realized the other day, the best way to start is to identify there is a problem and then to define what it is. From there we can brainstorm some ideas which will leads towards being able to make a decision. Along the way, we can review if we’re still on the right track. We could even go back to determine we don’t even have a real problem.
The feedback loop lets us review the past step or steps to ensure we’re ready to move forward or if other problems may have surfaced.

We finish off the day talking about emotions and how they can play out in a group. As coaches we need to remember we’re not counselors, so getting caught up in someone’s emotional issue is not the focus for the coach. Obviously, we can ask if the person needs something and we can help that, but we don’t need to focus on them. The group is the focus and the team can help with the issue or move on if it’s not hindering.

Today was long and tiring, but I’ve come to the place where I think that I have what I need to make the jump into the role of a life skills coach. Remember this wasn’t my original focus, so I’ve come around to seeing how I can apply all that I’ve done in the past week.

Day 6

And the end is near; a day early even! Today is when it should all come together. Our last lesson is about bridging and connecting. This is connecting people in the group during discussions. We apparently are a good class in that we are connecting on our own and don’t need as much help. But in our practice role plays, we are reminded not to be too good! We’re role playing a coach, but the rest are being group members – members who are not coaches though.

This is tougher than I thought. Trying not to help the practice coach or automatically using something out of our coaches’ tool bag is hard and requires some very conscious effort.
The practice was fun; both as when doing the coach role and playing member. It was a good exercise to practice giving positive feedback. I saw lots of things that I would have normally given constructive feedback, but that wasn’t what we were working on. Giving only good feedback is empowering to the person.

When I did my practice, I was fairly sure I was doing some good stuff and I tried to ensure that I was using all the tools we learned this week. Listening to all the great feedback made me feel even more sure of myself. I do wish I knew if there was something I could do better, but I felt really good about how the group worked through the exercise with me.

Each person brought a quote or picture for the group as the stimulus and then worked through the feelings and the evocation. The quotes were good and one of the pictures was so good it dumbfounded the group. The discussions were good too.

The group closure brought us all to the place where we could see how we got to this place. I now feel that I have more confidence to use the techniques and tools from this week. Feels good. Of course, I still need to do the lesson plan assignment.