Part 2: Self awareness & Focusing on whats important...

It’s been just over two weeks since I last wrote about my journey of self healing and awareness. In this time I have had another counselling session, focused on some self-development, taken on some new challenges at work, listened to new books/podcasts, spent quality time with my family and put aside some time to take a metaphorical “pen to paper” and write this article. 

I’ll start exactly where I left off in Part 1. I’d just had my first ever counselling session and I have to admit at first I felt pretty awkward about it all, but after having time to reflect, even just one session was actually really powerful. 

I guess the whole premise of counselling is having someone just listen to you and give non biassed prompts and opinions, but there was something about that which scared me slightly. I never took the time to warm it so I always backed away from the idea that it could ever help me. 

I’ve now done two sessions and I’m already understanding and addressing certain situations in my personal life that we think are points of distress and trauma. Without going into too much detail about it all (as there are a number of things I don’t need to share) it’s been a crazy point of realisation, even just having someone explain what or how certain things can manifest into something bigger over time has been super helpful.   

One of the things that I’ve always known but sometimes we forget to remind ourselves about is that we are who we are because of the things we’ve been through. 

I’m extremely lucky to have had a fantastic life but like so many others it’s come with its battles. For some reason I’ve always told myself I don’t deserve to consider any of the challenges that I’ve faced as being significant because compared to others they are not, this is called trauma denial. These counselling sessions are helping me understand that isn’t actually true and sometimes we have to throw away our “put up and shut up” attitude, let down the “nothing can touch me” exterior and focus on loving ourselves. 

So with this in mind I’ve been trying to focus on myself. I’ve done this through a few different mediums, starting with some external training. 

Values, Self Awareness & Confidence:

I took a couple of my development days from work to join Beckie Taylor and James Heggs from Tech Returners and take part in their two day Confident Digital Leadership programme. 

This was a journey of self exploration, powerful open discussion and practical learning on how to be an effective leader in today's world. 

A couple of days before the session we did a Lumina Spark assessment which creates you a personality profile. I’ve done this before a couple of years ago and found it super interesting, and although the outcome of my underlying traits was very similar in one aspect (heavily yellow), what was really interesting was my other main colour which used to be green had changed completely I was now very much red! For those who don't know what these colour references are, see the picture below

I've put this down to a few things. Since I last did the similar exercise I've found myself navigating a different world after Infinity Works became part of Accenture . A world that I can imagine has brought more of my red qualities to the forefront. I've also been promoted into a more senior role, led both people and projects and taken more responsibility across different areas of the business outside of talent and events. Another factor is that over the past couple of years outside of work I've bought a house, supported my partner in building her own business and gained another child along the way. All of this would have played a huge factor into my mindset growing and evolving.

So back to the "Confident Digital Leadership" programme. We used the above to focus on number of keys areas like Values, Self Awareness and Confidence. We followed a journey throughout the day, we asked ourselves and the others around us some pretty tough questions, we showed vulnerability and trusted each other. All of this contributed to gaining a level of understanding of how to communicate with others, get the best out the people of around you, create a psychologically safe place and build high performing teams.

Day two saw us venture into to world of leading asynchronous teams. It was slightly more practical and was very much a day of sharing experience and knowledge. Mainly learning from not just the professionals in this case James but also the others in the group and picking up some fantastic hints and tips on how to manage teams in this new hybrid world we find ourselves in.

All in all the course was amazing, I took so much away from it and would highly recommend it to anyone who is either a current or future leader as there really is something for everyone to learn and takeaway from it.

Current Books and Podcast:

Over the last few weeks I've also been focusing on switching off my usual fantasy and fiction books and focusing more on professional / self help books and of course I'm huge lover of podcast so I squeezed a few of them in too

• The Diary of a CEO - E180: The speaking expert: How to speak so everyone hears you: Julian Treasure (Podcast)
• The Diary of a CEO - E188: Richard Osman: The untold story of a TV legends addiction (Podcast)
• The Joe Rogan Experience - E1609: Elon Musk (Podcast)
• The Courage to be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi (Book)

Focusing on whats important:

All of the above has been amazing for my motivation both in and out work but I've also had a couple of really wholesome weeks spending time family. We had three weekends on the bounce where we were able to get together and celebrate, my partners mums surprise 50th, my stepsons 8th birthday and then my little boys 2nd birthday. Yes the bank balance took an absolute beating especially after Christmas but it was such a nice reminder on whats really important in life. Family, Friends, Health and Happiness if we can all give these areas the right amount of focus, hopefully we will be able to find balance against the stresses of a high pressure job/life.

So whats next? I've got a new lease of energy and life, work is great, we have some really exciting plans coming up and this is giving us all loads to get stuck into.

However this time I'm coming into it with the right balance, the right focus and clearer mindset. A mindset that is trying to understand itself as best as possible. I'm still at the start of "My journey to a Stronger to a Mind" but I feel like I'm on the right path.