Do you sometimes feel a strange sense of disconnect, or the merging of the self with the role you live? As an educator I know only too well how living for the holidays can feel and the disappointment of an illness kicking in when we finally get there. How about we consider the value of being our best versions of ourselves consistently? Surely this is what we deserve and what we need to bring to what we do?
Since leaving Headship and exploring my own learning journey, I’ve had cause to keep coming back to how I define myself when asked Who are you? What do you do?
You may be currently considering your answers to this right now. How do we define ourselves when we remove the mantle of a role? My own default setting takes me back to learning every time, so what do I absolutely know and what do I need to explore?
I absolutely know what my values are. I also know who and what matters to me and this has led me through the last couple of years and continues to underpin all I do. But it has taken work, and revisiting, refining and led me along new learning pathways.
Reconnecting with your values, sense of purpose, identity-and really challenging this, exploring what it really means can demand honesty, challenge us to reconsider , but always brings about transformation. It’s also about noticing patterns, habits and beliefs and really digging into these, considering which are healthy and what needs to change.
Much of this is what I’ve always done as an educator. It’s so much easier when working with someone else! However, across my own learning and development over the last couple of years, working with wonderful colleagues and clients has been empowering on a new level of insightful practice. The challenge can be sustaining our own self care and making time to notice. Building small spaces for this regularly can really help us to build healthy and manageable approaches to managing pressure, building leadership presence, and cultivating awareness. All of this supports our own sense of identity, as well as building our capacity for enabling others, making resilient decisions and gaining clarity in our own sense of direction.
If any of this resonates, I’m always happy to connect, or arrange a call.
