LEARNING BY THE WATER-COOLER: Episode 10

LEARNING is everything and everything is learning.

Twice in my life, I’ve found the courage to press the reset button. I'm told the HARD process is called a “hard reset”, aptly named because it’s not easy to do. Makes sense.

As the first glimmers of spring appear on the horizon, you begin thinking about that feeling of renewal you crave and sometimes you ask yourself those tough searching questions.

Is it time for change?

Maybe even radical, life-altering change?

I began my working life as a teacher, dreaming that as an educator I could shine and prove myself. I would quickly work to become a Vice Principal and then a Principal. I wanted to change the world in schools, in a hurry.

The reality, though, was that I was mired in a union-led industry that moves at a slower pace than I wanted it to. So I left that world, I turned the page on something I loved doing because I knew deep down that I couldn’t change that environment on my own. I couldn’t achieve the fulfilment I wanted and it was time for a change. I had to get busy living.

So I went back to business school and I plunged into the corporate world, selling for other organisations and throwing my heart and soul into THEIR vision, giving my all and watching them grow. Cue the second epiphany. My finger was hovering over the “hard reset” button again.

The question had to be this: “Why am I doing this for other people when I could be doing it for myself?”

I pressed that button fifteen years ago. Pathways Training was growing and I began to tread my own path, follow my own dreams in business, to bring my own entrepreneurial vision to life.

When spring is in the air now, I think of those times in my life as my lightbulb moments. I watch friends and family find their own times to press that button and marvel at the change it makes in their lives. This truly is a powerful source of renewable energy.

Once you have plotted your course and pressed that “hard reset” button, it becomes about the measurables. So as the seasons get ready to turn, if you’re prepared for this step in your life, schedule a day to clear your mind of the clutter. Spring clean. No laptops or iPads — a pen and a journal, old school. Ask tough questions like “Do I love my job?” and “what would it take to make me love my job?” Examine your work week and craft a schedule and stick to it. Look at your challenges and successes and catalogue them. Be brutally honest about where you are losing in life and work and where you are chalking up a “W.”

When you have those lists, examine them and form a plan. Strategy is not just for business, it’s for life. People far wiser than me write self-help guides on this process. I just know the sense of clarity and purpose, the flow of energy that surged through me after those lightbulb moments.

It can be hard, but it’s worth it.