Forgive me father, it’s been a while since my last blog post.

I have a confession to make.

I have not been feeling my best of late.  In fact, I’ve been feeling like shite ever since coming back from holidays.

It’s been difficult to switch my mind back into a productive mode and continue doing work in the way I was doing it last year.

Truth be told, I feel incredibly guilty that I haven’t blogged as frequently as I’ve done in the past and even more so, unable to be inspired to create any video despite me enjoying the process.

“What’s going on? Shake yourself out of it!” I berate myself.

There may be a variety of factors although I’m not making up excuses here however, it’s been at the back of my mind as to what exactly is causing me this feeling?

Someone told me that for a woman my age, it’s definitely hormones.  Yes, I accept that must be true and I wonder why it took me to a milestone age to start feeling this way.

That is, I’m deliberately now looking at what takes up my time; who’s in my life; what I commit to; how I choose my time to be used.

I have said more “no” in the last few weeks than I have in the past – and believe it or not, if I can use the Kondo term, that’s not “sparking joy” for me either.

It’s like I have been in limbo land for the last month and a half.

The reason might be because of the sunshine.

Yes, you read right.

I have this personal theory that when the sun shines, you simply don’t want to be inside doing any work.  You’ll find every excuse to be outside and enjoying the day.  As it’s summer, I look forward to long days, lazy dinners outside in the twilight and walking on the beach.

The third reason which doesn’t sit well with me is that I have a sneaking suspicion that my year of reading fiction and listening to podcasts that are not business, work related or about Learning and Development has changed my mindset.

Last week I snapped a story on Snapchat about how I physically couldn’t face listening to one more Learning and Development podcast – there seemed to be some physical and emotional reaction of not wanting to listen to the same old arguments, stories and theories.  I needed to be inspired.

I deleted the L&D podcasts from my library and made a mental note to revisit them when I was in a better mindset.

This is the first time anything like this has happened to me and it’s making me feel incredibly guilty.

The fourth reason is last year I found a new job as an Adoption Consultant for a Microsoft Partner  Adopt & Embrace (2018 Microsoft Global Partner of the Year I might add) and I love the job.

It was an incredible learning curve from July to the end of the year, and I’m STILL learning.  Not only did I have to skill up on Microsoft suite of products and services, but I also had to learn the job,  business processes, develop content as well as work with clients.

I work with a great team of people who are also part of a global network and community of Microsoft people who have been welcoming and supportive.  This community is willing to share their knowledge, skills and expertise.  Last year, as I was learning about the job, I also felt that the apron strings of Learning and Development were loosened and indeed, the apron swept right off.

The ties to L&D were gone and here I was in the thick of working with the business, change and communications teams instead.

I had to grapple with this idea of now trying to fit “learning” (what I know and my expertise) into what we were doing to help clients and my anxiety heightened as I tried to balance what my new role was meant to be.

• Am I meant to be a Microsoft expert? (If so, this will be physically impossible due to the sheer amount of content here.  You can be an expert in just one Microsoft product and you’d still not know everything about it).
• Am I meant to be an L&D professional? (If so, I don’t feel connected to this group anymore because they’re not my clients nor do I see they play an active part in any of the digital transformation programs – and yet, they should be).
• Am I responsible for presenting to my clients a perspective around continual learning and networking? (If so, many organisations are not looking at this right at this moment as they’re more interested in implementing their enterprise social technologies and not looking at the “people behaviours” – they’re simply trying to get their people up to speed with USING the new work systems let alone developing new behaviours and mindsets towards continual and lifelong learning).

As a result, I’m in a limbo state while I grapple with exactly what it is I do, what I’m meant to be doing and how I can be of best use to others.

In other years, at this time of the year, I had goals and action plans. I was clear in what I wanted to achieve and how to go about doing it. I had my time subscribed, locked in and scheduled and it’s such a change now to have this vast expanse of time ahead of me just begging to be filled – but with what?  What’s the next step?

I’m kinda lost.

The one thing I’m looking forward to this year is focusing my learning efforts towards Microsoft.  I keep thinking that the answer will reveal itself the more that I’m exposed to the community and networks there so that I then know what my “fit” is.

I know that I don’t need to learn anything new just yet.  I’m not building my own capability (okay except for Microsoft stuff) because it’s not about trying to upskill myself to be an expert in something new but trying to identify the right time that my skills, knowledge, capabilities and experience automatically align to a problem to be solved somewhere, somehow, sometime.

I think it’s a “timing issue”.

There’s a lot of talk about implementing the social network systems into organisations and a big focus on the Inner vs Outer loop to explain how workers communicate, collaborate and work together but there’s still very little being said about the types of how people learn together.  Organisations are simply not at this point yet as they’re still trying to navigate the overwhelm of information and systems.

Maybe my role is to help people between the nexus of the “outer loop” to the “open loop”?

Maybe I’m the person who guides people through the gateway inside and outside organisational boundaries with a perspective of applying this to their community and society?

Maybe I’m the person who links the blending of the “personal profile” with the “professional profile”?

Maybe I’m the link between personal learning, creativity and curiosity for people who want to learn through reflections and experiences?

ARGH…!!

Or maybe like always, I’m overthinking it?

With that, I’ll leave you with a song from my favourite Aussie band Hoodoo Gurus with What’s My Scene?  It seems I’ve been singing along to this song for years and still haven’t figured out what my scene is.

Reference:

Where Work Gets Done: https://regarding365.com/where-work-gets-done-8d1d653ef48d

Graphic by Brad Grissom @grissombrad

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