20 for 2020: week 8

Week of 17 February 

I finally posted my 20 for 2020 list here. It’s only taken eight weeks!

This week was all about uni (thing 8). I went to a three-day workshop to go through the material for this unit, which, after all the self-analysis I did for the assignment, was very intense. I was glad to discover I wasn’t the only person who had struggled with the word limit for the assignment though.

One of the most challenging exercise was engaging in “coaching conversations” where we had to taken the roles of coach, coachee, and observer, who would provide feedback to the coach. I felt incredibly awkward and anxious about speaking one on one to a “coach” about areas I wanted to work on in my development. I was just as nervous being the coach who had to draw out issues from what a “coachee” was saying. Modelling reflective listening and actually responding to what they were saying was intensely stressful. However, the people who had acted as observers during these conversations told me that they hadn’t picked up on my anxiety and that I had presented myself very well. This is completely at odds with what I think I’m like when I have to speak up in meetings. I am a bundle of nerves, I hate doing it and I’m sure I mangle my words and fail to get my point across effectively. I flagged it as an area that I need to work on, to gain more confidence to speak up and to stand my ground.

One of my fellow students very wisely said, when we were discussing it later, that I need to focus more on what I’m doing rather than how I’m feeling and that what I think people are thinking, they probably aren’t because they’re so worried about their own shit they aren’t noticing the nuances of how I present myself. Easy said after the fact, not so easy in the heat of battle . . .

I decided to use my “just 15 minutes” this week in the mornings to work on the creative abundance course (thing 6) so that I could get that finished. On Monday morning I worked on the day 16 and 17 journalling, which, coincidentally, relates to the uni self assessments I’ve been doing, so I’m liking the overlap and consistency there. It makes me think I’m on the right track. I went to my favourite coffee shop on Monday morning to work on it some more. I worked on day 18 and 19 on Monday night, which was about finding ways to overcome procrastination, and then watched the last two videos. In days 20 and 21, there’s a five-step plan that’s a summary of the key actions from the course so I’m looking at how to put that into place, and then the course will be done as far as I’m concerned.

I did some more work on my photo project (thing 1) later in the week in my 15 minutes and spend a lot of the weekend working on it. I feel like I’m making progress. I probably should have been doing uni work, but I felt like I needed a break after the intense week; to put my head into a totally different space.

I watched the two introductory videos for the Photoshop course (thing 7) on Tuesday so I’ve now started that! It will be a steep learning curve as my Photoshop knowledge is limited to how to clone out No Parking signs from the front of buildings. I’m also getting good at getting rid of fluoro lights behind blinds.

I finished reading the book Grit by Angela Duckworth  on the bus. It’s a great book, along the lines of Carol Dweck’s Mindset, which I read a few years ago. It looks at Angela’s findings that talent in an area doesn’t mean someone will be successful but rather that grit, which she says is a combination of passion and perseverance, is the characteristic that produces high achievement.

Bus reading is definitely a good idea that I want to stick with to develop the reading habit (thing 14). Much more productive than going on social media.

It was a full-on week but I feel like I’m getting somewhere.

Summary for the week
• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 3 (10, 16, 18)
• Things I progressed: 5 (1, 6, 7, 8, 14)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 5 (3, 4, 11, 13, 22)
• Things not started: 9 (2, 5, 9, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21)