Dear reader,
learning begins at the end of your comfort zone. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. The best and most learning happens when you are feeling insecure, unfomfortable, maybe even scared, because things are hard.
Comfort zone isn’t always fun. In fact it is almost never fun. But it’s always worthwhile once you have time to reflect back on it.
My uncomfort zone has happened last week as I was chosen for a job shadowing as associate trainer for the international training for youth workers and leaders. From the pool of trainers two were chosen for this job and we were supposed to learn from two experienced trainers. So together there were four of us in the trainer’s team. I’ve done some (many) trainings before, but never within a team like this one and never to a group that I would stay with for one whole week, 24 hours per day.
I entered the training pretty confident. Little did I know that running training for a day or two is in no way related or similar to delivering training where you develop (together with) a group. This one was not just about passing on the contents and teaching others, but was as much about group dynamics, stages and development through different stages. This was very new for me and sometimes really hard. Though the expert trainers let us take parts and deliver some of the sessions alone or in pairs. And that turned out to be the best way to learn. This was not a rehearsal, there was no backup and the timing was scarce so we had to be quick in making important decisions and had to react promptly.
We managed. Not perfectly, and I’m sure we could do better. But we did the best job we could do. All of us. We tried our best. Our driving force was the group we trained. We wanted to give them everything we could and we really hoped that the group would meet the outcomes that is useful for them when they return to their organizations.
I learned. Again learned to be comfortable with uncomfort. This is a sign that I’m growing.
So one more news. Prior to this training we had our first meeting under the project “That reminds me of a story“. It was really well received and our plan is to run in continuonsly every month or two. If you’d like to join, click here to subscribe to the news about the dates. In the next meeting I’ll have many stories to tell from this amazing week of intense learning, new friendships, group work, team building and increased acceptance of diversity. Thank you so much Sneža and Sašo and Lea and thank you my dear group to be such a challenging environment that demands much, but also gives much in return. I’ll never forget this.