0

Shouldn't take a new endeavors to grow

If you've seen ANY of my recent posts you know that I LOT has changed in my life over the last few days.  All of it has been amazing and definitely a pressure cooker for learning and growing. Brooke and I rolled into this whole 'having a child' thing not having ANY idea what it meant to be pregnant, have a child, or how to be parents...but that didn't stop us.

Sometimes it's great to just dive into new endeavors without having to have everything figured out!  We grew as a couple and had a ton of fun along the way!

With that said, I've had a few moments in the last few days to reflect on some leadership stuff.

One of things I've really learned from this all is that although new endeavors put a pressure cooker on learning and growing there are equally powerful learning experience in our current environments if we chose to see them.

There are ways to expand our leadership knowledge and skills right where we are.  It's easy to get bored and want to head off into a new adventure to learn, but if we desire to be a long-term, non-transient leader it would be great if we could constantly learn without having to jump ship completely to do it. This stuff applies in the workforce but also at home in our families.

Here's a few things you could do to jumpstart growth/learning in your current situation:

1. Reshape your current role - add new responsiblities, trade tasks with someone in your shoes, redo your "I'm the only person that can do this" list and see what can be added or removed.  If you love the vision but you're just stuck a little bit, ask your supervisor if you could "reshape your role a little bit" to help you maintain your growth pattern.   (He/she may find it hard because they hired you to do what you're doing, but a good supervisor who has the latitude will find a way to help you be the best you can be.)
2. Is there any short-term assignments you could take- what's a temporary task you could own/manage/lead that would allow you to stay connected to the vision that got your there in the first place, WHILE allowing you space to explore new stuff and recharge.  This allows you to sill fuel the vision but through another short-term function outside your department/area.
3. Seek challenges outside of normal environment - Maybe the role/position you're currently in can't change (for whatever reason) but think outside of that role to things like what volunteer role could you take, who could you partner with that working on a project you could assist with.  Again, this allows you to stay tied to the organization/family that you're apart of but will give you some new freedom to find what you're missing or lacking in your current situation.

When I was at Notre Dame studying business these were called "Development Assignments". (FYI: I wrote these pretty generic so they could apply to any home/work environment.