Welcome to my June edition where I explore the theme of new beginnings! As the glorious sun (ha ha!) attempts to beam down on us entering the U.K. summertime, I’ve reflected personally on the past month. It has been one of both challenges and exciting explorations!
Graham and I have settled into our new home in Norfolk where we will spend the half-year of warmer months in the U.K. We wanted a new home to provide a wonderful environment for family and friends, very close to nature with great cycling and a chance to take our home off grid and be carbon neutral. The move, the disorganisation, everything being so new is hard to start with, but sunshine, hope and joy are beginning to shine through. Our new neighbours are supportive and embracing – both animal and human!
Our friends and family have been so kind as we get comfortable in our new surroundings. A friend sent the following poem to me, and I wanted to share it with you all:
It is said that home is a feeling, not just a place. I agree wholeheartedly with this point, that feeling safe and secure, warm, and loved, comfortable and in one’s own space are essential ingredients for our wellbeing. We are so fortunate to have a place to call home, spending time between the U.K. and Thailand with our loved ones in both geographies.
The U.K. Housing Crisis
I’m deeply troubled by the living and housing crisis across the U.K. causing distress for so many. I recently read the ‘Making Women Count’ report which emphasises that women’s rough sleeping is often transient, intermittent and hidden. For anyone not aware, rough sleeping refers to those homeless and living on the streets. Women who sleep rough are at constant high risk of trauma, violence and abuse, and severe, complex health needs. A particular quote from the paper that alarmed me and I think so critical for us all to acknowledge: “As a woman, your priority isn’t sleep, it’s to protect yourself against verbal, physical and sexual attack.” This causes women to often hide away and means they are under-represented in the national statistics of homelessness.
Everyone deserves access to secure, decent housing and it devastates me to hear that millions of people are being affected by this housing emergency. To help and contribute to those impacted by homelessness, I have supported Shelter UK for over 25 years. Shelter is a housing and homelessness charity who envision making a home for everyone a reality.
Despite having worked and lived on four continents, and travelled extensively throughout my career, I don’t particularly enjoy the upheaval of moving homes. While it is an exciting adventure stepping into the unknown it can be a distressing time too!
In this newsletter, I’ll tackle the theme of new beginnings by exploring the following areas:
1. Better the devil you know
2. Fear of failure
3. Lack of confidence
1. Better the devil you know
In my last newsletter, I spoke about the importance of storytelling. From a young age, books have been a home for me; a safe space to escape where I can indulge in others’ lives and wonder where my own story might take me.
Familiarity leads to comfort and as humans we are far less likely to gravitate towards things that might cause stress or hurt. In fact, psychologists have proven that happiness is directly correlated to (music, hobbies, foods, etc) we’re familiar with. However, as Tony Robbins says “all growth starts at the end of your comfort zone” meaning that while starting something new can be daunting it can be enriching and rewarding too!
Much has been written about the importance of mindset or a mental frame/attitude particularly as it relates to learning and growth, both personally and professionally. To ask ‘where can I learn more’ is, I believe, critical for a growth mindset. The importance of always wanting to learn more, and to do it with real vigour, can help us achieve so much in comparison to those with a more fixed mindset consider that they already know all they need to know.
I strongly believe that a focus on an inclusion and diversity mindset is a vital accelerator to growth and allows great leaps in productive learning. Teams made up of individuals bringing different cultural experiences, varying cognitive skills, fields of expertise, and demographic experiences to problem-solving can create extraordinary new services, products, and solutions to huge problems.
2. Fear of failure
The fear of failing when starting something new can be paralyzing but no one gets everything right, and a failure can actually provide invaluable experience for the future!
I have written previously about the beautiful state of being a beginner:
Having a deep sense of curiosity and loving to learn new stuff means that I am often at the “beginner stage” which some may think is to be gotten through as quickly as possible! But even if we’re only passing through this stage, we should pay attention to this moment according to this sensational piece from The Guardian, for once it goes, it’s hard to get the feelings of the beginner’s phase back. Think of a time when you visited a new far-off land. When you arrive you are alive to every novelty, the smell of the street food, the calling to prayer, and curious traffic signs! In this new territory, you are filled with sensory overload and absolutely ripe for learning. I have three of these new learning centres happening for me at the moment:
1. Understanding the social mobility landscape in the UK so we can powerfully act with purpose as Mission Beyond in 2021
2. I am determined to bake a really delicious vegan cake for my husband’s upcoming birthday
3. Running 34/40K a week, breathing through my nose, practising, and being humble and sensitive to my own body.
I have also written quite extensively about learning. When relearning and unlearning, it is necessary to have a growth mindset. I love this quote by the mighty Alan Toffler, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” I could not agree more and think we have reached a time when unlearning has become an unavoidable step to adapt to the new realities we face.
You can explore more of my posts on learning below:
My own active learning strategy in 2022
What astronauts can teach us about learning
“Negative thinking can become automatic, but so can positive thinking if we actively make a habit of paying more attention to the good than to the bad,” – Rachel Kelly.
I love my mentoring and business coaching sessions as I learn as well as share experiences and inputs that may be helpful. I really value the notion illustrated by Susan David Psychologist & Writer, that instead of trying to suppress or ignoring self-defeating thoughts as they arise, get curious and start to explore why am I creating these potential barriers?
Questions to ask ourselves:
– Am I trying to protect myself and avoid the potential risk of failing?
– Do I feel ill-equipped to engage in this situation or opportunity?
– Is this an attitude or aptitude issue here with some unconscious or conscious layered in?
When peeling the onion on what might be causing the tough thoughts we can start to frame our reactions in a more self-encouraging way.
According to this HBR article, you can overcome your fear of failure, by redefining what the concept means to you. I particularly like the example of creating a “fear list” writing down the challenge’s worst-case scenario, how you can prevent it, and how you’ll respond if it comes true. Creating a plan for a bad outcome can give you the courage to move forward!
3. Lack of confidence
Limiting self-beliefs stop us from pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones. We like to stay in our safe space where there is security and structure. When deciding to take your life in a new direction you’ll need confidence in yourself. While taking on something new can be scary, it’s also a great opportunity to do some soul-searching and build yourself up from the inside-out. The more we leave our comfort zone and push ourselves, the more our comfort zone expands!
I’ve always had a fair dose of career courage as we can see from leading big transformations in 5 different industry sectors and living in 4 continents. So, I loved Christie Hunter Arscott’s insightful HBR article on courage and confidence. How often have you held back from taking on a new opportunity or pursuing a dream because you lacked confidence? It’s a pervasive and often paralyzing concern, particularly for women. However, studies have shown that small acts of courage can lead to a courageous mindset that permeates all aspects of life.
As Arscott notes, micro acts of courage are key to unlocking a courageous mindset. These seemingly small-scale acts have incremental impacts over time and long-term returns. Courage begets courage, and it’s a muscle that gets stronger each time you use it, no matter how small the act. So don’t wait for confidence to magically appear. Start practicing courageous acts in all areas of your life, even outside of work.
I love Anaïs Nin’s quote, “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.” It’s a reminder that courage can come in many forms, and it’s not always about taking big risks or making bold moves. It’s about making a commitment to keep trying, even in the face of self-doubt.
I must thank Graham Clarkson fur nurturing my acro-acts of physical courage, for example, cycling across countries, flying around the world, all started with small pedals and little flights!
How can we embrace new beginnings?
Allowing yourself to accept changes that might bring good things to you is important in life. To do so, you must challenge negative or doubtful thoughts and overcome limiting self belief stops.
Returning to new beginnings, I’ve also helped, enabled and encouraged many colleagues in their moves abroad, recalling a conversation with @Deon many years ago asking me when the sun was going to shine in London having moved from Australia!
Most recently, my friend and mentee Emma Cleary made the big move from Sydney to London! We caught up and she shared with me her great enthusiasm in exploring the city as well as some of the challenges she’s faced. I asked her to share her story so that others could be inspired and perhaps encouraged to make a big move too!
Thank you so much for asking me to share my story, Harriet! I’ve always dreamed of moving abroad to experience work and life in a new country, and felt London was the economic epicentre and doorstep to Europe! I had hoped to make it happen a few years ago, then the pandemic hit and for me, as well as many of my Australian friends, I think we felt the distance of being an island nation, so far away from the rest of the world. In fact, I read an article earlier this year that quoted “More than one in five Australians are actively considering moving overseas in the next 12 months” which proved to me this heightened need to dream, explore and discover!
Having been in London for just over 2 months now, it has been quite a rollercoaster and I’ve had to adjust my sails to really prepare for the realities of expat living. I personally have found the emotional dishevel challenging and I think underestimated with a move of this scale, something one does not necessarily come well equipped for: Excitement to explore a new city, longing for family and remnants of home, stresses of apartments and job hunts, adjusting to time zones physically and mentally, joys of meeting new friends and seeing old ones (like yourself, Harriet) much more regularly! It has been a wonderful, chaotic, tad overwhelming, messy, marvellous but empowering new beginning for me.
I recall from our mentoring sessions, you always shared with me the importance of take-offs and landings, and I think this is so key with a relocation. My advice to anyone planning a move abroad is to commit, have a game plan, be open-minded, build a network and most importantly, back yourself!
Emma has been writing a blog to share her relocation experiences, you can read it here!
So happy to share Emma’s story – bold, encouraging and uplifting for us all! I’m finding more of my younger mentees creating these experiences for themselves in these post pandemic times where companies are sadly not providing the opportunities of relocation and secondments. I personally think it’s so enriching and valuable for both employees and companies to gain exposure to global ideas, products/services, ways of thinking and cultures. I think it’s essential as leaders we continue to provide our team members with these experiences to support their personal and professional growth!
Ending on a wonderful positive and point of reflection, the song ‘Home Again’ by British singer-songwriter, Michael Kiwanuka was shared with me. Michael is a truly marvellous talent with words that hold such deep relevance and meaning in his lyrics. His song, ‘Home Again’ has settled my stirred emotions moving to Norfolk and made me feel at ease and content with our new surroundings!
