New Beginnings
After 18 years lecturing in the College, a job I had loved for the first decade, I was becoming increasingly disheartened and finding myself not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. I felt that I was no longer spending time doing what I loved, helping people to achieve, and more and more time on what I believed was meaningless paperwork. I was struggling with feeling that my students were not getting the experience they deserved, because I simply didn’t have time to fully prepare, despite spending every evening working into the wee small hours.
Then, our son became ill, and we spent 12 weeks in hospital over a period of 6 months. I was riddled with guilt, torn between my students and my son. I struggled to cope with his illness on top of a job that took so much of my personal time. I struggled even more with leaving him at home with his care team, and going to work, despite knowing that they were a great team who were more than capable of looking after him; I couldn’t cope with not being in control.
That is when Jane Thomas, of Premier Life Skills, changed my life. I had been working with Jane and our care team, for some time. She used Motivational Maps to help us understand the team’s motivators, why rubs might occur between individuals, how to help individuals understand their colleagues’ viewpoint and to provide training to help the team grow. This time however, it was my own personal situation I looked to Jane for help with.
Using Motivational Mapping, and Jane’s powerful coaching techniques, she helped me realise that I could not go on as I was; if I did, I was going to make myself ill. After discussion with my family, I handed in my notice at the College. It was a sad day, I had great colleagues, a great boss and I truly loved being in the classroom helping students to achieve their potential, but the weight that lifted from my shoulders that day was mammoth. I officially took on the role of managing the care team, which allowed me time to monitor Iain much more closely, vital for me when he was so ill.
Jump forward 3 years and Iain is like a different young man, with only the odd ‘off’ day which is easily controlled. He is enjoying life with his care team, getting out and about doing all the things they used to do. For me though, there was a void, a little voice in me saying I need to do more; my ‘searcher’ motivator was calling; I needed to do something that would mean I was making a difference and ‘More than Motivation’ was born!