When I switched things up, I imagined working from home and all the joy I imagined that would bring.

I quickly learned that this is far from my productive state. I get bored, feel stagnant and procrastinate.

These days, most days, I stick my office on my back and just get out there. Some days it works. The spot suits, I can breathe and think and work. I find energy in finding new nooks between meetings and picking things up.

Sometimes it doesn’t, and the place I end up smells funny and I kinda wish I could just down the coffee and get out of there. Like today.

Need to polish up my research!

Been pondering my perspectives, trying to figure out where I fit exactly. Working to understand my worldview.

A mother; also a daughter

A learner; also a teacher

A tenant; also a landlord

A director; also a trustee

A community organiser; also a community responder

A lover; also a fighter

A leader; also a follower

A listener; also a speaker

A systems thinker; also a systems creator

A doubter; also a believer

A partner; also an individual

It feels like it has been an age since I posted, but every time I think I have something to post, something more interesting comes along and changes my perspective again…

However, it hit me today that my fight has calmed. Some kind of balance has been struck, and it has brought joy!

In one quarter of my purposeful time, there are personal relationships that are benefiting from a renewed investment >

< In another I find a flourish of work that is refreshingly voluntary, entirely on my own terms and the perhaps truest reflection of my core values

The third remains the one real steady feature of the past couple of years or so and that is learning – both formal and less so, and gaining in variety as I go >

< As the shape of my future begins to get clearer it is gaining definition in freelance work in this fourth and final quarter. Commissions, I suppose, might rarely be expected to have a direct impact on the soul, however these are digging deep and starting to define my drive and thinking so much faster than I anticipated when I made this move.

And I am grateful …

Fighting for a rhythm

Fighting myself

Fighting years of other people’s expectations

Fighting to understand my priorities

And doing my best to hold my nerve

…on sparks!

It’s intriguing to me to watch and experience the sparks of progress that can happen when there is connection, with no agenda, but a strong common interest when meeting and dreaming together.

People have talked about my next chapter. As if it may have already been defined, somehow. One of the key points of this change, however, has been the desire to create time to carve that out slowly. To let it develop according to where I am drawn, needed.

Today there are practical tasks to be taken on – life admin and home care. Feels like the time to tidy before a relaunch. Whatever that looks like exactly!

For me this has become:

Synonymous with conversation

Sharing a little of ourselves

Learning a little

Practicing vulnerability

Glimpsing the future, perhaps

Seeding innovation, even?

Interesting to me how this has changed as my mind has become more future-focused. And many, many coffees have been booked in…

‘Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.’

Leonard Cohen

What a stunning morning to be taking my next big step on my MSc journey. An induction tutorial in Regents Park for the MBA element. Wondering a little what I have let myself in for…

It’s been a significant week, in simple, small ways. I’ve been looking at how systems thinking, that I have studied recently as part of the journey, can become a real practice for me in the next stage. It’s starting to feel part of my story now. I feel energised, hopeful, challenged and powerful.

The connections have started. In my mind and with the people around me. I’m starting to get a sense of what the future might hold. And it is invigorating.

More to come!