Wonderful people, wonderful information, wonderful time. Our first week of PLMI has been a whole bunch of a whole bunch. We have crammed a LOT of information into one week. Must admit I can't take much longer in that one room and my mind is starting to kick in to overload but I am already looking forward to next year. The new friends I have made are such a plus and I plan to stay personally in touch with as many of them as possible. I believe most of us have bonded.
Today consisted of several different exercises during which I did learn a few things. While I did learn information about leadership, management and all the points in between I also learned some things about myself.
Yesterday during my training evaluation we were trying to pinpoint areas where I had weaknesses. I stated that maybe I needed to be tougher or work on communicating while leading a team. Today during the exercises I realized (and it didn't take very long for me to see) that I am actually very good at setting up a team and directing. Now if my husband would have heard me say that I needed work in this area I am quite sure he would have laughed and said, "Oh honey, the last thing you probably need help in is guiding a team." Well, he actually would have stated that I have no problem giving directions. wink wink
As I said though, I realized that it is my natural instinct to help guide people and that I have been doing just that for most of my life without even thinking about it. Not only in a leadership situation but in life in general. From kindergarten on I have always been the one that people turn to for guidance and help if they need it. While I may think I lack self confidence, it is more likely the case that people see me as very confident and in truth I am very confident but sometimes have the urge to doubt myself. I find that when I am in control and have a clear defined goal I am the most confident. Geez, maybe someone could do a case study on me regarding my self assurance issues.
But to get back to today's exercises I also surprised myself in one of them. We were told before lunch that when we returned we would have to do an exercise with a ball and cups and no hands would be involved. There were a couple of other stipulations as well. The biggest thing I noticed among the group was that immediately people began to worry about it and wanted to start planning immediately. Several people spent their whole lunch planning strategy. Normally this would be me. I would be researching, plotting, planning everything possible and then re-checking and checking again to see if I had missed a detail. This time though, I was was feeling tired and on overload with my brain and I just decided to not worry about it and enjoy my lunch and since it was not a life and death event it would be fine if I failed. Wow, even typing this is strange because I have NEVER said it would be fine to fail. I must have been worse off than I thought!!!! I even expressed this sentiment to my team and they all felt the same way. We did not stress.
Looking back I believe that actually helped us. For once we did not over think the problem and get all worked up. We literally jotted out a plan of action right before we went outside to perform it. It became our turn and off we went. In fact, it was even easier that we had anticipated in our plan and we executed it beautifully even with a small snafu. What a great example of teamwork. We didn't stress, we put together a quick plan and went with it. That is rare for me and I learned today that maybe I don't have to over prepare for everything I do and just maybe I can learn to free up some extra time by not doing that. This is good. I'll let you know if it happens.
Pam's Point: If you will just stop and take time to notice how you ACTUALLY function in life you might be surprised at what you find.
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