This week I’ve been talking to a number of people who are attending the Work Life Balance Workshop I’m running on September 24th. Besides asking me about what to expect, the conversation has often moved into questions about my motivation for creating the event, and why I chose a workshop format at all.
I decided to write this post to share why I think that workshops are such a powerful form of coaching.
Work Life Balance Workshop
I created The Worklife Makeover because everything tells me that “work life balance” is something people are struggling with more and more these days.
Particularly in the current economy where people – assuming they’re working at all – are working harder for the same or less money than before.
Where many things that folks once took for granted about the security of their jobs has disappeared. Including in the relatively more “safe” public sector.
Where business owners are having to really hustle for their livelihoods.
Where expected career paths are evaporating in front of people’s eyes.
Where once certain retirement plans have become unclear.
In corporate speak, while the government plays the game of digging the country out of its black hole of debt, consumer confidence is tanking. And, unsurprisingly, employee engagement measures are hitting the deck.
People are understandably feeling the pressure. Something my good friend Judy Martin wrote about just this week.
Companies are offering their own solutions to these challenges, as Judy clearly points out. But this isn’t universally true.
Besides, I wanted to offer a service, an event, that allows people to look at their lives more broadly than to what extent they help fulfil a corporation’s agenda of them.
I wanted to support people find their own voices, and retrieve a sense of personal power in the chaos that’s going on around us.
Workshops: The Power of the Group
In one to one work, I endorse and support people to find their own path.
But with certain topics, getting a small group of kindred spirits together has enormous value of its own. People, who don’t know each other from Adam in the beginning, meet around a shared concern, and become one another’s sounding boards.
Of course it takes strong facilitation and coaching to quickly create the safety that allows people to share. And highly focused content and coaching exercises to help people hone in on what’s right for them.
But beyond that, as I help people rethink their lives, see new possibilities, and shift old mindsets that keep them stuck, the power of the group plays a role too.
It mirrors back to you who you really are. It witnesses your casting off of stuff that no longer suits you. It amplifies for you the positive decisions you make in going forward in your life.
Workshops: You are not alone
With skilful leadership, the group develops its own energy. People come to understand that they are not alone in things. A community emerges that supports itself.
Often, that community extends beyond the workshop in ways of its own. I just have to watch my Twitter feed these days to see the interconnections that go on between the online folks who attended my last workshop, and that’s not to mention some of the off-line stuff I am part of too.
So, don’t underestimate workshops. Well run, they can be transformational.
What workshops have you attended, or indeed run, where the power of the event and the group rocked your life?
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Twitter: HeavenandEl
The idea of group workshops generally terrify me. The brilliant day I had at yours did a lot to squash that terror but I know I wouldn’t have gone had I been invited to the same thing by a random stranger. The bit at the beginning where you have to introduce yourself totally kills me. My heart pounds, my brain goes all fuzzy and then when it’s my turn to speak, everything comes out in a jumbly, hesitant mess. But the great thing is that once that is out of the way, I can relax and have a fabulous time.
Once you get past that initial bit, there is something powerful about sharing stuff with strangers. Yes, I was glad that I was there with a couple of people I knew because I really am a chicken but I also appreciated getting fresh perspectives on stuff that could only come from people who didn’t know me.
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Thanks for sharing this, El. Love your honesty!
I’m always deeply aware of how nervous people may feel at the beginning, irrespective of if I’ve already got a connection with them or not. At least an aspect of this is because you can’t really, really commit yourself to an experience like my workshops and not expect some kind of change, and that can be scary. But as you saw, in the process of taking away something meaningful, you ended up having fun too and meeting new people.
I have found workshops a really powerful way to learn – it seems that sharing and learning from others really helps to accelerate the learning process.
Hey, thanks, Jen. I too have always found workshops an invaluable way to learn. Coaching, reading and self-directed learning all play their part. AND there’s something about being with a group of other people that does seem to move things along in a completely different way from other forms of learning.