From Soldier to Company Director and Full-Time University Student
Making The BEST Use Of Transferable Skills
Everything we do in life will help us develop new skills, that we can transfer into our new adventures. Whether that be a new job, a new approach to a current job to try and make it more enjoyable, give you a new lease of life, an interview, a new relationship.
Sometimes we do not plan on using these skills, or even realise we have them. Until one day, they just naturally come out and you notice upon reflection after a certain event.
This was never more apparent to me than when I transitioned out of the Army, and returned back to civilian life. Even though at first, it was my intention to leave any Army experiences behind me and just focus on moving forward with my new life. It did not take me long to figure out, that in actual fact, there were military behaviours ingrained deep within me which would never be able to put down. From my walk, to the way I spoke to people, the language used and then needed to translate, to my attitude to tackling new and difficult challenges.
Where as before there was always some level of confidence with my approach to trying new things, now shown through an even stronger belief in myself and what could be achieved. First was setting the goal of completing several fitness qualifications, up to gaining my GP Exercise Referral Diploma, as well as several nutritional certificates. What came next was something which had never appeared on the radar before, setting up a business to deliver workshops with the focus on resilience and wellbeing. Yet, since the first time the idea was mentioned, it only took three months from conception to actually standing up in front of live audience and it has been steadily growing, starting off in Birmingham and spreading across the West Midlands. Working with newly qualified staff, all the way up to senior management for one of the biggest institutions in the country.
Even with a background in sales, business was something quite new to me and so in 2017 I took the plunge and start on a three year adventure to learn the fundamentals, by undertaking a BA Honours in Business, Accountancy and Marketing. Taking the skills learnt during my time in the military of adapting and overcoming obstacles, being presented with a problem and finding a solution. In this case, doing the complete opposite to any studying I had done during my time and college. Starting assignments as early as possible, getting constant feedback along the way, accepting that it is a learning process and one where this would have to be done more than once in order to get the best results.
Another stand out moment of using these transferable skills, was becoming a SSAFA Mentor in January 2017 and being paired up with my mentee that August. Where the skills I had used and developed for myself, as well as sharing with clients both privately and with in a class environment, my mentee was able to take these skills onboard, with guidance from myself on how to best apply them to his every day life and in a little over three months, his life had done a complete 180 degrees. Helping him implement tools to bring clarity on how to achieve goals, build up confidence and beliefs in his own abilities. Our relationship continues today, where we have moved on from our time under the SSAFA umbrella and continue to work together in a professional capacity. Carrying on with providing a level of clarity, now not just looking forward to future goals, we our tackling previous life events that are weighing him down. Working on letting go of them, so that he has more energy to focus on craving a brand new path that is completely new to him, and everybody else in his inner circle.