How am I feeling, really?

Frustrated.

That's how I'm feeling really. I started the learning journey with riders&elephants as I do with any new learning journey, full of gusto and enthusiasm. Excited to meet and learn from new people. Energised by another level of growth and self-awareness.

1 week in and I'm frustrated. It started at the end of Week 1 and our final immersive session. My check out card was "Disconnected" - this is a problem because one of my desired feelings for success in this course is "Connected". I leaned into feeling states that come easy to me: Thoughtful, humble, curious. I journaled, I shared my feelings with the group and I asked if anyone wanted to connect on a 1:1. I ended the week feeling optimistic and energised as a result.

Getting ready for Week 2 of our Intensive Sessions and I decided to get another Activity completed, as we had done a deep dive of the Handbook last week.

The ECD Leadership Handbook is a specialised resource for leaders looking to lift their emotional leadership skills. It's a personal guide to understanding and harnessing the power of emotions within leadership roles. This is a tailor-made leadership development tool.

Problem It Solves: Most leaders underestimate the role of emotions on the culture of their teams and the performance of their people. This handbook helps leaders to identify the emotional culture they want to intentionally craft and influence and use it to guide the way they show up and lead the people they serve.

My 3 lessons from completing this activity are:

1. I need to really define the context I want to answer the questions from. I got frustrated when I turned to page 2 and realised that I'd answered the first part in from the context of "leading me" but then I moved on to thinking about the learner who consumes my programmes.
2. I also realised part way through that "our success" is a trigger for me, as it's just me and that responsibility weighs heavy on me.
3. When the handbook talks about "our people" I need to clarify and commit to a defined group to complete this task - facilitators, client stakeholder, learners.

What surprised me most while completing this Activity was how frustrated I got during it! I invite & relish feeling uncomfortable because I believe growth and comfort do not co-exist. But something took me to frustration, fast, with no regard for the learning coming from being uncomfortable. It was a physical reaction too. I felt embarrassed that I was finding something so simple to complete, such a challenge. I felt inferior; if I can't complete this how am I going to contribute meaningfully to my cohort and even worse, deliver to clients!

The final surprise was how many of the emotion states I struggle to define - eg what's the difference between "open" and "open-minded". This also fed my frustration...how can I possibly be considered a Certified Consultant if I can't tell the difference!

Frustration is nothing more than an emotion.

I don't intend to diminish my, or anyone's feelings in this statement. All feelings are real and valid. My point is that once I named the feeling I was able to reflect and reframe my thoughts, fuelling that feeling.

This is why I love the ECD. It creates a structure for conversations that create awareness and allow for measurement of those feelings. If the desired and undesired feelings are quantified (named) then we can ask others if they have or not felt that way. The more positive answers we get to feeling the desired emotions and avoiding the negative ones then we are making good progress towards a healthy relationship, which contributes to a healthy culture.

I shared my experience with Jeremy Dean and his observation helped me to move from frustrated to uncomfortable (where I am comfortable :-)) when he said "you're exactly where you need to be at the messy start....".

My intention is to move forward with curiosity and humility and be open to the learning headed my way....

or is that open-minded?