I remember as a young girl and right up until yesterday (getting out of my comfort zone) I tended to go right to typical roles. What I know I was good at. How did I know this? I tried them, I practiced them, and I wanted to do them.

Today, as we worked along with Silvia, we began to dive into putting ideas into practice by actually carrying out a Skype conversation with Jocelyn Blumgart to begin the process of documenting.

Look! We’re all doing our jobs! Look how engaged we look! (…I’ve somehow managed to escape this picture, not to mention, can remember much of the conversation…)

Where did I go? Where did I fall? With something tech based. Comfy. I enjoy solving problems and working with technology; however almost at all costs I avoid anything directly connected to me. Was I wanting to raise my hand to talk face to face to a stranger? Nope!….well…maybe not Nope…but…at least…Not….yet!

Take a look at these brave ladies. To me, they put themselves out there! Made me feel better, but am I really contributing to the bigger picture?

So through this process, I had to dig up something, which I already knew deep down, but never had a reason to listen, change, or acknowledge it. I’m an extremely private person and what have I heard the past two days….GET YOURSELF OUT THERE!

PANIC! ANXIETY!

I shake inside. Why would I think anyone out there would even care about what I have to say? Why would I even want to highlight what I can offer, when I’m just so cozy and snuggled up knowing what I can do myself, and up until now..that was all fine.

Disruption! 

On the documentation side…this brought out another personally known fact of myself; I am not a good multitasker…yet! I recognize that I need to find, practice, try, and use different strategies than perhaps my peers to be able to fully understand what is happening around me, if I’m not focused upon it. Can I do two things at once…I think I can…but can I do two things well at once…that’s the difference. Today, I maybe, honestly caught maybe two to three points of the conversation which allowed me to understand what was being said. But was this the point? We were all role playing. Some members switched roles to fill in gaps, and others stopped their roles completely. Perhaps I’m not feeling alone here, and this is why roles and various roles, followed up with communication of findings with various artifacts provides a more in depth and authentic snapshot of the learning.

What I saw and felt today left me leaving the day’s events with positivity and growth: trust. It’s easier to come out of a shell when you trust those around you.

Going forward, feeling trust from my colleagues on this journey, I know, will eventually have to turn inward… to feeling trust within myself.

To leave today’s post into the archives of this blog…I leave you with the quote of the day in which really helped me begin to begin…to begin…to start this process of self-importance and of sharing yourself outwards:

if others do it for me…I do it for others