Narrative reflection is the process of human activity in which people “recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it. It is this working with experience that is important in learning” (Boud et al, 1985).
I have always been such an indecisive person. ‘I cannot make a decision to save my life’ I often say. This brings me to what I decided to write about when reflecting on an experience where I have responded to disruption and change. It took me a while to choose, firstly because of my indecisiveness, but also because I realised that I don’t often reflect on my actions and decisions at all. And once I started to think about an experience to write about, I began to realise that I unconsciously ask myself the same question’s in order to make decisions. I was going to reflect on my experience adapting through Covid 19, but instead I wanted to consider something that would be more meaningful than this, something that had a larger impact on my life and how I process emotions and difficult situations of change.
At the beginning of 2020 I had been working most days in 2 of my local cafes. I loved my job, every aspect of it, but mainly the fact I get to chat to lots of different people in the community as they came in to get their morning coffee. My day would start between 6am-7am and finish around 3pm. This was my routine and I had been in it for over a year, since finishing high school. In addition to my paid work, I had completed a 3 month unpaid internship the year earlier and I was always on the lookout for something else to further my knowledge in the industry.
One day I came across a paid internship opportunity for an automotive company so I applied and a few days later was called to come in for an interview. Now up until this point, the only job ‘interviews’ I had been to were ones were I have a quick chat to the owners of a café and then make a few coffees to show them that I was capable, so the thought of going for an interview in a big corporate office in the city was frightening. I went along to the interview, and sat in front of the HR manager and a member of the marketing team with sweaty palms while they asked me a list of questions about my experiences and how much I knew about all different aspects of the job role. At this point I was even more stressed than when I had walked in because most of my answers were ‘no’ or ‘I don’t know much about that’. I walked out of the interview without even knowing how I went, called my mum and told her there was no way I would take it if they had offered it to me. I had no experience at all, was only beginning my second year of university and at that point would rather stick to being comfortable working at my local cafe.
My mum has always told me that if you don’t at least try something, you’ll never know if you like it. “What’s the worst that can happen” she says. “If you try something and don’t like it, you’re never stuck there.” It was these questions that helped me make my decision to take the job.
Fast forward a year and 7 months, I have learnt so much more than 2 years of university could teach me about working and have even been promoted. Responding to this change in work was such a big step in my life and I hadn’t even realised it. Looking back, if I hadn’t of taken that step despite being terrified, I would probably still be working my 6-3 in the café and I would currently be scrambling to apply for jobs for when I graduate. If I hadn’t of made the decision to just give it a go instead of walking away from such an amazing opportunity because the thought of it was scary, I wouldn’t have grown so much in such a short amount of time. Experiencing this change in my life has led to so much growth and self-development in relation to my professional values.
Reflecting on this experience of change in my life, makes me recognise that I use the same train of thought when making lots of decisions even with small events in my day to day life without even realising. It also ties into Michael white’s introduction of the term re-membering in relation to ones ‘club of life’.
It is evident that my immediate family, parents and brother and sister, play such an important role in my ‘club of life’ and will always have my best interest at heart. Along with a few of my closest friends, my family knows exactly that I am one to make these sorts of decision. Even though I might not feel comfortable doing it, you need to push past the hesitation and just go for it. Another individual who contributes to this trait of mine is my first ballet teacher. She taught me to have confidence in myself and to have no fear when trying something new because “whats the worst that can happen?
This experience of change in my life heavily relates to the future of work. You must be willing to adapt and change to overcome challenges and hurdles. By re-membering, I was able to reflect back on my past and ‘club of life’ to determine who had an impact on how I now process change and disruption in life.
Resources:
Boud D.Keough, R., WalkerD. (1985), Reflection: turning experience into learning, London: Kogan Page, 19.
Shona Russell & Maggie Carey, … ‘Re-Membering: Commonly asked questions’. Accessed 29th August 2021. Available at: http://narrativepractices.com.au/attach/pdf/Remembering_Common_Questions.pdf
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