Creating My Next WorkLife Chapter

SHOW NOTES

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife

Episode: Creating My Next WorkLife Chapter

For a long time, my work has involved writing, creating and finding ways to bring what I create to people.

Now I'm exploring what else that work could become and where it could go.

I've started creating opportunities for students to engage with real questions arising from the development of School of WorkLife, approaching publications about writing on professional self-coaching, and exploring how I could bring professional self-coaching resources into organisations.

These are different ways of bringing my writing, thinking and professional experience to people.

There are other possibilities too — podcasts, panels, speaking, teaching and perhaps things I haven't yet considered.

This episode is about exploring those possibilities: the things I try, the conversations that come from them, what works, what doesn't, what surprises me and what I learn along the way.

And, as always, I'll be writing, walking and thinking my way through it.

RESOURCES

The Storytelling Newsletter (Free) Short, focused, and grounded in real WorkLife situations — how we communicate, lead, make decisions, and navigate challenges at work.  

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships. schoolofworklife.com 

A Note: The accompanying image is Regent’s Canal Towpath, where much of my daily walking and thinking happens — and where many of the ideas I later write about begin.

Transcript

Speaker 0:07

Creating my next WorkLife chapter is making me think differently about what comes next. For a long time, I've been responsible for every aspect of my work. I write and create it. I market and promote it. And I find ways of bringing it to people. That is the reality of working independently, and there is much about it that I value. But as School of WorkLife continues to develop, I have been thinking about what I want the next chapter to look like. Not simply what I want to do, but how I want to work. I've been thinking about this for a while, mostly by doing what comes naturally to me: writing, walking and thinking. And gradually, some different possibilities have started to emerge. Not because I want to move away from the work I do, but because I'm beginning to wonder where else it might go. Welcome to WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife. I'm Carmel O' Reilly. And today's episode is Creating My Next WorkLife Chapter — What Else Might My Work Become. For the coming months, I'll be writing my way through a question I'm setting out to explore and discover: How do I design my next WorkLife chapter around how I want to live? This is where the story continues. Taking My Work Into Education The first possibility began with students. I've been exploring whether some of the real questions arising from the development of School of WorkLife could become useful student projects — giving students an opportunity to apply their knowledge, ideas and curiosity to something real, while giving me the opportunity to learn from their thinking too. At first, I wasn't quite sure what that relationship could look like. The more I wrote, walked and thought about it, the more I came back to reciprocity. There is something interesting about bringing together a real question from a working business and the knowledge, ideas and curiosity of students. So I created a Student Partnerships page, developed Student Project Briefs and began approaching colleges and universities. I don't know yet where that will lead. But it has opened up a way of thinking about partnerships that I hadn't considered before. Taking My Writing and Thinking to New Readers The second possibility began with my writing. Until now, my writing and thinking has lived within School of WorkLife. A place where I decide what gets explored. Where I can follow an idea because I'm curious about it. Where stories can unfold over time. Where the work remains mine. Recently I've started approaching publications about writing pieces on professional self-coaching. Professional self-coaching has developed through my own work over many years. I've written about it, created resources around it and explored what it means in different professional situations. Now I'm exploring  what might happen if I take some of that thinking beyond my own platform. Contributing ideas and writing to publications that already have their own readers. That could introduce professional self-coaching to people who may never otherwise come across my work. It will remain my work — that’s important to me — because I’ve developed it through more than 20 years of working with individuals and groups on professional development. I'm interested in bringing it to new readers. It gives the writing and the thinking somewhere else to go. Taking Professional Self-Coaching Into Organisations The third possibility came through the work I create. I've started approaching companies about bringing my professional self-coaching resources to their people — both my existing work and the creation of new resources specific to their professional development needs. My website gives individuals a way to find me and discover my work. This creates another route. I want to bring my work into organisations where people are already working, learning, developing and navigating their professional lives. The resources I create can help organisations who want to support their people’s professional development. In particular people who prefer to self-coach, self-direct and self-lead their own professional development. People who want to do this in their own space and time. I'm exploring another way of bringing professional self-coaching into working lives. Where Might It Lead? There are other possibilities too. Podcasts. Panels. Speaking. Teaching. Perhaps other ways of sharing what I know that I haven't yet considered. Some will likely feel more natural to me than others. Writing, walking and thinking will always remain important ways for me to work things through. But from experience, I’ve learnt that preparation, rehearsal and practice, can help me step into spaces that feel less familiar — particularly when I have something I believe is worth saying. And, of course, learning by doing, has always been my approach. It stretches me and takes me out of my comfort zone — and I’m OK with that, because it’s where meaningful learning takes place. Naturally, I’ll return to writing, thinking and walking to reflect on what I’ve learnt, retain what was good, make changes to what could be better, and continue my learning and creating journey by bringing all of this into my next WorkLife chapter. Epilogue I don't know yet where any of these things will lead. And I’m OK with that. What matters in this moment is that I'm beginning to look differently at the work I have already created. And rather than asking only what new work I want to create, I'm also asking where what already exists might be useful. Who it might help? Who might it reach? Where might it belong? What might I learn by taking it somewhere new? This is part of creating the next chapter of my WorkLife. Taking my work and exploring where it can go. Seeing what else my work could become. And for now, I'm going to keep writing, walking and thinking — exploring exactly that to find out. CLOSING That's today's WorkLife Story — Creating My Next WorkLife Chapter  — a School of WorkLife Story. This is the continuation of a nine-month experiment in exploring a question: How do I design my next WorkLife chapter around how I want to live? I'll return to the story and share what I'm discovering along the way. All the details and links are in the show notes, or you can find everything at www.schoolofworklife.com. Subscribe to the podcast for weekly audio stories, or visit The Storytelling Newsletter for the written versions. Or both. Remember: You don't have to know what your next chapter will look like. You can discover it by living it. Thank you for listening.