#successfulmums

Today was mostly about clarifying the current unit, which is proving to be a little dry and long for most of us. Although, pretty useful when it comes to learning about malware. You should have seen the husband’s face when I asked him whether he thought he had a virus, trojan, spyware or a worm disrupting his laptop! I feel like I earned this unit after that conversation!😆 I wish my tutor could have heard me bragging about my new found knowledge in the topic!

Today we also spoke about mental health. All too important topic during these challenging times. It was upsetting to learn that it’s mostly women who suffer the anxiety and stress. Being with the children all day, homeschooling, working from home and managing a household can be daunting even for the strongest of minds.

Think positive, be kind to yourself, restart, give yourself a break, excercise, eat well and share your thoughts with likeminded people. These are just some of the very valuable tips that were shared during our session this morning. I will make these my mantras, specially in the coming busy Christmas season.

It’s hard to believe it has already been six weeks, which means we are half way through the course. 

What I have learnt in these past few weeks and the skills I have put into practice that I hadn't used in a such long time are amazing. Our Job Board project was a true reflection of incredible team work. It has given me the confidence to apply for two jobs I probably wouldn’t have, and I now feel more empowered and positive about job searching. 

When asked how this project made us all feel, the ladies in the group mentioned they found it fun, engaging, refreshing, encouraging, motivating, eye opening etc. For me it was more a mixture of excitement at doing something new and a kind of positive overwhelming feeling to meet the deadline. 

I can't believe it’s already been six weeks! I have come a long way and I am so excited to continue this learning journey and getting to know the amazing ladies I am sharing this experience with.

This week we have a new challenge! A team project with the aim of creating a Job Board, so we can all put to use our research, recruitment and interpersonal skills. I must confess to be a little nervous about this, purely because of the digital skills involved, but I am sure by next week this will only be a feeling of the past.

I really loved today’s session! We had a guest speaker, who taught us tips on how to get our CVs noted. 

Three of the most important things that I will take with me from her presentation are:

1- “Follow instructions on the job advert.” So many people ignore the requests from recruiters when being asked for a cover letter or an application form besides the CV. This only makes their application end in the bin! Reading the advert and completing what is on request is essential, it says a lot about our personalities if we don't.

2- “Be yourself, and let that come through on your CV”. Sometimes we focus too much on listing what we have done or what titles we’ve had, and forget about who we are when writing our CVs. In our guest speaker’s words she said, “When someone’s personality comes through is what makes a CV shine.” This is crucial not only for the applicant but for the recruiter, as they will want to make you fit in the right company with the right team, and by seeing your personal traits you are allowing them to do this.

3- ”Apply for a job even if there are certain skills you haven't yet got, as the company will train you.” With this in mind, I remembered once applying for a job that I had never done before, I was a brave 19 year old, there were over 300 applicants, and I got it. The company said to me they wanted to fully train their new staff the way “they liked things done”. So, I will bare this in mind in future.

Today was a really interesting and refreshing webinar. We have been talking about social media, CV writing, the dreaded ‘Microsoft Word processor’, resilience and ageing. Yes, ageing, even though most of the ladies in this course are in their young 30s/40s, with the introduction of social media talk, a lot of us can't fail but feeling OLD. 

I can just picture 20 something millennials, à la Emily in Paris, typing away in their free time with thousands of beautiful words and acronyms (that I don't even understand!), their creativity flowing like a gorgeous silky dress. When, every time I try to post something remotely interesting in my IG page, it takes me two hours! I obviously have to first find the content with an eye catching picture, then the text, which gets interrupted by thoughts of PTA meetings, timetables Rock Stars apps, muddy wellies on my doorway, dinner ideas, supermarket runs, washing machine shopping, Covid dry hands, to name a few. After I fight away all these thoughts I come up with a “Happy Tuesday everyone, I lost my vitamin D pill on the coffee tray!”. Literally, that was my post today.

So, the pressure is on. I now know I have to be on Linkedin. It is imperative that I produce a professional profile where I can show the world that I am “worth it”. That no matter how old you are, or how old you feel, social media is here to stay. I called it social media resilience, the ability to overcome the fear of the grid, the reel and the feel (old!). We have to embrace it, and little by little it will embrace us back. 

After a couple of weeks of assessments and half term activities we returned to our webinar today.

A really interesting and pretty challenging one for me personally, as I do NOT like speaking in public! It was my turn to present the Weekly Challenge in front of the group, and boy! I couldn't feel my legs! I think eventually I managed to masquerade my nerves pretty well, and the presentation went smoothly. Phew...

The session continued on to the topic of social media and more specifically Linkedin. Even though I created a profile for myself a few months ago, I have not made an effort to connect or interact with anyone so far. I felt that between Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram my social media mental capacity has been reached. But, like with anything and anyone these days, I need a reboot, restart and update.

Linkedin, here I go! 

💚Second webinar today. More ladies have joined the course. It’s refreshing to see how we are all going through similar thoughts and mindsets. A lot of my confidence building will definitely need to be around Digital Skills! 

Today we played a ten questions quiz on kahoot and I found it really fun and educational at the same time. I don’t consider myself a competitive person, however, being a runner up did make me feel good!

We also learned about how to organise ourselves for independent learning. This is very important as motivation levels will change week after week, but the deadlines will not going away. I think setting myself a disciplined routine from the start and putting away my phone will be key to achieve this.

💚 I’ve been really looking forward to this day, and it finally arrived! Yesterday, I started a Successful Mums Back to Work skills course. I have spoken to so many women in the last couple of years about this course, and not one had a negative thing to say about it. Now it’s my turn to get my mojo back!

Although I was nervous, I also had that fluttery butterfly feeling in my stomach, and that was certainly excitement rather than nerves. The induction was brilliant, perfect length, positive vibes and enough info not to be overwhelmed on a first day. It was our lovely trainer’s first day back to work after her maternity leave, so that put this course in real perspective, and thinking back, it was great role modelling for us all. 

I met a bunch of ladies with the same purpose, to get their mojo back, gain confidence and return to work. The atmosphere was of support and encouragement and I came out of the video call feeling empowered and ready to go.