After
a really long silence I decided to don my writers cap. (Too many people are
asking me if I have stopped writing, I feel guilty that I am letting them
down.(!) So here goes .
Ikigai
is that sweet spot that the Japanese
refer to as the ‘reason of being’ or the discovery of one’s passion or the
reason to get up every morning; the meaning of life. The reason why we continue
to do the things that we do, things that we are proud of. I wake up every
morning ready to make a difference in someone’s life , every single day. There’s nothing that makes me feel more alive
than knowing that I have helped a young person make better informed choices and
that continues to be our mission at Varsity Connections. That’s my Ikigai.
It
has been a busy October for Varsity Connections. We were proud to partner with
NAJAH to host their knowledge Zone at the 3-day event in Abu Dhabi. As part of this,we had put together a series
of workshops for students , parents and School counselors. I am so proud to say that all our sessions
were well attended and the feedback that we received after the event has been
phenomenal. The counselor forum that we
coordinated was a platform for school and independent counselors to come
together to knowledge share and continually develop in their professional lives.
A lot of prep went into this event as we wanted to make sure that we delivered
sessions that would be useful to school counselors. A survey was done to
understand what might be possible areas to concentrate on. One of the most
common refrain from my counselor colleagues is the fact that there is a major
motivational dip. With a small team to cope with large numbers of students ,
the annual inspections at the schools with the additional
documentation
,it can be challenging to stay
motivated. These professionals are
pulled away from their calling in many ways and eventually lose sight of what
their Ikigai is. We see it often. Young school counselors eager to do their
best for the students, with a lot of projects and plans for the academic year
and then barely 18 months later, more or less resigned to the fact that a lot
of their plans might not see the light of day. So high
on the agenda, was for us to develop programs to help maintain their momentum,
to focus on what is important, to prioritise and re unite with their ikigai. We
had sessions covering Peer Support specific for School counselors and Year heads,
The growing relevance of psychometrics in Academics, Developing excellence as a
habit, Preparing students for the 21st century and so on. I thank all of our wonderful trainers who came
unconditionally and enthusiastically to support us and for making the sessions
so interactive as well.
I’ll
be honest. I was quite nervous about the response that we would get from the
Abu Dhabi schools as historically for us at the office, it has always been an
uphill task to engage with them. Although
there were close to 30 registrations online we were on tenterhooks as
experience has taught us that the online ‘yays’ often never translates to
physical presence. But every seat was filled
for our sessions and there were overwhelming requests for more platforms like
ours after the sessions. Clearly there is a dearth of training sessions like
these in Abu Dhabi unlike in Dubai. We
were humbled by the fact that a couple of schools in the far far Western Region
, Abu Dhabi more than 2 hours away came with their team. And they came back
every day and what’s more, brought a busload of their students as well on the
last day. We quickly tweeked our sessions to cater to their specific
requirements on the final night at NAJAH. As I type I can see those faces in
front of me , eager for information, guidance, full of enthusiasm, all of them trying to find their Isigai. It was a very humbling experience for me and
my team. We were so touched by the fact
that the chairman and owner of one of the schools had come along to thank us personally.
My entire team was in our Isigai element making
all the hard work so worth it and I believe it is this temperament that sets us
apart from many others.
Find
your element parents, find your Ikigai and nudge your children along the path
of self discovery to discover theirs. Don’t forget to give us a shout out to us
if you need help with that .
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