I recently hosted a Salon Series talk for Coventry University on supporting Women in Academia and Business. The theme was Building Confidence and Beating Imposter Syndrome.

The session focused on building confidence and replacing unhealthy, toxic understandings of ‘success’, ‘knowledge’, ‘growth’, or ‘motivation’.

The space we created was safe, confidential, and fair. Everyone could share however much they wished, and whatever personal stories were shared stayed in the group.

So now I am leaning into my experience and talents as a creative and facilitator. I’m steering The DPA towards Creative Thinking development, with well-being enabling people to learn transferable leadership skills, such as;

• emotional intelligence

• communication skills

• strategy

• problem-solving

• confidence building

• team building

We use processes like Design Thinking and Lego Serious Play to develop a deep understanding and games to create a fun learning space and a deeper connection to build skills that strengthen leadership abilities. All the creativity and fun of The DPA, with all the practicality of application in the wider world.

... This realization of how powerful and effective this resolve was changed my business objectives. I pivoted from the last ten years of business/personal development support. I wanted to dedicate myself solely to figuring out this activity as a universal opportunity for anyone feeling lost, overwhelmed, burnt out, or disconnected. To make a tangible difference in people's lives by utilising creativity to enrich wellness for people across the board...

Our living spaces can contribute to our poor mental health without us knowing, but they can also help to rectify and heal these feelings of anxiety, especially in conjunction with other therapies. I wanted to take the opportunity to share some pointers about my own experience and what I have learned about how to help ourselves with our living environments as an essential foundation for greater well-being.

Business in general comes hand in hand with promoting products/services, people still need to know about what you do; that brings the marketing dilemma and an assumed potential social media strategy.

Finding a unique balance between maintaining the best working environment for my brain and creating the best results for my clients has taken some trial and error…

… Grabbing any device I could at work, notifications pinging around left, right and centre, constantly open and ready to connect and talk, always on the go-go-go on every platform, selfie-ing my way through life, running events, sharing everything.

I didn't understand the repercussions of social media and the decline of:

- my mental health
- my authenticity, who was I?
- the quality of my work...

That moment.

When you realise…
• That feeling I should be working or doing something
• Something unknown and genuinely awful was going to happen
• That lurking, invasive feeling that something terrible is about to happen
• I should of said 'xwz' and now everything is going to crumble

… it doesn't have to be this way.

How can I put this understanding into practice?

It's helpful to be aware of these effects, so we are more conscious and able to manage them in our lives.

What this means is that you can manage your schedule and energy levels effectively

What an unusual statement from John Cleese about creativity, I thought. I am used to more flowery and intangible statements about creativity, but this sums it up so primally for me and how I like to operate. But I’ve found it is underestimated and misunderstood…