Some time ago now, during a coaching session I discovered that my intent in life is to grow. Not in the sense of being a budding gardener (although the thought of being green fingered is rather tempting) but in the sense that in life I love to learn and to use this learning to grow my career, relationships and everything else relevant in my life. I felt an instant warmth for my intent, and things from my past started to click in to place. In the past I have felt frustration when I feel that my growth has been stunted and my life has become routine and repetitive. I used to think that this was because I was the kind of person who was never content, and who always wanted something else. However looking back at these situations, it was my intent/me becoming frustrated at being a bit stunted and restrained.

When I started my career with SK Chase in December 2008 I had only recently graduated from university and had spent the last four years going through quite an intense learning curve (both educationally and personally). I did not really have a plan as to where I was going or what I wanted to do, I was a fresh graduate who needed a job. My job title was Customer Services Administrator, which meant dealing with customer queries and general administration. At first I was really energised by this role, however as I settled in to the role I started to find myself feeling a little stunted, and I was not sure where I could progress from there.

After a year of being in this role, I was given an amazing opportunity by the directors at SK Chase to become an Accounts Administrator, and learn the financial side of the business. My training for this began in December 2009 and I felt instantly energised again by learning all of the new processes, and I also gained a deeper understanding of the business. At the time this did feel a bit daunting, however I felt a sense of freedom being able to pick up all of these new skills, and I enjoyed the everyday tasks I was carrying out. When I was given the opportunity to step up and become Finance Manager at SK Chase I jumped at it, again it fuelled my intent to grow, and seemed liked a natural progression. After some time in this role I started to realise the tasks that I really enjoyed when I first learned them were starting to give me some down energy and I realised that this was because they had become part of the norm, there was nothing new to be done with them, or as far as I thought nothing new.

This is where the “what next” question came in to my head and rather than feeling that I had reached the end of my learning’s,  I identified that there were so many opportunities for me to grow the finance function at SK Chase. It was not all just about me growing myself, personally and professionally, it was about how I could also enable growth, in my function, in other people and so on. By training other people on the finance tasks, this not only helped their growth, but it freed up energy for me to be able to take the time and space to start focusing on learning new skills and tasks within the business, and also new skills which applied to my personal life and relationships.

Out with work, I have learned to identify ways which I can grow as well, and I recently followed a strict protein diet for a number of weeks . Initially I just wanted to do this to lose weight (which seems a bit juxtapose to growing J), however I have had major key learning’s along the way about myself and also my eating habits, these learning’s I can now apply to my daily life, and have encouraged me to continue to undertake personal challenges.

Having a deeper understanding of my intent has really made me embrace it more, and identify characteristics in myself which I may not have addressed or followed up upon had I not been so aware of it.

For me, I feel that the only way is up from here, and the world has a wealth of learning’s for me to embrace, even if it is not always clear at first sight, I know that my intent will guide me 🙂

By Kate Taylor