- Eating – one of my favourite things. And no, I wasn’t cooking. It was my birthday!
Over the last year or so, I have embraced some of my old habits. Whilst the idea of returning to ‘old habits’ generally has negative connotations, in this instance, the return to such habits has made me feel happy and at my most authentic. For example, one of my ‘habits’ when I was much younger (late primary – mid high school), was to bake and try new recipes. Whilst I was never an artist or creative genius in the visual arts/school-art-class kind of way, I viewed my parents’ kitchen with its copious amounts of ingredients and large bench space as my art studio and my baking as a creative and relaxing outlet to express my love for food and ever-changing palette. The outdoors was also something that I lived for – riding my bike, walking my dog, playing team sports– and this is certainly something I love getting into now. In fact, riding my bike, playing netball, going on regular hikes and keeping herbs alive in my little courtyard area are some of my favourite things to do.
The embracing of these old habits and the realisation that they remain things I continue to enjoy highlights something important – that sometimes we need to embrace the old to get excited about the new even if the new is really just the old – repackaged and evolved. My interest in cooking, baking, being outside, playing netball and going hiking are not particularly new interests – they are things I have done on and off since I was younger. However, my approach to them now is probably somewhat different – for example, whilst some of these activities were most probably orchestrated by my parents in an attempt to assist me to create ‘interests’ and ‘hobbies,’ these days I choose to do the above-mentioned items because they take me to a happy place – I feel joy and a sense of peace whilst doing them. I am sure that my experience is not unique. I have no doubt that if people were to do the things they used to enjoy when they were younger – drawing, painting, sport, jewellery making, etc – they would feel reinvigorated and recharged. Whilst they may approach their old habit differently, or their interest may have evolved, I am sure they would feel a real sense of joy in pursuing this interest again just as they did when they were younger.
In the world of consulting, the whole ‘repackaging the old’ and doing things differently is known as innovation. The work I have been involved in over the past 14 months – setting up a social enterprise called Goodsites – has been about reinventing and repackaging the events’ industry so that it can contribute positively to the community. Through Goodsites, we have sought to challenge how the events’ industry does business by setting up a platform through which event organisers can engage with social enterprise suppliers and community venues as part of the organisation of their event. Goodsites seeks to ensure that events organised generate a positive social impact in one or more of the following ways:
- Provides employment and training opportunities for those who have been long-term unemployed as a result of mental illness and/or disability. Goodsites does this by engaging social enterprise event suppliers (such as cleaning, catering and maintenance, etc) applicable to a specific event.
- Champion environmental sustainability. Goodsites seeks to ensure venues have recycling and composting facilities. In addition, Goodsites engages with socially conscious suppliers whose practices demonstrate a commitment to a more environmentally sustainable world.
- Provides a revenue stream for not for profit and community organisations that own or are associated with event facilities and in doing so, generates revenue to fund existing and/or new programs.
Despite the passion I have for this project, I decided to resign a few weeks ago and take up a role as Consultant/Tender Writer at Success-Works, a consultancy that works with government departments and not for profit organisations to nurture systemic improvements in social justice and human rights. This new job will be a chance to learn new skills, meet new people and learn more about issues of human rights and social justice as they relate to Australians.
The birthplace of Goodsites. I am going to miss this place - both the day-to-day of the business and the gorgeous building.
Organisations, companies and individuals engage consultants to assist them to think differently about how they approach new projects and/or programs, undertake strategy work and undergo evaluation of current work. Consultants may not suggest anything new or groundbreaking – they may simply be repackaging or reinvesting the current way of doing things, that is, innovating and in doing so, assisting an organisation to evolve. I imagine that much of my work in my new role will involve this.
Sometimes there are more parallels in our professional and personal life than we realise. It appears that for now, my habits in my personal life have been repackaged and have evolved and that in my professional life, my day-to-day focus will be about thinking about how best to execute current programs and policies in new ways. Should be interesting!
