As an alumni, the Marketing Academy experience doesn’t come as a thick and fast as it used to, so when opportunities come up for more learning and development, understandably, we jump at the chance. Just one short month after we waved goodbye to our scholarships at the incredible Marketing Academy party in May, an email came round inviting us old kids to a Breakthrough Thinking event in July, and twelve of us, plus our beloved programme director Cam, signed up.
Touted as leadership course to help you up your ante in business and life through achieving breakthrough results and implementing change, safe in the knowledge that any Marketing Academy experience is going to be challenging and thought provoking, we all turned up with high expectations, which as usual were more than met.
The company running the course, Achieve Breakthrough, ran us through a two day course, which in a nutshell demonstrated how through challenging assumptions you have and barriers you put in place for yourself, by framing current events through past experiences, you block yourself from achieving the vision you see for yourself. Powerful stuff!
We learnt about ‘owning’ our little voice, that ongoing commentary in your head which interprets situations and informs your actions, committing to our future visions for ourselves, whether personal or professional and working tirelessly towards these, spotting where barriers are in place and thinking of ways around these to get to where we want to be.
As a group of driven young professionals, all committed to our development, the two days were incredibly impactful. Our visions ranged from improving team performance, completing challenging projects, achieving promotions and changing roles, and over the two days, with the help and support of the great people at Achieve Breakthrough, we did indeed achieve some breakthrough thinking.
Without divulging too much, the course enabled me to open my mind up to a possibility I had closed off for myself, and also come up with some inspired ways to then go about achieving it. The week or so since the course took place has seen me work through some considerably uncomfortable challenges and personal hang ups, and take a risk I never would have taken a month ago, so already, its taken me places I never expected.
The course has also shown me the value of being open about your goals, which not only helps you commit more fully to achieving them, but has attracted the most amazing amount of support, especially from my fellow alumni. An amazing bunch of people at the best of times, these past few weeks I’ve had some incredible feedback on my ideas and heaps of encouragement, all of which have spurred me on to greater heights.
So, what is it you want to achieve for yourself? How are you stopping yourself from achieving it? Challenge yourself to think differently every time you use the word ‘but’. Reach out and tell people what it is you’re aiming for. Allow other people to challenge. What’s the worse that can happen… you never get to where you want to be?
