I decided to learn something new.
I decided to step into the world of Power Platform.
So why when I stepped into this new world did I feel so foolish for not knowing enough! There's literally no one here judging me but myself! Ah… I know what it is, it’s that Beginner label! That little inner monologue telling me ‘You’re a beginner, a baby in the field’ …well…
I look across the room at the little sproglette crawling across my living room floor and she doesn’t care that she can’t walk yet! She looks back at me, smiles and proceeds to climb the armchair, unafraid of trying, of falling, she will get there. She will walk, she will run, she will swim and each time it will call on her to persevere until she gets it right. I look again, a sense of excitement radiates from her as she will stop at nothing to climb this armchair! To achieve her goal…but…somehow this sense of excitement gets lost as we get older. Now trying something new is nerve wracking and tricky and can often result in us taking a pass, maybe another time.
I am choosing to be excited, to radiate excitement! I CAN do it; I know I can… I just have to begin. I need to be a beginner, learn to walk, run and then swim with the rest of them!
When it came to opening the door on the Power Platform world of work, the jargon was the first thing that hit me square in the face, so, what did I do? – I wrote my own jargon busting list because I will not be beaten by an acronym!!
I used to be a teacher at a complex needs school and with this job we were constantly learning, whether it be for professional development, resources ideas, behaviour management, medical learning… we all relied on the community of staff and on a network of mentors for support and guidance but all of a sudden I didn’t always have this network of people in the room, that immediate feedback telling me what to do next or to reassure me that I was doing things correctly. I was used to being that very support for others! I was far from a beginner there; I was successful, but that doesn’t equate to being unsuccessful as a beginner… I just need to do my best to be a successful beginner!
I am very fortunate to have the support of my brother in law who is incredibly knowledgeable and was willing to take me on as my mentor, I also took to google & Microsoft to find my community!
I found jargon busters, resources, watched tutorials and I have built my own app from scratch, I am writing a blog and reassuring beginners in the community that there IS a fantastic support system here, just reach out! I have been using LinkdIn mainly, I have had messages about the blog and have supported other beginners to feel successful! We all need to be beginners to become experts and I am set on tackling this with the very excitement that got that little smiler up on her feet, gripping the armchair, ready to claim one of my biscuits as her own with those little grubby, grabby hands!
If you are a beginner looking for reassurance or any particular guidance, reach out, there is a community of others just like you, me being one of them, who can help you.
Komen