The CV is dead. Brilliant. Wading through my life experience and refining it to fit a particular job description is time that I will never get back.

Alastair Creamer’s workshop asked more than any other Curriculem Vitae training ever did. Introducing the workshop with “I love to leave people and places in a better shape than I found it”.

Guiding us back through time to our childhood, through school, extra curriculae activities, competitions to first jobs, university and now. He asked us simple questions: What am I good at? What skills do I have? What do other people say I am good at? What gives you energy?

By poising these questions at different times in our life the answers raised forgotten skills and qualities.

This gave me a problem…..there was too much. But I could see connections between the different elements.

I organise others..alot, therefore I manage,I multi-task, I encourage.

I make things, so I am logical, patient and motivated.

These "quiet drivers" could now be mapped onto a visual landscape.

This process was difficult for me as I felt that my skills needed to be fluid. I used an analogy of jigsaw, placing skills and qualities that where connected and that could also move about.

It was Alastair’s analysis of these maps that has provided me with a better focus to my creativity.

He recognised my need to make things and identified a sense of belonging to something that is bigger than me.

Making Things.Better

These three words and a relevant full stop have helped me to re-focus my projects to bring them to a higher level.