Whose Permission Are You Waiting For? Chapter 2

by Portia Taylor @MrsPTaylor

Chapter 2: Progress and Perceived Barriers

 We’re lit up. We’re radiating hope, energy and a desire to change. We know we can (ok, so we think we might be able to but we are on our way to self-assurance if we are not quite there yet…) Now what?

We need to consider what we might face as we progress on our journey. Now, thereNo NNow there  is a word we are familiar with: progress. Consider, as we educators spend our days regularly doing, what does progress mean to you? A simple phrase. It’s likely your answers will include movement, potential, achievement, successes all for those around you. What if we change one word?

In a profession where we spend most of our time solely focused on helping others to achieve their potential, do we take the time we deserve to consider our own? And where do the limits to this lie? As T S Eliot says, “only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” Only you can determine what this looks like for you – at times, the bravest thing is to admit that to step forward we may need to, first, step back. Whichever way it eventuates, it is still progress as it is helping us improve.

So why is it that we often let the negative voices in our head determine the limits to this?

There is a wonderful blog by @AnitaGhidotti that exemplifies this beautifully where she calls for us to “banish the sock” (with the sock being what is next to your ear feeding in the self-doubt. You can ignore a sock right? It’s just a sock.) Do we not push for progress for ourselves because it seems a.) self-indulgent? b.) not our place to do so? or even c.) impossible? I would suggest it is often because of the barriers we feel we need to overcome. We know there are many social barriers that the patriarchal infrastructure of our country has created for us over hundreds of years. These are lessening. They are lessening because, together, we are making sure they are. But what of the sock-formed perceived barriers in our heads?

As a @WomenEdYandH group, we explored these barriers at Unconference 4, as listed in the image above. They are many, varied and complex. Some we cannot tackle alone. However, we all came back to the one that we have the power to smash through first – ourselves. What if we realised we already have the platform that we need? What if we thought rather than ‘I can’t because…’ we cut out the negative? ‘I can because…’ Fill in the blanks. Empower ourselves. Find our voices.

This is not always easy because, well, life. This image has been doing the rounds on the internet this week, apologies for the lack of source. It helps us actually see the mental load we carry around daily. You may need to replace some of the content of the bubbles or even add a few more. Overwhelming, right?

We cannot possibly tackle all of these at once. My point is, why put yourself and your career at the bottom of the ‘to do’ list?

Know what you want, know what you want to achieve and why and know the impact you can have if you give yourself permission: permission to prioritise you, your role, your career; and permission to not feel guilty about this.

So, we are lit up. We are working on taking a wrecking ball to the barriers we put in front of ourselves which helps us work together to overcome the other more socially and culturally constraining ones. What next?

Next, we find the right internal voice and we work out what it wants to say…(Chapter 3!)