So here we are again, in transition. There have been countless waves of change since I last captured my own thoughts; back in August 2020. Jeepers. I have enough distance on 2021 to reflect on the shifts that happened and capture where things are headed. So to put it simply, in 2021 I lost my mojo and resigned from my role as Executive Director at Asia Education Foundation. More broadly I think many people lost their mojo, including children.
Mojo is defined as the sense of possessing a magic charm or spell, a kind of talisman that gives one a sense of skill and luck in the moment. I believe everyone has some kind of magic power, where they excel effortlessly, lost in creativity, charisma, and the driven belief that they can achieve what they want. A kind of unshakable confidence. In Japanese it might be called ‘genki – a sense of spirit and vigour.
I consider myself fortunate to have spanned a number of different roles in education over the last 24 years that have sparked my mojo. It hasn’t been conventional, and that’s exactly how I like it. I’ve been drawn to different systems driving learning and education built on new ideas and approaches, accompanied by a team of dynamic and fun folk. At Eltham College City Campus, at Nous Group, at the State Library of Victoria, at NoTosh, and at Asia Education Foundation. They all connected me to new insights and networks, and at the same time pushed me to shape how I interacted and operated. Like all transitions, my mojo peaked and plummeted throughout these experiences. Experiences add to your mojo, but they can also take it away. I can pinpoint distinct times when my mojo was high – where my creative influence drove collective success and tangible outcomes. And I’ve become wiser by reflecting on when my mojo was depleted – where my sense of purpose and impact was lacking. The same can apply (and has applied) to teams too.
Copyright Asia Education Foundation. Used with permission.
These shifts often coincided with a change in my employment. They also signalled moments when I needed to completely detach and decompress. I’ve posted about this before in ‘What transition taught me‘, identifying five insights that help create a shift in finding that next purposeful endeavour. Which is where I’m again at – making space to explore and invest in myself. If you can, I highly recommend not jumping straight into the next job. Give yourself the permission to rediscover who you are and what you stand for.
I would say that I started to fray in July 2021. I’d been wrestling with ongoing bursitis in my right shoulder – it’s a very painful deep tissue injury. I then got it in my left shoulder, and I recently had it sourced to an upper spinal problem. Not exercising or stretching enough, and too much desk-time on a laptop had taken its toll. Things I am investing in correcting now. It’s an absolute given that your physical condition affects your mental and vice versa. You often don’t realise it at the time, but in retrospect all the signs were there. The toll of two-years crisis-management, the need to ‘innovate’, the tensions of leadership, the bureaucracy of a complex organisation (ie. a cog in a big university), and the needs of staff and sustainability had become a compounding burden. I’ve always been able to navigate these things relatively well, but in July 2021 I realised I’d lost my creativity.
It was also around this time that I also sought out counselling. I’ve never been very good with talking about my mental state, I’ve tended to keep those things private. And probably being a pig-headed male that pretends everything’s fine, when it’s not. And just being scared to be vulnerable – something that Brene Brown’s recent book, Atlas of the Heart, highlights well (my notes on the book are here). The counselling was very helpful. It allowed me to contextualise and verbalise what I sensed was going on around me, with an objective listener, who later counselled me in how to deal with burnout. I didn’t realise burnout was an actual condition, but indeed I had all the hallmarks. Loss of motivation, negativity, sleeplessness, anxiety, and overworking.
Recognising the signs and triggers was so helpful in dealing with my physical and mental state. By September I played out two scenarios. Continue tackling the goals in my work at AEF for at least another year, or wrap-up and leave. I spent a week living with each decision, giving myself the context to see how each pathway felt. It become clear that wrapping-up at the end of 2021 was the better choice all round. I was proud that AEF was in a good position even after the challenges we’d been through, and the AEF team was as strong as ever. I loved my job and everything that it enabled me to do, change, and influence, but I just wasn’t well enough to continue. Now that it’s March 2022, I know I made the right decision. New opportunities are exciting me and I am investing in my fitness, my thinking, and my family much more deeply.
This transition reminded me of a wonderful talk Marcus Veerman gave at Do Lectures Australia in 2015 – Listen to Your Mojo Meter. Marcus’ Playground Ideas organisation had achieved amazing things, but it came with it’s own personal costs. He has since started a new incredible venture called Nudel Kart that I was so proud to have integrated into our work at AEF, which facilitated shared play to school children in Australia and Asia. As Marcus so aptly said in his talk – “Balance your roots and your wings”.
Our mojo is about more than just wellbeing and wellness, but they play a big part. It’s keeping that creative spark alive. It’s knowing you can navigate uncertainty. It’s having supportive people around you. These elements might also be why many other people joined ‘the great resignation’ in 2021. I often think about how children must have fared, especially my own. They didn’t have much of a choice. It’s not as simple for children to ‘resign’ from school. I witnessed the mojo draining from my children (Year 6 and Year 11) as online delivery copied more of what traditional teaching had been doing than taking things in clever new directions. But it’s clear that many teachers lost their mojo too. Our education system seems to be depleting mojo rather than replenishing it. The ripples are everywhere.
With the distance and decompression I’ve had these past couple of months, I feel my strength, vigour, and drive returning. I have reclaimed the mojo that can help education get more of its own mojo back. This is the longest break I’ve had in 8 years. It was time to reset. Without that fire in the belly you can become a hindrance. Knowing that you’re losing your mojo takes wisdom. Getting it back takes a change of pace.