Glad to be home

As I keep mentioning in my posts, things are a changing in my life and today was a day that I have been super anxious about. I got through it but I'm glad to be home. It's a nice change from me teaching to me learning. But as I know, learning is for life, not just at school. I attended a two and a half hour course about how to use social media to find work. I'm guessing most people know how to do this, as I do, to an extent. But this also covers things like how to advertise yourself as a brand. I don't really know how that will help me but everything is worth learning.....right? There was a guy there that looked like a Shameless version of Michael Stipe from REM. He was an angry man and clearly didn't want to be there. I clocked that the moment I stepped in the room. This was not helpful for my anxiety and nerves. To cut a longish story short he got very loud and stroppy and said the whole thing is a waste of time. The tutor pointed out that if he didn't want to be here then he was welcome to leave. He wasn't quite expecting that and argued that if he left the dole would stop his benefit. However he chose to leave and I was glad. My anxiety wasn't made any easier by him. Then there was the fellow southerner, or The pub Landlord/AL Murray as I'm now going to refer to him as. He's one of those who knows everyone and everything and does all the courses at the centre so feels like he's in control of the session. He just makes himself look like a bit of a twit to be honest. He tried to make me look stupid and laughed at me during a group exercise which just confirmed he's a moron in my opinion. The worst thing though is that I think he lives on my street. He made a comment about seeing me (along with my family) walking my dog on occasions. Creepy much! As much as I'm not sure this course will help me find a job mentoring or coaching I will go to each session and hopefully the atmosphere will be a little more chilled without Michael Stipe there and if I can be quick witted enough with Al Murray it should be enough to make him realise he can't intimidate me. I'm not the most confident person in the world and my anxiety sometimes gets on top of me but I will not give him the opportunity to belittle me infront of a new group of people again.

This course is for 4 weeks. God know's how they string this out for 4 weeks. I was surprised at how long the session went on for and what little we did to be honest. But I listened with interest and took everything on board. We have some homework and have to think about our own unique selling points, or USP's as I've learned today. I have no idea where to start with that. How do I dress up my skills and qualities enough to make them sound better than someone else with the same skill set? I'll do something no doubt, but I dont like other people focusing on me. What if they don't believe what I say because of how I look or dress? What if they're secretly laughing inside and judging me? I shouldn't care because I don't know these people. But I do. I'm already worrying about it. I am trying my hardest to battle my anxiety. I've signed up to multiple courses to try and get me over the fear of being around new people. It sounds ridiculas saying I want to mentor and coach but find it hard to talk to people. But I was voluntarily coaching online in the past. It's easy to do that, and I think I was quite good at it. But being with people in actual sessions is something I'm going to find difficult, not to mention trying to get a job as a coach with no session experience. The other courses I'm attending will be CV workshop (as I have to go to contractually), an introduction to self employment, art therapy (mostly for me to chill out and take a break from all this job hunting), pathway to wellness (to help with my anxiety and confidence), find your mojo (focusing on self esteem and moving forward through interests and qualities), and tipping point (how to notice when someone is on the edge of a mental breakdown). I'll refer back to todays session when I start tipping point and use Michael Stipe as my example. I guess that's my positive from negative thing today. Inbetween all these courses I have to go to Job club, or JC group as it's now called. I'm dreading it but as I've found out over the last week or so, nothing is like it used to be "back in the day". I just hope all this effort gets me somewhere. I'm wondering how many other people have gone to courses like this and felt how I feel. I can't possibly be the only one. In fact I know I'm not. It's an impossibility. Has anyone done well from going to these types of courses and session? Or was it just a waste of time? I'm interested to find some testimonials. Bye for now. x