Have you ever asked yourself how your life or your work will look if you would try to get out of your comfort zone and make things look a bit different? For a long, long time I was the kind of man doing things alone, without any help. Any help from others was a disgust for me because I was not so open to others’ suggestions for me and my work. I used to ignore any advice from others even if it came from close friends or family members. Let me tell you how I’ve changed on this line when a little meeting in Swiss Alps made the things look different.
Collaboration began to make sense for me when I started planning my own project, Changing worlds by changing schools. It’s about bullying in high schools. The reason I’m doing it, is to stop, as far as possible, bullying in high schools from my community, a problem which has affected me, in some extense, and also a problem that happens every year, in almost every school/high school and still without solving in my home city. I didn’t know too much about projects and I had no clear solution related to my problem. Then I learned to ask for others’ help, to collaborate with others in what I do. I presented my project idea to some facilitators and they helped me to reach my solution through the advice they have given me. I had also some suggestions from some participants, I can call them friends, when I told them about my project idea. They suggested me some useful solutions and they also helped me with the constructive feedback I received from them.
Looking for help to others, my project became real. With the results obtained from facilitators, I have improved my project management skills and I learned how to reach a clear solution. The suggestions from the participants and also their feedback helped me to improve my project idea and to solve what I was doing wrong. Solutions for the issue raised by my project came to light and when I was needed to make a presentation, my idea was successful.
So, even if you have to learn for an exam or to put together your own project, everything is easier in collaboration with others. You do not have to always do things by yourself. It’s not always you, it might be us.
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This blog post was written by Petre, a NOW Journey participant from Romania
