I seem to find myself in a near perpetual state of training and development.
It took several years of learning about the world of stand up comedy by promoting a pub gig and doing other bits of booking and agenting before I could make a living from booking acts professionally as I do now. But rather than consolidating that position but looking for more and more work I have continued to devote large swathes of my time to unpaid activity.
Getting involved with the heavily peer development orientated Project X Presents has been a big part of that in the last three years offering me development in terms of responsibililty, engagement in a range of different areas and the sheer breadth of the ideas that it embraces.
Also my recent progress as a composer/songwriter has involved hours and hours of unpaid effort but has been very satisfying in terms of developing skills, self expression and the creation of a body of work.
I guess all I can really do is find the right balance for myself at the present time, tho sometimes I think in terms of reaching a point – a levelling out in which I will swap the joys of self development for financial security and stability.
On the other hand it may well be that I carry on this way forever. I dont believe life has an end point (apart from the obvious one) – and Im not sure I will ever want to stop so explicitly engaging with my personal developement.
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