​From Lone Wolf to Team Player - Navigating the Symphony of Collaboration in Life

Image by malcolm west from Pixabay

For much of the last couple of decades of my life I have, by necessity, been somewhat of a lone wolf. To use some UK slang, it’s been “heads down, bums up” in the parenting department in particular, while initially juggling a corporate career and then laterally navigating a particularly gnarly separation and dealing with life post-split with kids living between two homes.

Now that I’ve spent the time examining and integrating those experiences, a huge amount of personal growth has taken place and I have started to attract healthier relationships in all walks of life and feel quite settled and supported by people who understand and accept me more deeply.

In short, there’s more space to turn towards my purpose. So when a close friend of mine was facilitating a public Family Constellations session and it was my turn to look at what I wanted to dive deeper into, I was explaining how torn I feel about how to progress. In particular I have been resisting the coaching work I’ve been doing, and am good at.

Having asked me about the things I had been contemplating and wrangling with, I then expressed my deepest desire to be part of a team – a healthy, functional team –she expressed her surprise that the lone wolf wanted to run with a pack.

My friend has not known me in the times I’ve thrived as part of a work team. The last team I worked and flourished with was fourteen years ago. We were a small team, working on a large transformational project we all very much believed in. Each of us had very different personalities, with varying strengths, values and beliefs, but there was respect and trust and we were usually able to navigate tricky issues and come out stronger.

While I now have a burgeoning team mate in my personal life, many of life’s lessons in the “heads down, bums up” phase of my life were attached to learning healthy boundaries. The teachers of those lessons of course came in the shape of both personal and professional unhealthy relationships and team dynamics.

So it was profoundly interesting to have those solo versus collaborative parts of me represented by others in the Family Constellations work. It helped me to see the intricacies of what I was feeling far more clearly.

I'm definitely more motivated around others, there’s a kind of effervescence I feel when there is that synergy between like-minded and like-hearted people. It's why younger me loved swimming; I was part of a great team with a great coach. It's got a lot to do with why I left too, certain people left and the team dynamic changed, my heart was no longer in it.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the independence of managing my own workload and work times, and I like working with my clients’ one on one, but the more that comes from a great team is majestic. It's why I always loved medical dramas like House and Private Practice as they worked together in teams to help people. Private Practice was a great example of individual specialists working with their patients and clients, but they would discuss case loads and look for the synergies.

I always look at one of my healthcare practitioners sideward when they say they don't discuss clients with each other to protect confidentiality, I think they're missing a trick. I would love it if my various healthcare providers sat around the table to look at me more holistically; I can well imagine issues getting understood and ironed out far faster.

My friend thinks I’d make a wonderful Family Constellations facilitator, but that’s not what I feel called to. I love turning up as a participant, doing my part representing for others, but I haven't got the inclination to organise or facilitate in anything in that field. I love my own work, and prefer to refer people to other practitioners who specialize in things I don’t when needed – and wouldn’t that be all the better if it were in collaboration?

Having also mentioned I have a hankering to be involved in some sort of think tank around evolving education and healthcare, my friend also recommended a place called Heart Place Hospital who holistically resource frontline healthcare and educational professionals. I had a good poke around their website and they look to be doing some fantastic work.

It certainly piqued my interest, if somewhere like Heart Place Hospital developed a large enough reach - or if there were enough versions of this type of service with a big enough reach collectively - then those clients would be exactly the right kinds of people to sit down with, along with holistic and alternative healthcare and educational practitioners, to create a vision of a different future; that's the bit I'd love to be part of.

My various experiences have taught me that, while a team of people collaborating can most definitely achieve more than the sum of its parts, knowing my own interests, values, skill set, strengths, experience, gifts, beliefs and limitations are really important when contemplating being part of a team. For any collaboration to work it’s important to be clear about my role and that of others, and have healthy boundaries around it.

As this all played out in the Family Constellations session, I got to see more clearly that, while the part of me that works with clients loves collaboration, there’s also very distinctly a part of me that enjoys and needs time alone to recharge and practice self care, and that is okay.

Oftentimes in the past I’ve lost myself to the teams I’ve been a part of, giving far too much without taking time to recharge my own batteries. Some people can do that with just a good night’s sleep, but for me – especially while juggling so many roles in my life – it’s important to have time to contemplate, meditate, keep fit and healthy and spend time relaxing in my own company as well as with friends and loved ones.

Are there areas where you thrive as a lone wolf, and others where you yearn to be part of a team? Remember, the power of collaboration lies not only in achieving more together but also in understanding and honouring our individual needs and strengths. Here’s to creating a world where we can all thrive – whether as lone wolves, team players, or a harmonious blend of both. Together let’s continue exploring the transformative potential of collaboration in our personal and professional lives.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Want to Make a Heartfelt Change to Your Career?, Weave Words Like Wands - Confessions of a Sarcastic Perfectionist, Break Free: The Honour, Privilege, Exhaustion and Horror of Being Mum, Is the Role for Managers Redundant in Today’s World?, What or Who Reminds You of How Good it Feels to Feel Good? and Embrace Your Authentic Self, Shed the Toxic People in Your Life. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.