Your Defining Moment

We all have them; our own personal stories that define who we are.

In some HS Leadership training courses that I have ran, I've shared a personal story about my first real experience of feeling the impact of being responsible for the health and safety of others.

I was a young manager, responsible for managing a small, high-hazard chemical plant, with a team of 18 people. Early one afternoon, one of my supervisors rushed into my office and said 'Ray's had an accident........ he's on his way to hospital!' Even after all these years, I can still remember the thoughts that ran through my head as he left my office; is he okay? Who should I call? What do I do next? How did this happen?

Fortunately, Ray's injury was not too serious; a minor chemical burn to his ankle that required only first aid treatment, and he returned to work. However, the injury and my reactions to it left a distinct mark on me, particularly that uncomfortable feeling of being responsible and not knowing what to do. Despite my company being large and having significant resources, at that stage in my career, I hadn't received any formal HS Leadership training. So, from that point forward, I started my education journey in HS leadership, a journey that still continues today.

When reflecting on my personal story, it struck me how important it can be for us to remind ourselves why we set out on the path that we have chosen to follow. Our personal stories often contain 'defining' moments; events, circumstances or experiences that profoundly change the way we approach our career, i.e. they generate a future pathway or a 'calling'. Whilst our 'defining' moments are unique, they are all the same in that they have framed the world that we now work in. They helped to make us the person that we have become.

It's useful to reflect on our 'defining' moment from time to time, to see whether we have become the person that we wanted to be. In our mind, the moment was clear and the actions or changes that we took were guaranteed to deliver the outcomes that we sought. But there are many influences and influencers on our journey towards the person that we wanted to become, and sometimes, they hinder or distract us, so that we lose our way.

Taking time to think about our 'defining' moments, particularly when we feel disconnected from our objectives, helps us to reset and get back on the path that will lead us to the person that we want to be.