Facilitating My First Self-Development Course – 5 Reasons It Has Been More Challenging Than I had Expected

I am a self-development junkie. I have been for the past fifteen years.  I remember registering for my first Landmark Education course in New York City in 2006.  It was an intense three and a half day journey where we were guided to look into our past to identify why we are the way we are. Essentially, to discover what makes our monkey mind say what it says to us so that we no longer have to be controlled by it or, possibly, even transform its narrative.

During the course, I endured many emotionally jarring self-reflection exercises, forced paired sharing, and multiple assignments over eleven hour days, and I soaked it all up.  I guess it is just how I am wired. I love exploring areas in my life that are working and those that are not, and tapping into principles, exercises, and tools to further develop myself.  This initial Landmark Education forum kickstarted a self-work obsession that has lasted for a decade and a half, leading me to enroll in retreats, courses, workshops, seminars, webinars, taster sessions, etc., and reading every self-development book of note. 

I have recently toned down this obsession and channelized my intense desire for development towards a particular path versus devouring any and all interesting growth opportunities that show up in my world.  However, it should come as no surprise that my first, yet to be published, book that I have written will eventually be found in the non-fiction ‘self-help' section of a bookstore. The book creates a strong argument for why one should seek vocations aligned with their passion, purpose, and superpowers.  It also helps the readers identify these core internal components of their higher selves and guides them through the process of how to secure a job that leads to deep personal and professional fulfillment. 

I took the core learnings in the book to create an eight session journey of self-discovery that I could deliver for my post-graduate students at the Global Institute of Sports Business.  I spent many weeks coming up with the course objectives, organizing the content, and curating beautiful PowerPoint slides.  I also watched hours of Ted Talks and chose the eight talks that I felt were perfectly aligned with each of the weekly messages.  I delivered the course to myself and a few trusted advisors, incorporated feedback, and created comprehensive facilitator speaking notes to follow during each session. 

I have taught a few courses for post-graduate students before. Not just for the students of the program I run in Mumbai, but for MBA students in other India-based institutes as well. These past experiences were always academic courses. While not easy, I always pulled them off as I was clear on the subject matter I had to deliver and made best efforts to lead the sessions in an interactive and engaging way. I was not always passionate about the content, especially when I was teaching marketing strategy for forty-five hours over three months.  However, I am someone who gets energy when I am ‘on stage’ and typically finds a way to be effective when given the opportunity to share a message with an audience of interested listeners.  

These positive past experiences combined with my immense enthusiasm for self-development made me 100% sure that my self-discovery course would blow my students’ minds.  That it would be the course that most profoundly impacts their lives.  That not one student would miss a single session, that they would be on camera the entire time and would fully participate in the reflection exercises.  

Boy, was I was wrong.  I have completed six sessions with two more to go, and I can confidently say that I overestimated the immediate receptivity the students would have to the self-reflection journey I had so proficiently designed for them.  I have been experiencing 75% attendance with 25% of the attending students off-camera.  I have to pull answers out of them, and it is still unclear what is happening when I put the students into breakout rooms to reflect and share.  Also, only some of the students are doing their weekly assignments, and just a few have reached out to me directly to share their updates or request support.  

I am not going to lie. I have been dancing between frustration and sadness over the past six weeks of delivering this course. Frustration, because I just do not know why the students have not been able to see the value of what I am trying to teach them. And sadness, as a part of me, fears that either the content is not good, or I am a terrible facilitator, or both. A part of me chose to write this blog post as a way to self-medicate. Essentially, so that I do not spend a single extra moment going back and trying to figure out where I went wrong with the design and delivery of the course. An exercise that would lead me to revise most of the slides for the remaining sessions with the hope that I get a more positive response when I deliver them.  

I have been reading a book called Range by David Epstein. There was a section in the book that I read yesterday describing research conducted where scientists were monitoring multiple classrooms to identify the effectiveness of various teaching styles. Some of the teachers taught the formulas and offered regular prompts, which the students followed to get immediate positive results. Other teachers taught the concepts, which led to some students achieving correct answers and some not.  Not surprisingly, the teachers who taught the formulas received better student feedback than those focused on concepts and teaching the students how to think.  The extraordinary part of the research, though, was that the students who learned concepts were much more successful over time, even if their immediate learning experience was not always positive.  

Reading this section gave me some hope that I may not be a terrible facilitator after all.  Maybe I am just trying to teach the students how to think and reflect, which is not always welcomed by a generation of individuals used to being spoon-fed information in classrooms that can be regurgitated when required.  I reflected on this more, and it generated a bit of compassion for myself as I thought back through my first run as a foundation course facilitator at GISB.  I also came up with the following five reasons I believe this experience has been much harder than expected.  

#1 Self-reflection is a lifetime journey – I only started really looking at my life when I was twenty-six years old. And, to be honest, this reflection was prompted by a few challenging life circumstances that I was dealing with, which led me to begin asking some existential questions that no one could answer.  Also, I chose to self-reflect; reflection did not choose me. So thinking that I can just force a group of twenty-something year olds to self-reflect and develop meaningful personal insights over the course of a few weeks is a bit presumptuous.

#2 The course has been delivered online versus in-class – Due to Covid-19, the course has been delivered online instead of in our state-of-the-art campus in Mumbai.  Online learning, while still impactful, is a challenge for all parties involved.  I love being in front of people, connecting, listening, and sharing.  Speaking to several small boxes, or to my own presentation when slide sharing is on, is not conducive to creating an environment that allows for deep intimacy, honesty, and impact.  

#3 The results of planting seeds are only seen in the future – I am definitely planting seeds. Helping the students understand the importance of self-reflection and how the insights that arise can guide them in creating a fulfilling professional life. I cannot expect that they will develop the insights and implement them with full enthusiasm immediately. This is not practical, nor is it sustainable.  No, the planted seeds are now within their beings and will sprout whenever they are meant to sprout for that particular person.

#4 Teaching self-reflection to a full class is not as effective as individual or small-group interaction – This work is not meant to be taught to a full class. Each student is at a different stage in their journey of self-development, so the information they are learning will land differently for each one.  This makes group coaching hard for the facilitator and breakout room exercises frustrating for some of the students. The most effective way to deliver a course like this would be in small groups with individual coaching sessions included as a part of the journey. Something that I will keep in mind in the future.  

#5 This is my first time facilitating this course – I am so impatient.  I believe that I should be the best at everything that I am committed to, on the first go.  I know that this is not how life works, but I seem to forget each time I attempt something new, which I feel I should ace. It takes practice, on-the-court experiences in order to improve and, eventually, master something.  I quickly forget how many years of coaching and practice it took for me to become a decent footballer. Or the thousands of pages that I have written until I can now say that I am an effective writer. Heck, I have worked in the sports marketing arena for two decades and still regularly question the value I actually provide to the industry.  

Wow, I feel better. I guess this was more of a therapy session for me than a blog post, but that’s the beauty of having your own platform.  You can write whatever you want and people can choose to read it or not.  I hope that if any fledgling or insecure teachers or facilitators read this, they get some comfort knowing that they are not alone. And also realize that they may be having a profound impact on their students; it is just that the real fruits of their engagement may not be visible for many years to come.  For me, I look forward to powerfully delivering sessions #7 & #8 to my students, requesting honest feedback (and being open to what is being said), and getting my content and confidence in check for the next time I facilitate this self-discovery journey.