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A Journey of Transition: Becoming a Professional Permaculture Designer – Part 2

OK, here we go, the second installment of this series regarding my journey to become a professional permaculture designer. In my last article I touched on who I am, what I am doing and why, and discussed some general topics which included defining my services, networking and, on a very general level, the importance of examining price structures for services. As a result, I was contacted by a nice guy by the name of Scott Mann who runs a great podcast series called The Permaculture Podcast. It turned out we had a lot in common. He had also travelled the road of becoming a professional designer, and although he ended in a different stream of permaculture, the process he undertook led him to the path he is now on, that being sharing important permaculture information from various experts to a global audience. A job, I might add, that he’s doing very well! So, regardless of the outcome, the fact he took steps to becoming a designer got him to where he is now. There’s a lesson in that.

Anyhow, during the interview Scott asked me about obstacles I have encountered so far in my professional development and ways in which I have addressed these. It was a good question and I thought this might be a handy topic to concentrate on this time around.

When I reflect on the process so far, although there have been numerous obstacles, the most notable for me have been psychological — specifically those of commitment and confidence. I touched on these two hurdles in my first article but thought they warranted a bit more explanation as for me they have been so significant. My experiences so far are as follows.

Commitment. For a long time and in various forms this has been a biggie with me. For personality types like myself who could be defined as a “free spirit”, someone who likes to have countless options and likes to be able to jump on any of those the moment they seem irresistibly attractive, commitment can be hard. I mean once I have committed to taking on all the long hours and extra work to build experience, reputation and credibility, doesn’t that cut out a whole heap of other options that I might like to indulge in? And what about being judged? It takes time to become competent at different skills. If I commit and put myself out there, won’t my peers see me as some sort of fraud and ridicule my credibility? Have I got the staying power? Can’t I sit on the fence and just dabble in this when I please? Well, it depends on who you are and what you want. To not commit seems sometimes easier, but I have also noticed that once you’re committed, things start to fall into place. I suddenly have focus which stops me thinking about all the things I could be doing and instead lets me concentrate on what I am doing — where it may lead and how I’m going to go about it. It forces me to start building a method. It has given me a sense of calm and it also enables me to communicate my intent with others and to start taking action, experiencing successes and failures and feeding back into my approach an evaluation of what works and what doesn’t and how I will go about doing things as I progress.

Commitment to starting up a permaculture business has allowed me to build a meaningful timetable of how my week and month will be structured and the tasks that I need to complete in each area to establish my business. It gives me a course of action and a measure of success — i.e. am I meeting my targets or are tasks taking me longer to complete than expected? If so, do I need to reprioritise, be more efficient or be more realistic and inventive in how I get things done or am I just being slack? To get a job done and to be taken seriously, and to take yourself seriously, it helps to know how to commit. This doesn’t mean dumping everything such as other work commitments, family, friends, etc. It means deciding how much time, effort and resources you are willing to dedicate to achieving your goal and getting going on doing it. Ironically, it seems as if more options have opened up for me as a result of commitment — it’s really not that bad!

Commitment is a course of action. It means I move from thinking about things to actually doing them, which leads me to my next topic regarding obstacles: confidence.

When starting anything afresh, building confidence plays an important part. Being relatively new to permaculture and knowing I have a lot to learn has left me feeling a little light on confidence at some points. I keep thinking about how animals smell fear and that a person of two minds is unstable in all their ways… and all sorts of other potential omens both established and made up. Combine that with the fact that I am starting to get out there and let people know what I am doing, reading the doubt and cynicism in people’s responses (….or did I just imagine that?!?) and the fact that I am lacking… well, confidence, can be a bit of an Achilles heel. It has the potential to make me retract into my shell and not expose myself to criticism or risk making mistakes. But that’s not what we’re here for, is it folks. No! We’re here to ask questions, make mistakes, put our reputation on the line, accept feedback and learn as we go. I know that if we want it bad enough, we can make almost anything happen. We are as capable as the next person and with the right drive, determination, persistence, strategy and support it’s remarkable the number of self-imposed boundaries we can challenge.

So, how have I challenged the issue of building self-confidence? Planning, rehearsal and execution. By running through challenges, reviewing performance and setting new goals with Nick Huggins each week my confidence is growing and any setbacks are easier to take. A knock-back or negative response to one of my attempts to establish a network is no longer a personal attack, it’s more feedback to refine my approach and another reminder that, in business and permaculture, as with much of life, successful interactions are dependent on beneficial relationships and win-win outcomes.

For example, networking and getting what I am doing known amongst permaculture circles and a wider audience is necessary, I feel, if I plan to collaborate with and learn alongside other professionals and win jobs on an ongoing basis. Specifically, I am trying to get a Holistic Management course running here in South Australia as it is recommended as an excellent part of the permaculture tool box as a whole systems decision making tool. To date, attempts to contact various people in permaculture and land management circles have had a mixed response. Whilst some people are very willing to help out, others aren’t. Why is this? Could it be that they are busy and have other priorities, don’t think it’s a good idea, aren’t willing to collaborate, don’t know me and don’t yet value how I work, or a myriad of other reasons? I don’t need to over-examine possible motives and may never know. It makes me aware however that by planning on how I am going to make first contact with persons of interest, relay an idea or concept and gain the level of support I am seeking, I need to formulate a script or list of key messages and deliver that in a way which is concise, non-confronting and provides value or some benefit to whoever it is that I am communicating with. By putting that planning into action and making the calls (execution) I now receive feedback. It’s either positive (yes, sounds great, send me more details), negative (no thanks, please don’t talk to me again) or neutral (ambivalent or no response). Either way, it’s a chance to evaluate my performance and modify my approach using what works and noting what doesn’t, all of which is building my confidence to adapt, grow and become more professional with each attempt.

The issue of confidence has also made me think about the importance of a mission statement or a core ethic and goal by which your business is run. I see the strength of that being in the focus and as a constant reminder of the burning desire I have to achieve a specific result. I imagine it will be a foundation from which I can draw strength when I am feeling disillusioned. It can also serve as a set of goal posts that can assist me in determining whether I am remaining loyal to principles which guide my business activities. Mine is in the making but I know that whatever it is it will include my intent to collaborate with others to better the state of the environment and ensure a prosperous future for the following generations (…maybe that’s it?). Big concepts but specific in focus, concepts that I know if I focus on will bring results that I can be proud of and that also provide a vision that inspires and can be expanded upon.

Another confidence building exercise I am in the midst of with Nick is running through different quoting scenarios for a range of clients, firstly for an on-site consult and development of a concept plan and secondly, for a detailed design. By ranging the scenarios from urban to rural I am breaking down specifics of how a job will be delivered, how much that costs and how much I will charge to make a profit. It requires an understanding of what results I am trying to achieve for a client, what resources I require to deliver these results and how much time I realistically need to allocate. This process sets a baseline for how I will go about providing my service and forces me to think proactively — i.e. if I have trouble providing specific expertise how am I going to provide it and who can I get in contact with to help assist me with the job?

It gets me thinking back to when I was working with a multi-disciplinary consulting company/engineering company as an environmental consultant. I was often approached by clients and colleagues to tackle an issue that I had little experience in. The vast majority of times, when asked if I could take on whatever it was I said yes and then started planning on how I was going to do it. We had an internal network of experts however, so if a task required outside expertise I looked up the best people on that subject I could find and then gave them a call. They were generally glad of the recognition and were often happy to help out if I made it worth their while. I realize from this that as long as you are prepared to organize and manage, you shouldn’t be afraid of taking on things outside of your direct line of expertise and learning as you go… as long as you do a good job of it. I mean look at Milkwood Farm (where I did my PDC). They’re awesome! They built what they have with full knowledge of their inexperience and fast-tracked their professional development by becoming experts at teaming with the experts. In other words, if you haven’t got all the skills try teaming with others.

There are other things I’m doing to build confidence such as running pilot consults and engaging in ongoing education to broaden my skill set, but I’ll go into that another time.

Incidentally, a great reference for me has been an audio recording of Stephen R. Covey’s inspirational book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. It’s only 3 hours long and provides distilled wisdom on how to develop habits that instill confidence and independence as well as guidance on how to effectively communicate, collaborate and work with others — because at the end of the day, you’re dealing with people.

Until next time, if there’s anything readers are wondering feel free to leave a comment and I will respond as soon as I can and if anyone is interested in attending a Holistic Management course here in South Australia please let me know. I need expressions of interest to take it further. Finally, don’t forget to visit the resources section here on this website, it’s full of good templates and other valuable tools for helping you get your permaculture business up and running.

2 Comments

  1. Thanks, Dan. You just hit the 2 points where I am stuck on my Permaculture Journey. Very inspired now to take the next step. For all who sometimes get overwhelmed by the task, remember, be gentle with yourself, one step at a time, one breath at a time…

  2. Very inspiration to read as many of us are faced with just these sorts of internal struggles. Thanks for sharing your journey! Now to read your next installment!

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