Ep 4: “I never fail, I succeed or learn”

This is the fourth of five podcasts in celebration of National Apprenticeship Week 2025.

Apprenticeship podcast NAW 2025 - Ep4 - visual

Join Paula and Uzma, Apprenticeship Managers as they discuss the importance of time management and how to view failure as an opportunity, providing advice and guidance for apprentices to support wellbeing. Part of the series of podcasts developed to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week 2025.

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Transcript

Uzma Sadiq 0:00
Good morning. Morning.

Paula Sandamas 0:02
Morning. Uzma,

Uzma Sadiq 0:04
How are you? Paula,

Paula Sandamas 0:05
I'm good. Thank you. How are you?

Uzma Sadiq 0:06
I'm not too bad. Thank you. Thursday, can you believe it? Day four of a apprenticeship week. It is just buzzing by, isn't it? I'm really enjoying it. So hello to everyone. And for those of you who've already joined us for our previous podcast, welcome back, and for those who have just found us, why? Why is it taking you so long? Thank you for joining us, and please take the opportunity to listen back to some of our past podcasts from this week, and look forward to hearing from you about how you felt they've gone. But moving forward, today, we'll discuss two items, you know, around time management, but viewing failure as an opportunity, and linking this to how we can support apprentices well being. But like every day, we've had a theme, haven't we? So today's theme is, I never fail, I succeed or learn. So you're either learning or succeeding, but you're doing the same, aren't you really which is really good. So what do you think it means to never fail and succeed, to learn or learn?

Paula Sandamas 1:18
So this is about and I think it's paraphrased from a Nelson Mandela quote, but I think this is about,you know, you're succeeding or the alternative isn't a failure. Every opportunity is a learning opportunity. And we've, we spoke in one of our previous podcasts about growth mindset, so it's, it's a similar idea, but I think what we wanted to do was,you know, really hammer home the thought about understanding that you can learn from your mistakes and or learn from things thatdon't go to plan. And you know, I think we're going to be talking about this, but how that can affect your well being, and it's really important that you frame it in such a way that you know it doesn't affect you and affect your confidence or affect your ability to continue to continue to try things out and grow and and really it's just making sure that people, Yeah, frame things in that way. I don't know whether you know about this, but post it notes was a result of, it was a failed experiment. They were trying to develop something else. I don't know what that was, but they were trying to develop something else, and then through that, you know, they ended up with post it notes. And you think, how, how? You know, what a success story that is. So it's just really the way you frame it, really.

Uzma Sadiq 2:43
Yeah, so I think it's about, you know, we're going back to some of the things we've talked about, having the right mindset. It's about understanding that you're going to learn from the things that don't work out first time. And it's about finding the solution and the right solution. You know, you could it, things could work, but could you make it better, even better than that? And it's about taking the time and doing that. We're all different, and that's a positive thing, that we are different, and we embrace that, that uniqueness that we have, because that's how we will grow and learn and succeed in life. And somebody's view of achieving something and succeeding is notnecessarily somebody else's. So you've got to keep it in context, context of what you're looking at and context of your own journey,

Paula Sandamas 3:36
Looking back on my own career and some reflections there. There was a job that I did. It was a secondment that came up, that I did, and it should have been a year and and about four or five months in, I was like, this just isn't what I expected, not necessarily what I was hoping it would be. And that was a real struggle. What do I do here? You know, do Iwalk away, or do I just soldier on? And could I give it another six months? Nine months? That was a hard decision, but I did make thedecision to actually to stop. I then moved into another role. But what that then did was it opened up opportunities that I wouldn't have had if I'd have remained in that job. So I could have seen that as a failure, because I didn't see it through. But actually it just opened up the door for other things and eventually to this role, which I absolutely love, you know. So I think it's just reframing that so that it doesn't affect an impact on you because it could do, couldn't it could really affect your your well being and how you think about things. So what about you? Have you got some examples of how you've acquired that thinking?

Uzma Sadiq 4:52
Yeah, I think you're quite right. There's that element of perseverance, isn't it? Because you don't want to give up on something, and you want to make sure that you've you've done. You're at most best, and you've understood, and it reflects back on some of the things we've been talking about this week, about networking, about communicating and talking to other people. You know, when you do have challenges, you know, is it because you've not had to deal with certain challenges, and therefore talking to other people about it? Could just support could help you and support you in overcoming it, and I'm seeing things from a different perspective, but there's also the understanding that this isn't making you happy, this isn't fulfilling you, and you're not working to your best. You know you're not achieving what you set out to achieve. And I think as long as you know you've done everything you can, you know you need to take that brief step and step away sometimes, and just like you said, and it's happened many a time, it's the fact that you step away and so many other doors open for you. You have so many transferable skills, and there are so many other opportunities. So what about how that's important to your well being, then well being, I mean, no, I know it's like talked about so much, everything it's always all to do with your well being, but it is, isn't it? And we just contextualize it differently. But well being is when you're are happy to get up in the morning and come into work. You're happy to to work around the people and enjoy what you're doing. Not every day is going to be perfect, not every day is going to be a ray of sunshine and whoop, whoop. But there is still that achievement at the end of the day. You know, whether it be a small milestone or wherever it be part of the same and it's the difference you're making to especially around apprenticeships. This is what keeps me in it for so well over 10 years, working in and around apprenticeships, is that just seeing every day as as a new achievement, as a new goal, as a new,a new smile, a new step in the right direction, not just for myself, but the people around me, the apprentices, the managers, my colleagues, everything whenthings all come together. And I suppose for us, is that that goal that they've achieved, and the celebration that we have to celebrate the successes. So definitely it's...it's taken each day as it comes, and appreciating everything, but making sure you take time for yourself. Now that's part of your apprenticeship journey, that while you're on this journey, you're not alone. You've got your team, you've got us. We're there as well. And when things do get tough, talk about it. Don't keep it in absolutely and some people are better at talking about it than others. You know, it's a well known fact that women are better at talking about things than men, but you know, whatever excuse you can get, it is asking those right questions and sharing. How about you?

Paula Sandamas 7:57
I think, yeah, it's that open conversation, isn't it? If, if things aren't going to plan, you need somebody that can you can reflect with that can help you to see that actually things might not be as bad as you think they are, you know. And actually, well, that hasn't gone as you expected, but let's think about what you've learned from that and that learning, and the skills you get from that learning will stand you in good stead for the next you know, next step of your journey. So I think it's making sure that you have those people around you as you say, that you can talk to and have an honest conversation around how you're feeling about things, but also to help you see right, what positive action can we take from this that will help us to move forward? And I think it kind ofleads us on, I guess, to that whole thing that we wanted to talk about, around managing your time when it comes to our apprentices. It's always talked about, isn't it, there's so much to do. You know, there's the learning to do. You know, some people are adjusting to the workplace. There's lots of people got lots of things going on outside of work, so it's how you manage that time, and what impact that might have on your well being. So that's a really important thing we wanted to talk about. So why do you think it's so important that the apprentices kind of manage their time? And how do they go about doing that?

Uzma Sadiq 9:30
Time management can be done in so many ways. There are so many tools out there as well to manage time, apart from keeping your diary, making sure you do keep your study time your off the job hours are really important, and that's in collaboration with your manager and your colleagues to ensure that you get that time, and within that time you get the support you need. So it may just be that I need some quiet time to do my work. I can do it at home or, you know, a quiet space within the office, you know, with the facilities there. Or whether it be I need your expertise to sort of so I can understand this better, because I need it for my assignment or my learning to ensure that you make those time, that time and as far in advance as possible. So you've got a learning plan. Use it. Understand it, share it. The online tool with your ePortfolios is also another way that you can prepare for what's coming next, and when you can schedule certain learning and experiments or or tasks that need to be completed and align it with what you're learning, which is really, really important.

Paula Sandamas 10:39
Yeah, I think the conversations I often have with apprentices. It was around the protection of that time. So I think what, what seems to work quite well is if you had a set day, or maybe two half days that are dedicated to your studies. So you know, you'll probably have a set day that you do your workshops or your college day, or what have you, and build your study day around that, but have it as dedicated time, because I think this is especially important for existing staff that are doing apprentices, apprenticeships they you know, if you don't do that, there will always be a job to do, and then you find you're falling behind. So protect that time. We've got learners that they put their out of office on to say, I'm studying today, so it manages people's expectations. And I think just those small things, having that dedicated time really does help. And I think getting the line manager involved in supporting that so setting clear goals and breaking those down and working out what you want to achieve and those milestones that you talked about, I think, is a really effective way to make sure that you're, you're making the progress that you want to do. So it's, it's trying to use these tips and tricks and tools to, you know, be able to manage your time more effectively and and stay positive and have a really positive experience. Yeah, on your apprenticeship.

Uzma Sadiq 12:17
I think if I could just reflect back on, you know that with whether the early career apprentices or mid career apprentices, we have reviews with them, yeah, and we have networks with them. So it's really important to bring up anything that is bugging or or you're not understanding, or something that's, you know, that's impacting you and your journey is really important, whether that's if you're confident enough to bring up in a group, because it may be affecting other people, or you bring it up in your one to one, or we're here to help. We're here to support. You know, it's not just your mentor within your department and your manager. We're also here as well. So I think it's really important that we highlight that with our with people that are listening to us, you've got to be in the right frame of mind, and you've got to sometimes prioritize yourself and what you need to achieve. And it's okay to do that, you know, and spending some time with family, some friends. Make sure you go your holiday, make sure you eat well, you sleep well.

Paula Sandamas 13:18
So I think that's, that's what we wanted to share with you today. I hope that we've provided you with some ideas about how to manage your time, how to view failure positively, and how both of these aspects support your well being. If you want to know more about the subjects, we've provided some links to some resources in the notes and the description, and we're just hoping that you can all join us for our final day of our podcast series tomorrow to mark National Apprenticeship Week 2025 and it's Valentine's Day tomorrow, so look forward to speaking with you tomorrow.

Uzma Sadiq 13:57
Can't wait to party. Thank you. Thanks. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai