CREATE YOUR OWN TEMPLATE

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I recently attended an online training focused on bidding for tenders. Towards the end of the session, one of the participants made a request to the trainer who had over 25 years’ experience in this field:

"Are you able to assist us with a standard/best template which we can use when working on any future tender?"

I concurred with the participants question and looked forward to the trainer assisting with request. 

However, the feedback was not what I was expecting:

"Why are you looking for a template that was done by others?..... That is why we are teaching you so you can learn the key fundamentals and then create your own ‘best’ template according to the requirements of the tender...…. There is no perfect template to suit all situations. It is your job to create the best one based on your assessment of the situation."

His response didn't resonate well with me. I am one person who likes making use of existing work and modifying it. In my university days, whenever I had an assignment, the default setting would be to look for a copy of solutions of a similar assignment done by the seniors and use it as a blueprint for answering my assignment. We used to call this as ‘crooks’ and if it were missing, doing the assignment was terrifying though we ended up performing just as well if not better than with the aide of 'crooks'.

As I delved deeper into this subject, I realized that this scenario plays out beyond school or work assignments. This is a life struggle. 

Rather than creating our own template to suit our circumstances, we tend to look at what another person has done and copy them to the later albeit with some few changes to their plan. We simply copy and paste other people’s templates when it comes to our work, businesses, marriages, etc.

The trainer was asking us to learn about life as much as we can from those we admire and look up to (‘best templates’) and then based on the knowledge acquired; create our own template. He was telling us not to copy and paste, to plagiarize our lives.

When the trainer challenged each one to come up with an original template for tender preparation, he was advocating for originality, creativity, imagination, individualism in our work or life. To understand our tender (life situation) before coming up with a plan of action with which to respond to the situation rather than starting with a solution (copying) before understanding the problem.

To Trust ourselves and create our own best template for life!

 earlier blog on creating yourself


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