Learning Something New
"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow." - Anthony J. D'Angelo.
Finding purpose in life usually requires setting goals that move you towards what truly matters. This often requires that you learn something new. The lovely thing about learning is that it can be done right up until the point where you take your last breath. "Your potential is limitless, so never stop learning, growing, and reaching for the stars." - E.L.C.
"Learning never exhausts the mind." - Leonardo da Vinci. Remaining curious about things will keep you young and interesting. The brain is stimulated and excited to find something new, although it can be overstimulated or discouraged if the subject is too hard, uninteresting, or it can't learn at its own pace. Maybe that’s how we know where to put our effort—when a subject sparks excitement and fires up our imagination. "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." -Henry David Thoreau. The accomplishment of goals does involve self-confidence, so naturally, there have to be some roadblocks to overcome. We can lose our confidence in completing our goals for many reasons- here are a few.
Mistakes- Mistakes are proof that you are trying, and trying counts. Anyone who has ever been great at anything had to try. As we go through life, we often get punished for making mistakes, and that seems to lead to a fear-of-error mindset, which in turn keeps us constantly striving not to make one. "You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and by falling over." - Richard Branson. We actually learn more from mistakes than we do from success, although it is not nearly as pleasant. How you view your mistakes, as a positive or a negative, depends on your attitude. "Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but to see quickly how to make them good." - Bertolt Brecht. Creative thinking is nothing more than a good attitude about overcoming obstacles, and some of our best inventions come about this way.
Fear- Fear can be crippling and stop us from trying to learn something new. Fear of looking stupid, fear of ridicule or the loss of love from people who think the way they do things is the best, and fear of failing. "Don't fear failure... in great attempts it is glorious even to fail." - Bruce Lee. There are seasons in our lives when we are fearless and seasons when we are scared to try. This ebb and flow of courage needs to be recognized, and we need to be gentle on ourselves when we sense its waning and ask ourselves, "What is it I am afraid of losing?" "Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again." - Reinhold Niebuhr.
Giving up- "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas A. Edison. Success at anything requires consistency, and staying good at something we've learned also requires that we keep doing it. "The rule of 100: If you spend 100 hours a year in any discipline (which is only 18 minutes a day), you'll be better than 95% of the world in that discipline. Consistency is everything." - unknown. Just keep at it. That is much braver than doing nothing.
Embarrassed that your first attempts are flawed- "The world only celebrates the fruit, but root work is important too." - unknown. The fruit of genius is a blessing to mankind and something to be admired. While few of us will ever reach that degree of mastery, there is joy and satisfaction to be found in trying. Your attempts do not need to be perfect for you to enjoy the process, but getting embarrassed can keep you from finishing your learning. I know this feeling personally. I have been the oldest person in classes (including the teacher) many times, and I must say that it hurts my pride when I understand certain subjects more slowly than the rest of the class. I finally decided that I would just have to accept that I was not 20 anymore and that it was alright to be the class idiot for something that I really wanted to know. "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." - Norman Vincent Peale. A sense of humor will take you a long way in this situation.
Another confidence killer is finding that you are unable to understand or connect with the way the material is being presented. Sometimes, we really want to learn something, and the person who is trying to teach it to us thinks very differently from us. This can make you feel unintelligent, especially when most other people in the class understand. "Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Often attributed to Albert Einstein. It is best not to judge yourself too harshly in this situation and keep searching for a teacher who presents the material in a way that makes sense to you. Lucky for us, we can do this with the internet, which gives us many different types of teachers who present subjects in many different ways. It is a great time to learn!
I hope that you are curious about everything and that that curiosity leads you to learn or try something new. "The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and foolish failing there is." - Stephen Fry. Start first by examining your reasons for not trying to learn something you would really like to know how to do. Studying your mind, the stories it likes to create, your ego, and your environment is worth the effort. "Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity." - Aaron Swartz.
"Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form." - unknown. To keep learning is to rage against the machine. It is an act of defiance in the face of aging, conformity, and traditions. Learning is refusing to go quietly into the night. "It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. It is only when you are constantly inquiring, constantly observing, constantly learning, that you find truth." - unknown. The push to learn more about other people, places, and things, or to learn a new skill, will enrich your life and lift the world. When you choose to keep learning, you choose growth, wonder, and possibility. Keep going!
Love and Hope,
Big Sky Baby