by Caroline Leach | Jan 31, 2016 | Careers, Change, Learning
When you’re learning something new, there’s often an expectation that you’ll pick it up easily. That it will be smooth sailing. That you won’t skip a beat.
After all, the world moves faster every day. The competitive landscape is more intense than ever. Time is in short supply. It’s one sprint after another to learn what you need to know. Learning curves can feel like vertical climbs.
But when in your life have you learned something new and performed it perfectly right from the start?
As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the book Outliers: The Story of Success, it takes about 10,000 hours to master a skill.
The hard part is the feeling of incompetence that comes along with learning. Two things happened this week that made me think more about being bad at something new.
First was reading the work of Erika Andersen in an HBR post, which was the subject of my blog post yesterday. She wrote about how to identify the next skills you should learn.
In that was an angle on having to be bad at something before you can be good. The important thing, Andersen says, is to continue on through the bad phase so you can get to the good.
In fact, it’s the subject of her new book coming out this winter called Be Bad First: Get Good at Things Fast to Stay Ready for the Future. Sign me up. The pre-ordered book will download on my Kindle app on March 8.
In a Forbes post that may have inspired the book, she gives great strategies for How to Get Good at Things By Being Bad First. One of them is managing your self talk and being deliberately encouraging in how you speak to yourself.
That brings me to the second thing that happened this week. I’ve been trying different yoga classes, looking for 2 to do consistently each week. In addition to the serenity, stretching and balance benefits, I’m training to do paddle board yoga in the spring and summer.
And I’m moving through being bad into being good. One of my yoga instructors gave me a little smile this week when I at last managed to transition into Warrior II with the correct arm in front.
And my first experience with stand up paddle boarding last fall left me with a patch of broken skin on my thumb from holding the paddle the wrong way. The skin healed, and I figured out a better way to paddle.
Something the teacher in yesterday’s yoga class said made a big impression on me. He advised us not to condemn, judge or demand. If we let go of these mindsets and expectations, we will be calmer and happier.
These could apply to others. They could also apply to ourselves. By letting go of judging ourselves and demanding perfection, we are more free to experiment and learn.
That’s what Andersen is saying too. Most everyone will be bad at something when they first start. But by having faith in your ability to persevere and learn what you need to know, you can get good.
Another great book, What To Do When You’re New by Keith Rollag gives strategies for you to perform new things in front of people who aren’t familiar to you. Focusing on learning and getting better, rather than being good right away, is a great tip.
And his HBR article on being new gives good guidance on asking questions: consider what you want and why, determine whom to ask and if the time is right, ask short to-the-point questions and express thanks.
It’s humbling to recognize what you don’t know and what you need to learn. To try to ask the right questions, even when you don’t know what you don’t know. To take a crack at doing the new task. To learn from and recover from the inevitable mistakes. To start building competence.
This is what I’m doing in my new career role in marketing. This is how I navigate new community leadership roles. And this is how I approach my exercise classes. It’s not easy, but I keep moving forward.
As I learned from my yoga teacher, don’t judge yourself or demand perfection. Be kind to yourself and let yourself experiment. You’ll achieve much more, much faster and much better than you ever thought you could.
by Caroline Leach | Jan 30, 2016 | Change, Learning, Work/Life
With the torrential pace of change in our world, how will you decide what you need to learn this year?
Even if you’re not tackling a new job as I am, every field is changing rapidly. This makes lifelong learning an imperative for all of us.
Richard Bolles had an early inkling of this. While he’s better known as the bestselling author of the annually updated What Color is Your Parachute?, he also wrote The Three Boxes of Life.
In it he argued that we should not think about our lives in a linear fashion of education followed by work followed by retirement.
Instead, he advocated that all 3 boxes of life should be woven through every stage of our lives. This has never been more true than today, nearly four decades after the book was published.
Our education has to continue in parallel with our careers. For those who loved formal schooling, as I did, this is welcome news.
And for those who didn’t, there are many new ways of learning – by online courses, by doing and by observing, to name a few – that can make it more fun and intuitive.
And weaving in elements of retirement with its passion projects, travel and leisure refreshes and inspires us. This is why what we do on weekends is so important.
Thinking about all the things I need to learn in my new role, a Harvard Business Review post by Erika Andersen caught my eye this week.
How to Decide What Skill to Work On Next gives a great framework to focus your learning efforts. Andersen links the framework of Jim Collins‘ hedgehog concept from Good to Great with learning.
Collins found that great organizations have 3 areas of focus:
- What drives their economic engine
- What they can be the best in the world at, and
- What they’re most passionate about.
Linking that with learning, Andersen advocates asking yourself these questions:
- How can you learn and grow in a way that will help your company succeed? What will drive the bottom line?
- Of those areas, which ones could you become excellent at? If you’re good at similar things, those are ideal starting points.
- How passionate are you about those areas? And she shows that passion can be learned by looking at the benefits to learning and how it will create a better future for you.
This is not only a manageable and efficient way of making a personal learning plan, but it’s also inspiring and exciting.
It’s helping me narrow my focus and pick the highest-impact areas in my learning project. And it’s reassuring to know that I don’t have to learn everything, right away.
Like so many things in life, it’s about identifying the highest priority areas, taking initial actions, assessing progress and course correcting. It’s taking steps forward, day after day.
by Caroline Leach | Jan 8, 2016 | Change, Work/Life
How’s your life going a week into the new year?
Are you firing on all cylinders? Energized by your dreams of creating change in your life? Or does it feel like ages ago that you embraced a bright, shiny new year, with all its possibilities?
Perhaps we’re expecting too much from a single day. Perhaps we’re trying to do too much. Or perhaps we didn’t plan for life’s unexpected twists and turns.
But perhaps New Year’s Day is as much as state of mind as it is a date on the calendar. How could you bring a New Year’s sensibility to all of your days? Here are a few ideas.
Set yourself up for success the night before. Wrap up your tasks for the day. Note your priority actions for tomorrow. Straighten up your surroundings. Pack a delicious lunch. Set out the stuff you’ll need for tomorrow. Get a good night’s sleep.
Have a plan. Don’t put everything on your list for the day. When I do that, my eyes glaze over and I don’t know where to begin. Start with 3 to 5 priority tasks. Pick one to tackle first thing. Your most difficult one. Preferably in a 60- to 90-minute uninterrupted block of time.
Expect the unexpected. When you over schedule, there’s no slack in the day to roll with the punches. This week, for example, we (finally) had rain in Southern California. That meant traffic was heavier and more time was needed to get to the office. Plan some unplanned time to make up the difference.
Enjoy the adventure. Take in the sights and sounds of your surroundings. Look up from your smartphone. Look people in the eye, smile and say hello. Be present and make note of what’s happening from moment to moment.
Stop the doom loop. If you hear yourself spiraling into a sea of negativity, tell yourself to stop. Replace those thoughts with more positive, optimistic ones. If you feel embarrassed about a mistake you’ve made, remember that most people are thinking about themselves and won’t even notice.
Cut yourself some slack. Focus on the good in your day. Remind yourself of what you did accomplish (hopefully your top 3 – 5 priorities), rather than what you didn’t. Speaking of “priorities,” did you know when the word first entered the English language in the 14th century, it was singular? That’s right. You could only have one priority. Not multiple ones, as we have today.
Be kind to yourself — and others. Often we can get so wrapped up in our own challenges, that we fail to notice others are struggling with the same things. Or even more difficult problems than our own. It’s safe to assume that everyone we come in contact with is carrying a heavy load. Be nice to them. Smile. Offer a kind word. That goes for you, too.
Act the way you want to feel. This is my favorite of the “Secrets of Adulthood” from Gretchen Rubin and The Happiness Project. If you want to feel happy, start acting that way. If you want to feel grateful, think about your blessings. If you want to feel more positive and optimistic, start acting that way. It takes a deliberate choice and less than a minute of your time. That’s a pretty good return.
Remember that today is your new year’s day. And tomorrow. And the day after that. Make it count. Make a difference. Make it fun. Because all of our new year’s days add up to our lives. What kind of a life are you living? You don’t have to meet every last goal for yourself before you start enjoying it. Decide to make each moment special, for yourself and everyone around you.
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