This week’s thought is for all the learners.
If you’re learning something new at the moment and feeling frustrated or beating yourself up because you’re not nailing it as quickly as you would like or you’re losing your confidence and starting to feel hopeless and incompetent, maybe even worthless, then read on.
Rather than getting annoyed at yourself and focusing on all the things you can’t do yet or calling yourself all kinds of negative names, instead think of what you are learning as if you were learning to cook a new recipe.
A friend recommends a recipe. You taste the food at their place and it is delicious.
You decide to have a go at making the dish.
You buy the ingredients.
You follow the recipe.
Ugh! It doesn’t quite turn out the same.
Do you give up?
No. You analyse what you can do to improve it and you try again.
Here’s an example.
I was making an omelette. I haven’t cooked an omelette for a long time and the first omelette was burnt on the bottom and burnt on the top but not quite cooked in the middle. (I put the pan under the grill to cook the top.)
Anyway, I didn’t throw a fit. I didn’t yell and scream and curse and throw myself on the floor (which I have done when I haven’t quite nailed technology the first time or learned a new script).
I started thinking about how I could improve the recipe, or more particularly, my method.
I experimented.
I used a bigger frypan the next time.
This spread the egg over a greater distance and the result was a perfectly cooked omelette.
Next time you don’t quite nail what you are learning and practising, please think of the omelette.
Look to see what is working and what you have learned and then without emotion, look to see what you could do to improve.
Become curious and enjoy the learning process.
When you do, not only will you learn faster, you’ll get a better result.
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