“You win some, you lose some,” dad used to tell me. But, I would love not having to lose at all! However, I’ve had enough experience to know that losing is the best kind of learning. It has taught me an incredible process on learning. It’s giving me me a ton of understanding how to eliminate or minimize distractions that pop up or impede me from being the best version of myself possible.
Have you ever once thought that in order to win, you have to lose? Losing has tremendous benefits. One of those benefits is learning from what not to do next time. It greatly optimizes us for the next go. I learned from losing so many races as an example. I learned I needed a stronger core and just improving my core it gave me more endurance to run faster for longer. Then I started to medal. We rarely invest in our loses, but that’s exactly what we should be doing.
Learning requires some vulnerability too. I can not imagine anyone is going to learn if they think they’re right or they have a God complex. Natural talent can only take you so far. I watched an incredible documentary on Usain Bolt that highlights this exact thing. Bolt could have just done it on his own and ignored his coach, but he didn’t. He was open to his coach, vulnerable, even when he felt he didn’t need to. The result, Bolt became one of the most accomplished sprinters for all time. With out vulnerability to learn from his coach, he’d just be another runner.
Approach your work in learning with incremental steps. I’m learning Spanish right now through an app that takes me through steps versus right to just learning. I had to learn vowels and simple sentences like, “Buenas dias.” As I went along, more advanced things were introduced to me. We go right for immersion because we’re in a hurry most times when learning. There’s a time and place for being all in, and it rarely is in the beginning of learning something new. By working incrementally we create mastery in what we’re learning.
What about disruptions? What if you approached them with less irritation and more in a mindset of learning from why they happen? Learning to roll with the punches in the midst of disruptions versus going nuclear because they happen builds resilience. You’ll need resilience to disruptions down the road as you get closer to your goal. The higher you achieve, disruptions can be less than ideal. Cultivating mental resilience will help you stay focused. Learn from your disruptions early on. Challenging our brains can only make it stronger.
Create some short pauses in your day. I’ll be putting up a podcast on The Well later today that talks about creating space. Something as simple as a 60 second pause to recover some mental cognitive space for deeper thought is a great best practice.
“Superior performers can actually make full mental recoveries in short periods of time, as short as one minute breaks between chess match rounds. Physiologists at the Human Performance Institute (HPI) in Orlando discovered that there is a physiological connection between cardiovascular interval training and the ability to quickly release stress and recover from mental exhaustion.”
– Daniel Coyle
Our routines create zones for learning. Creating powerful physiological steps to getting into learning, prepares you mind to learn. Once you have a fully developed routine you can begin to condense it down and evolve it into something even better. Our routines trigger higher performance rates when linked. Think about that as you look deeply into your own daily routines. What can you link?
Anyone can become a powerful learner. All it takes is a mind-set, perseverance, dedication to examine it, and a plan.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the kick off post to IBtP month of August which will be all about learning. With so many around the world heading into back to school mode and just wanting to return to learning, this month will be full of that as a theme.
Have a great weekend!
✌🏻 Shawn
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