Nikki encourages us to step outside our comfort zone
When a celebrity gets voted out on Strictly Come Dancing, in their closing speech I am always struck by how much they value; not just having learnt to dance, but also how much they have learnt about themselves through the process. The Strictly Come Dancing rollercoaster is of course a journey that they have chosen to weather – a thrilling and exhausting rollercoaster requiring grit, determination and tremendous resilience.
Opening our mind to learning requires a stepping outside of our ‘comfort zone’ and is not something that should cease upon leaving school. Children and young people often look to adults as ‘experts’ and ‘all knowing’; so there is great value in adults acknowledging skills or traits they would like to get better at and modelling how to go about this.
In seeking out and exploring opportunities to learn new things, we:
• Acknowledge that we have room to grow
• Step out of our comfort zone …. And then step back in
• Experience vulnerability in tolerable amounts
• Journey through the uncomfortable sense of ‘not knowing’ or being a ‘conscious incompetent’
• Explore what styles of learning suit us best as individuals
• Create opportunities for laughter in diffusing the awkwardness of not knowing
• Engage and connect with others
• Value the time by ourselves
• Start to feel more at ease with the sense of not knowing/being the best
• Revisit and reflect upon past experiences of disappointment and comparison to others
• Develop resilience in having to learn how to improve through practice
• Discover how to set realistic goals
• Start to feel small glimmers of achievement and accomplishment
• Carve new expectations of ourselves
• Grow and fulfil unmet potential
• Shape a new image of ourselves
• Uncover how much more there is to you than you imagined
In attempting or immersing ourselves in learning tasks, whether it be an activity class, visiting a museum, listening to a podcast or experimenting with a new recipe (it doesn’t need to be costly), we can experience concentration that is different to every day demands. In allowing our thoughts to focus solely on an activity the process can be very therapeutic and serve as a mental refresher.
I invite you to give a few moments consideration to things you’d really like to learn and explore how you can set about this … talk with friends – they might like to give it a go too.
Sources:
https://www.nhsinform.scot/healthy-living/mental-wellbeing/improve-mental-wellbeing-by-learning-new-things/
