In this week's edition of "A Coffee Break of Inspirational Leadership," the focus is on learning to love your learning curves.
Does like make you feel a little better than love?
We can all learn to like taking on something new, or even doing something for the first time. Think yoga, boba tea, running a half marathon, taking on a new project with a huge learning curve, or meditating. The first time.....maybe your face scrunched up and you thought "Really? All this for that?" And in time you realized the learning curve wasn't too bad...that the yoga soreness goes away more quickly in time, the project at work was actually enjoyable, and your 30 second phase of mind wandering during meditation stretched to five minutes!
But how do you do it?
No one expects you to be perfect at the real endeavors at the start (from here on out, let's take boba off the list and focus on the work/task components). The first time you created an Excel spreadsheet was frustrating and probably took ten times longer than it did after a couple of months. Take running. No sane person goes out, runs a half marathon after no training, and enjoys it. Its all about the learning curve!
Learning curves. We all have them. Its that time it takes to learn something and be good at it, and we may never get to the "great phase." Many times in life good needs to be enough and that's where understanding learning curves and their value comes in.
Over the years as a school administrator, I've had to face a lot of learning curves. Sometimes I've had to relearn as skills became rusty, and other times I had to relearn because the scenario changed. Maybe your journey in life is like mine. I'm ever learning, ever growing, ever changing. I'm not perfect and I try to positively embrace my shortcomings and do something about them. In the professional world, I'm sure you attempt to have the same outlook - grown, learn, aim to be better, focus of efficacy.
At times, the learning and growing phase has its down side. We stumble. We fumble (sometimes literally). And we expect a faster assimilation into the new activity, sport, or task.
Guess what? It's not reasonable. And most of the time no one expects that level of perfection from you that you expect from yourself. Unless you're a brain surgeon, in which case I doubt you'd be reading this blog.
Embracing our own learning curves often means we need to learn how to manage our self-respect and our own expectations. Self-compassion and a high level of commitment to self- care means being harder on the issue and softer on the person.
And you know what else? You are the person.
And guess what else? That curve can have its up's and down's but your approach, my approach, is all about the acceptance of the responsiveness and patience that come with it.
Keep reading, watching and sharing....and make it a great week!
* Read it.
Love this article. Short and sweet about saying yes to new challenges and embracing the growth that comes with it. Just say YES!
How high can you bounce? Challenges are inevitable. Tell me this video doesn't motivate AND help you reestablish a reasonable perspective on how you define impossible. Or difficult. Or challenging.
* Share it.
Can you print these and share them? Notes to colleagues on key topics like confidence, gratitude, appreciation....here you go.
Now go slay yet another week!
