The human being is on a journey of unending discoveries.
If you take a short trip back in time, you’ll find that you always had, and knew just enough for the stage of life you were in, yet you had no trouble picking up new skills and information along the way.
At some point, all you knew to do was crawl until you needed to learn to walk. Then you learned to walk, talk, run, count, and jump until you mastered them.
Sadly, with time, people tend to lose this super ability to grow by picking up what they need as they go. It’s almost like they forget how to be human. Then they wonder why they can’t seem to get anything done outside of school.
There are a few reasons why this happens.
Mindset.
The mindset you had as a child is very much different from what you currently have.
You almost always felt the need to learn something new because you were “just a child.” Almost like it was the duty of the child to learn stuff.
This feeling of duty is what made you power through the learning phase even when it wasn’t palatable. Your mind was open and receptive to the fact that you had to learn.
Then you grew up and thought you had finally arrived — you had figured out all you needed to and no one could tell you anything new. After all, it’s not the job of the adult to learn stuff.
The Need For A Manual.
You most likely lost this superpower long before you realized it. The school system was designed to teach you how to memorize answers as opposed to learning to figure them out yourself.
Since the school offered a step-by-step manual for surviving and doing well, all you had to do was follow the instructions and you’d be fine. You only had to do as you were told.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t operate that way which is why you only realize you’ve lost your superpower when you get out of school. Without a manual, life expects you to just figure stuff out.
Fear.
Figuring stuff out means that you are going to be wrong before you’re right.
Many people can’t stand the thought of being wrong or failing. Again, school has taught them that failing is bad. They’d rather stay in their comfort zone, continue to crawl rather than try to learn to walk and fall a few times.
This fear of being wrong can keep you away from all the growth you should experience. Imagine choosing not to learn to walk because you saw other kids try and fall.
Imagine you tried a few times and got tired of falling, then chose to just keep crawling.
You have been taught not to fail all through your life but the only way to innovate is by failing with commitment until you succeed.
Moving Forward.
Most of what we do as humans start from the mind.
An open mind is the fuel that drives you beyond your wildest imaginations.
You cannot outgrow learning like it is tied to a certain age bracket. So how do you change your mindset, learn to seek out answers, and overcome fear? The answer is very simple.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Lao Tzu
It is important to learn how to start.
Habits take time to form but can be started in an instant.
When trying to change, people often focus on the milestone and finish line when they should be more focused on the starting line.
For example, instead of focusing on writing a book, why not try to just be a writer. Every time you sit down to write, you’re being a writer.
By focusing on just being a writer, and doing it consistently over time, you are able to build a body of work without the headache of trying to figure it all out at the beginning.
Your first writeup would not be perfect. The focus should not be on being perfect but on getting stuff done consistently.
Consistency is learning to get started over and over again.
The way to become that person you’ve always wanted to become is by taking actions and accumulating evidence for that identity. The things you do regularly accumulate the bulk of the evidence for what you believe about yourself.
Your identity emerges out of the habits you have. The way to build habits is to do stuff. The way to do stuff is to start.
Start, every day!
Culled from my weekly newsletter.