How do we learn?

When you are learning to walk as a kid, how does that process happen?

Trial and error right? Babies try to stand, pull themselves up on furniture, fall down and try again. Adults usually encourage this process hugely – in fact it is a pivotal moment in life when a child takes his or her first steps. By definition, kids learning to walk are learning a new skill, something previously unknown to them. They have a goal in mind, however unconscious and that is to stand and walk. Perhaps its genetic, but they are encouraged in this endeavour, virtually unconditionally.

So when does this change? Consider how we learn as adults. Any of this sound familiar?

- We are afraid to try something new because we might not be good at it
- What if we make a fool of ourselves?
- I tried it once and failed so I won’t try again

And how are we conditioned into this by our (often well-meaning) adult contempories? Sometimes they encourage us to try things, but not always. In work for example, is there a culture of blame (“Whose idea was THAT?”). Do our families seek to try and protect us? (“Are you sure you want to move across the country? you don’t know anyone there”)

Also we have a little internal voice that doesn’t always serve us. It says things like: ‘Don’t try that in case you fail and everyone will laugh at you’ and ‘to try that is risky – better to stay with what you know’

The good news is that this inner voice can be silenced, or at least reduced and we can get back to childlike learning. Set yourself a goal that is really important to you (learning to walk for a baby) and pursue that goal relentlessly (spend many hours trying to walk) via small, intermediate goals (crawling, pulling yourself up on furniture, standing, one step, many steps) and most importantly try again if the first attempt isn’t successful.

Remind yourself of how a kid looks when they achieve their goal and think how that can translate into adult goal achievement.

Make the decision!

Decision making can appear difficult. How do you make decisions?

Often we weigh up the pros and cons of making a decision. What are the possible outcomes? What could go wrong? Who should we seek advice from before deciding and so on?

When I left the UK to move to Kansas City there was a huge amount to do. My family and I were changing countries, jobs, schools. We left family and friends and headed for a very unfamiliar situation. As I look back on it now there were a lot of reasons NOT to make the move we made, but we overcame them because we had a goal in mind.

So what’s the point? We might not have made the move if we had thought about all the diffculties and challenges we faced and tried to anticipate every eventuality. That’s not to say we didin’t plan. We did. Extensively! The point is the decision was made and so we had to make it work. We had to overcome challenges. If something unexpected happened we adapted to it and moved on.

The point is that once a decision is made you can plan on the basis of your chosen path. Things may change but the decision is made. You make a decision based on the best available evidence and then make it happen rather than agonise over whether it was “correct” or not.

Perhaps making a decision isn’t quite as complex as I thought!

Let’s dance

I have a passion in my life that contributes hugely to my personal work-life balance. Not baseball or tennis as discussed in these pages before (although they help too) but dance. When my wife and I were living in the UK we danced 2 to 3 times per week and it was great exercise, social interaction and challenging fun.

Since we moved to the US we have lost this connection – until now! We have set up a dance business to bring our particular style of dance (called modern Jive) to a new audience. We were asked to teach to a local middle school that was holding a week of health and wellness awareness.

We approached this with some trepidation (at least I did) since 14 and 15 year olds are not groups we have taught before. We rehearsed long into the night and had everything set. Result? We had a great time but the best laid plans went out the window after about 10 minutes! I think everyone enjoyed it much more and we were glad we had planned even though we had to change our teaching plans as we went.

Life lessons? The decision to do something is really empowering. Once the decision is made it is just a question of how to get it done. There are steps to getting to the goal including planning and preparation. However don’t expect everything to go exactly as planned – with the goal in mind (i.e. getting these kids to a) have fun and b) learn a new form of exercise) we were able to change things that weren’t working and stay focussed.

It would have been easier not to do these classes. It wasn’t our target audience, we were inexperienced in this area, the venue wasn’t ideal, we didn’t know how we would be received etc etc. Just doing it overcame all these things and once completed it added immeasurably to our experience and that is something we can take forward into our dance business and indeed future opportunities in other areas of our lives.

Don’t believe everything you think

I’m back after a break last week, a week where I had some insights through my coaching colleagues.

The title of this post came from my coaching group and helps me to examine my own personal belief system (that I have spoken about here before!) . The point is that we are often our own worst critics – far worse than outsiders. I wondered how this actually serves us? Here’s an example:

I was in a one to one conversation with a trusted friend and coaching colleague and we were talking about the sales process, what was working etc. Without realising it I mentioned how difficult I found something – not once but three times did I say that in about 2 minutes.

My colleague pointed this out. This raised my awareness that this is a belief I had, and that my behavior was colored as a result. I was able then to think of this difficult task in a different way, one that was much more motivating.

The point of this simple illustration is that I was able to re-examine my thoughts and beliefs and change them so they were more empowering, more motivating and my outward appearance was far more dynamic and positive as a result. The difficult thing became easier in my mind (although the nature of the task hasn’t changed of course!).

So…. I recommend you don’t believe everything you think to be true, especially if those thoughts are not helping you. It’s not easy – I am a coach and I needed a coaching colleague to help me raise this awareness. by questioning what you think, you really can change those thoughts and make them more helpful to you.

To close: Its around 5 weeks to Baseball Spring training. I need to hold onto the belief that the Royals will be better this year………..

New Year resolutions

It’s that time of year when many of us look at our goals for the coming year. Hopefully these will build on the successes we achieved last year, making 2007 our best year yet.

Resolutions have the same elements as goals. Many will be familiar with goal setting, and what makes for achievable goals – the so called SMART goals:

Specific – want to lose weight? How much weight do you want to lose? Having a vague goal to “lose weight” is not particularly motivational. Will losing a pound do it for you? This may be too easy, whereas if you are looking to lose 50 pounds that may be an excellent target although how does that relate to the following elements of goal setting. Perhaps your resolution is to grow your business. What does that mean specifically for you? More customers, increased revenues, more staff, bigger profits etc.

Measurable – How will you know when you get there? Related to the sepcificity of the goal. You will know when you have lost 50 pounds and you can track your progress towards it.

Agreed – whose goal is it? Are you fully bought into what you want to do? Are you trying to give up smoking because you really want to, or because of pressure from others? What do you truly want from your business in terms of lifestyle, time spent in the office versus time with family, income etc. Is that what you want or what your peers are telling you you should do?

Realistic – it may seem motivational at the start but having a goal to lose 50 pounds in 2 weeks maybe setting you up to fail. Having a goal to lose 2 pounds a week until you reach your ultimate goal (i.e. sub-goals) may be more realistic. In business terms the same applies – what can realistically be achieved with the time and resources available?

Time bound – When will you do it? When will you see results? Without this part of the goal equation it is unlikely you will get started never mind reach the finish line. Again it needs to be realistic but when you track progress over time success will more likely follow.

Good luck!