I get the question “how did you start your fitness journey?” on a regular basis. What people are really asking is “how did you learn a new habit as an adult?” So here is my step-by-step method of “How to Learn a New Thing as an Adult.” Learning as an adult is different than as a child. We’ve developed awful things like self-awareness, fear and an ego. But we also now have the ability to work smarter, not harder.
- Give yourself permission to suck at something. Now most folks in leadership have a hint of overachiever in their blood somewhere so being bad at something sounds absolutely cringe-worthy. This is one of the reasons it’s so much easier to learn when you are a child. You don’t have an ego yet. Check it at the door and tell yourself you can’t be great at something right away.
- Don’t do it alone. Find an expert who knows how to teach. Whether that is an in person paid professional or a youtube video, you will make progress when you establish the right habits and practices early on. If you try to do it all yourself you will probably waste a lot of time throwing spaghetti against wall and will get frustrated from not seeing results.
- Start small and learn how to sustain that first before building. Most people set themselves up for failure when they set a goal to do fill-in-the-blank new thing every day or even 5 days a week when first starting. Be consistent with once a week then move on to 2-3 times, etc, etc.
- Fall in love with process. I KNOW IT’S A CLICHÉ. But you have to love the journey just as much as the destination or it will be really hard to stick it out when things get difficult or you get tired or bored.
- Lastly, know the difference between discipline and motivation. You won’t always be motivated. Don’t rely on it. It is a fickle friend and tricks for staying motivated won’t always work. But your discipline will never let you down. Your discipline is the little voice inside your head that tells you it will feel worse if you DON’T follow through with something. It is the voice that reminds you to be okay with short term sacrifice for a long-term gain.
So whether it’s a leadership practice, a new hobby or a lifestyle change learning something new will require vulnerability and time, but as a very weird sarcastic old college professor of mine once said “if you aren’t busy being born, you’re busy dying.” Essentially, we were made to constantly learn and grow and seek new information becoming better versions of ourselves until the very end.
And when we become better people, we become better leaders.