What single item are you working on at the present time that is new to you and you have little to no previous expertise/experience? I suspect that the majority of people will answer in the negative and that is a shame. We should always be striving to learn new things to expand our experiences and build self-confidence. It seems to me that a few things are contributing to humans learning less and failing to try learning new areas in their life:
The increased specialization of our jobs has most of us increasing knowledge in our area of expertise to be ‘even better.’ Hiring firms increasingly want a broad range of skills wrapped around specific expertise. I learned a long time ago that an engineer that could fix any computer problem and couldn’t communicate it to the customer was failing - in a few cases, a ‘communicator’ was required to assist the expert.
The availability of people to cover all of the areas we are lacking skills in - there is someone waiting to charge you to do what you don’t want to learn how to do. We are consuming services at an increasing rate - generally faster than we are buying things. Look at Nextdoor (Neighborhood social media platform) postings - a constant stream of inquiries that could be handled with a sense of self-confidence and a few hours of study.
The availability of entertainment takes away the time needed to study/learn new areas. Distractions are a better term and our world is full of them. I am reminded of talking to a young person who was using a popular game that had you playing the guitar by following a graphic image on the screen. After determining that he had spent hundreds of hours playing this game, I asked him why didn’t he just learn to play the guitar? He didn’t have an answer…
I am an expert at trying to learn things that normal people would enter cautiously or not at all. Sometimes, I need a hired expert to fix what I have made a mess of, but…
Some of my recent endeavors:
Trying to revive a dormant (10 years) landscape lighting and drip system at a neighbor’s house - I do not know how or where all the lines go but I am digging in…literally.
Learning to use an eink (tablet that you can write on) device - thought I was done with computers but…the company now has me on their beta team (a 70 yr old!).
Rebuilding a 53 Willys Jeep - I don’t understand cars well but a Jeep is pretty simple - the same reason many men are rebuilding old tractors.
Learning how to do a video podcast.
Learning writing and bibliography software - never knew these existed - thought everyone just wrote on MS Word.
I suggest that when embarking on these projects of learning new skills, find friends who can help - I know someone who really understands video/photography and he was able to steer me in the right direction (speeds learning). As a side benefit, it helps me connect to old friends that I need to talk to - it makes my day. And I suspect that he enjoys sharing his knowledge of an area that he has developed on his own over many years. One friend of mine collects tools and he enjoys sharing one with me to ‘get the job done.’ I called one friend of mine to discuss getting a new Apple to replace my aging one that was out of memory - he quickly told me how I could upgrade my memory and gain another few years of usage - it was fun and rewarding tearing my laptop apart and gaining 1TB of storage.
Take an inventory of what you are currently learning - if it is nothing, dive in!
“Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will.” — Vernon Howard
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” — Henry Ford
“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” — Carl Rogers
"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." — Oliver Wendell Holmes
Many things have always occupied my list of things to master. Learning is only a piece of mastery, it's sort of like a glove is to chopping firewood. Putting on the glove is important but of itself it provides no wood.
Many things have always occupied my list of things to master. Learning is only a piece of mastery, it's sort of like a glove is to chopping firewood. Putting on the glove is important but of itself it provides no wood.
Active projects:
Photoshop
Evernote
Apple to Android conversion
Hubitat to??