The inspiration for this month’s blog is a rather bumpy skate on the pond last week.
1. Find or Fine-tune Your Personal Learning Tools
As I shuffled across the ice barely keeping pace with my three year old (who was having her first outing on the ice ever!), I had to give myself a bit of a pep talk. Positive self talk has always been an important tool for me and my ability to use it grows every time I put myself in a situation that is new, challenging or out of my comfort zone. This was no exception. I had to recognize what was happening in my body (heart racing, sweating), take some deep breaths and remind myself I could do this. Since it was a large pond and no one was nearby, I was actually able to give myself a pep talk out loud, including reminding myself of some key coaching points (bend the knees, push down into the ice). This allowed me to take the lead from my three old, who was attacking the task fearlessly, and generally get myself into a better head space to access the skills I had been learning in my lessons.
2. Find Your Wing-People
Another obvious change in the context of Rink vs Pond was my lack of wing-women. When I am in our Sunday morning lessons at the rink, I not only have an encouraging, knowledgeable coach, I also have several other learners all cheering me on. Whenever one of us does one tiny new move correctly, the group is cheering like we just skated in the Olympics. It’s very positive and a great learning environment. I would wager a bet that most adult learning environments are like this because everyone is likely feeling challenged, has their own motivation for being there, and wants to create a positive learning environment. Seems like a great place to find some wing-people to me.
3. Feel Humbled
As adults we have likely found some things we are good at, and take pride in doing them either as part of our job or hobbies we enjoy. It feels good to do something well. When you challenge yourself to learn something new, you are quite quickly reminded that everyone is a learner depending on the context. This is a great reminder for contexts where I feel confident and skilled, to remind me that others may be in different stages of learning.
I used to be suggested this blog by my cousin. I’m no longer sure whether or not this post is written through him as no one else know such exact about my difficulty. You are amazing! Thanks!
Great content! Keep up the good work!
Thank you and welcome to the community!