Can you remember how you learnt to write your name or how to walk? Probably not! When we’re children, we learn many skills with ease. However as adults, learning new things becomes a little trickier, partly because our brains are not developing at the same lightning speed as they used to, but also because we’ve got more fears and thoughts in the way.
To begin learning a new skill, and to stick with the learning process until we become confident and proficient, requires a certain set of qualities, such as patience, presence, determination and self-compassion. These are all qualities which flourish when we practice mindfulness!
Being a Patient Student
We tend to become inspired to learn a new skill – such as creative writing, knitting or a new language – when we see the products of people who have already learnt those skills. For example, we might read an amazing book and think to ourselves, ‘Wow, I’d love to be able to write like that!’ So from the very start, our aims are high.
Being ambitious is not a problem in itself; however it can sometimes make us impatient. We want to be a good writer/fluent in Spanish/an expert in crochet right now. But when we’re solely focussed on outcomes, we miss the opportunity to find joy in the learning.
Learning takes time, and requires many small steps. We’re bound to make mistakes and produce things that we’re not happy with. Our ‘failures’ may make us feel that we are no good at what we’re doing. But if we can practice mindful learning, we can start to enjoy the process itself, and can maybe even let go of needing our results to be of a certain quality in order for us to feel happy. We can do this by becoming more centred in the present moment.
Learning Starts Here
By pausing and taking a few conscious breaths, we discover that this moment right here is where all future things begin. The past is gone, and the future hasn’t happened yet – all we have is this moment. So what small steps can we take right now that will help us progress towards our goals?
If we take the creative writing example, what we could do right now might be to read an article on how to begin writing, we could sign up for a workshop or a course, or we could simply start writing and explore what comes to us. Whatever it is that we do, we can try and be present in doing this first simple step. We can do our best to be content with where we are at this moment in our learning journey, and trust that our combination of intention and action will eventually take us to where we want go. If we find our minds wandering onto ideas or fantasies about how we want the future to be, we can simply pause again, take a few more breaths, and settle back into where we are right now.
Staying Determined
Speak to any expert in any field and they will (if they’re honest!) tell you that they faced many hurdles on their journey to where they are now. For every bestselling novel, there will be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of words of text which were thrown away out of frustration or rejected by publishers. For every invention there will be many unusable prototypes which came before. For every beautiful cardigan, there will be many tangles of wool! Success is built on past failures. So how can mindfulness help us deal with these set-backs, and help keep us on track with our learning?
First of all, practicing mindfulness can help us take ourselves out of the equation a little. When we are mindful, we can more easily reframe our experiences, so that rather than constantly being in emotional reaction to life, we can detach a little and see things more clearly. Rather than seeing our failures as being indicative of our personal worth, we can create some space to see that our failures are simply steps towards becoming good at what we’re doing.
Of course we will inevitably feel disheartened, frustrated, or doubtful of ourselves at times. These are experiences that we share with the whole human race. Yet, we can always return to this moment and start again.
A Nurturing Attitude
Anyone who can remember being criticised by a parent, teacher or peers will know how important encouragement is, and how painful it can be when we don’t receive it. Overly critical people can really put a dent in our self-confidence, and can affect our belief in ourselves for many years. Generally we tend to be encouraging to others in their creative or academic pursuits, yet how often do we afford ourselves the same amount of support?
Self-compassion is really important when we’re learning a new skill, not only so that we can be kind to ourselves when we make mistakes, but also so that we can see when we have achieved something. Self-compassion is all about nurturing and caring for ourselves. By developing a nurturing mindset, we’re more likely to progress, and enjoy the process of learning.
Next time you achieve something, why not congratulate yourself as you would a good friend who had achieved the same thing? Maybe you could even treat yourself in some way, to acknowledge that what you’ve done has value.
Find out more about our mindfulness courses and workshops, including Mindful Journaling.
