I’ve recently read The score takes care of itself by Bill Walsh, claimed to be one of the best NFL coaches ever. This book is full of lessons about leadership, and one of them is learning.
“The great leaders start learning young and continue until their last breath.”
This particular sentence stayed with me and made me think about my learning journey so far. I wasn’t keen on learning till few years ago. Actually it was something I didn’t care about, I was ok with my skills and that was enough for me.
While I was taking classes, I’ve never been interested in school and consequently that reflected in my grades, I was doing just enough to pass. I faced learning as something uninteresting. School sucked away my positive feelings about learning, the opposite of its goal, I guess. But I’m not the only one, I see negativeness towards learning through a lot of people that associates learning with negative feelings much due to schools which are designed to format our minds, making us think the same and getting us distant of our own interests. That’s why almost no one I know enjoyed school lectures, the only fun was the playground time. With that being said, I’m not talking about the conventional learning process here, not either was there because I liked it, but because I had to.
I’m talking about something different, learning as something you get eager to, and that you do because you love it.
I’m talking about learning things because you care, because you’re curious about and want to go deeper and find out how things work, how things are done or want to try new things, get out of your comfort zone and see where it may take you.
I know it is not easy to commit yourself to learning, learning takes time and focus but if you really want to learn something you’ll get the time needed. You know you can spend less time watching TV, surfing on Facebook, Twitter, procrastinate less at work, organize a bit better your schedule and … boom! You’ve gained an hour or more.
Another common problem about starting the learning process is actually not knowing what we would like to learn. Some people look like they were born knowing what their interests are. Maybe some of them really do, but the majority has to look for it, have to try new things.
You need to ask questions to yourself
Think about something that catches your attention: it could be music, websites, dancing, wallets, whatever, then start searching what kind of things you’re curious about. Maybe if you are interested in wallets you are attracted to leather and you want to know what kind of types exist out there, how to work with it or maybe you have some cool idea for an internet business and you want to learn how to create a website, maybe you get interested in programming or you focus is more on design.
This is all it takes to start learning, get interested in, questioning and finding answers, one question will take you to another.
The day you start chaining questions, you’ll never stop learning
You’ll be amazed by how great the journey is, even with all the barriers you’ll certainly find.
Nowadays I can’t see life without learning, learning gives me joy and fulfillment.
I’m doing it now, getting out of my comfort zone and trying to learn something, writing.
Start learning something today.
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I’ve recently read the Jason Fried article What are questions and been inspired by it.