It’s back-to-school season! Are you ready to learn?
Let’s reframe learning: it’s not a luxurious alternative to results, but the KEY to results. You just have to be willing to go along for the journey.
It’s a momentous week for us in the Martin household. Our oldest daughter’s last day of pre-school is today, and kindergarten starts in a week. While this is giving me all sorts of feels, the one that I wanted to share with you is – wow, how cool is it that she gets to learn all day!?
In our go-go business world, what percentage of your conversations are about results? Achievement? “Go faster, work harder, why aren’t you done yet??” What we tend to be asked less often is, “what are you learning
Could learning be something we not only get to do from age 5-18 in the classroom, but something we could experience every single day, for our whole adult lives?
Work is certainly more fun when approached this way. But it also just…works better. In fact, I’m going to throw down a wager: Learning is THE essential skill of achieving sustainable levels of high performance. You might be able to pull off success for awhile by working late nights or signing up for that paid version of ChatGPT. Sure, if you put enough resources and focus on something it’s probably going to improve. But what next? How are you going to stay ahead? There are only so many hours in the day and so much money in the bank!
The good news is, all the tools you need are already within you. The trick is to use your everyday experiences as a chance to observe, notice, test, and draw new insights about how things really work.
The most innovative people and organizations I know have a few things in common:
They are keen observers of the world around them. They notice details the rest of us might miss
They take a curious, open stance on these observations. They ask, “Huh, I wonder what’s going on there?”
They play with new options, and they TRY THEM OUT. That’s right, the only way to gain NEW knowledge about how the world works is to tap those grade-school science skills. They ask, “What do you think would happen if you did X? Let’s go see!”
Their feelings aren’t hurt when their idea doesn’t work (see my previous post on learning from failures)
They take time to reflect after an experiment. They take pictures, draw, journal, and discuss. They ask, “What do I make of all this?”
If you’re wistful for the days of shiny new crayons and pink circus cookies in your lunchbox, I invite you to remember, you can still learn every day. What will you choose to observe today? How will you use what you notice to glean new insights about how the world works? What will you laugh at yourself for getting wrong?
It’s hard to slow down and avoid the distractions, to give your brain the time to reflect like this. If you wish you had more time for learning, or could get better at learning, check out my “back-to-school” coaching offer. It’s never too late to cultivate your wonder and curiosity! And I bet you might just find yourself realizing those results, with half the stress.
Strap on your backpack, no permission slips required. We’re headed to the learning zone!