Why is it learning new skills can be scary? Many of us tend to pull back and stay within our comfort zone, this can feel much Safer. However it is only by stretching ourselves doing things that we resist and recoil from that we stretch and grow. There are many new things to learn, new experiences to encounter.
Whilst we continue to experience new things we are expanding. If we refuse to encounter new experiences our world becomes narrower and smaller year after year, until we are a shadow of our former self. (This can happen too in relationships if there is no give and take, and one person dictates on all issues).
This may sound extreme but I know someone who has let this happen. He gave up work due to ill-health, his pain has gradually reduced his world so that he hardly ventures out, certainly not for long. He has lost touch with his friends and work mates and just having workmen into his home creates a panic attack as his “world” is being disrupted. How sad to reach this situation. His “world” now consists of his home and his family members and little else.
This to some extend happens to many with ill-health, also the ageing population can be victims. This could be why some older people develop dementia and other health problems. With no stimulus to the brain and little exercise and little contact with others loneliness creeps in. The desire to do less and less, plus the lack of interesting company and their view of life becomes smaller and lonelier as self-esteem diminishes.
So be warned stretch your boundaries, learn new things, stimulate your body and your mind with exercise. Enjoy the beauty of the countryside. Make new friends, start new hobbies, and keep growing. Plan for your retirement, you wait ling enough for its arrival, make it an exciting adventure worth waiting for.
There are many hobbies you could explore, the one that I have chosen is affiliate marketing, (which can become a business if you wish, and developed to any size). This has given me time and location freedom, I can work at home, even winter in the sun. (Three goals satisfied as one)! It has offered me endless things to learn and continues to do so. Yes it has been scary as I am not a “natural” at computer tasks, in fact I am a technophobe! It has been a struggle on many occasions but there is great satisfaction when new tasks are mastered.
I am determined to keep my world expanding despite a few hiccups along the way, like a knee and spinal fracture followed by weeks of vertigo, but these will pass and once again I will be fit and active. I’m told Tia Chi is excellent for restoring balance problems, so learning Tia Chi is my next project. I have seen advertised what appears to be simple Tia Chi moves taught as balance exercises on DVD’s. So that may be the answer, meanwhile there are many helpful videos on YouTube.
Have you heard the latest horrifying statistics re balance problems causing the elderly to trip and fall. 50% of people reaching 85 are likely to fall every year!
So start new hobbies keep your mind and body healthy and enjoy the rest of your life. Wishing all my readers a happy healthy prosperous future.
Books to read:
“Awaken the Giant Within” by Anthony Robbins
“Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”
Learning New Skills Will Keep Your Business Alive
Trying new ideas and learning new skills can be quite daunting for many people. The older you are, the less likely you are to move out of your comfort zone and explore new approaches. There is no question that older people do take longer learning new skills, but that is no reason not to keep up to date with new technology and approaches, particularly if you are running a home based business.
Therefore, in your business planning, you need to set aside time to self educate and take on some of the new ideas to help both you and your business to grow. If you are still saying to yourself “I’m too old to learn this” let me assure you, if I can do it, so can you.
Online learning is so easy to slot into your days tasks that I don’t know why more people do not take advantage of this solution. It certainly beats finding time to attend a course at another destination. I remember the longest training session I undertook when learning new skills, was an entire week. I went through every video and read every page of text. But what made it so much more relevant for me was as well as this, I put every step into action so that I could see just what it should turn out like. I also paid an extra fee for three months which allowed me to ask questions and get additional support and assistance as I progressed.
Now this was initially meant to help me to set up my websites more as marketing tools, but it ended up changing my entire business approach. I started showing others how to achieve the same results as it had not taken long for me to show proof of how well it worked, as I had a number of my websites appear listed on page one of Google without me having to pay for any SEO support.
Learning new skills now, includes looking at how to utilise videos to replace (or at least strongly enhance) my normal newsletters. These days we receive so many emails that we often do not read the marketing ones at all. It seems that if your email is actually in the form of a short video, it is more likely to be viewed.
Home based business operators seldom take on employees, for a number of reasons:
- They do not want strangers in their homes
- The council may have regulations that do not allow employees
- The workload load is scattered and it is difficult to find someone who will fit your needs
Many of us know about virtual assistants (VA) but tend not to use them because they are still pretty expensive for what we can afford. So, I investigated how to utilise some off sure, online support and was amazed at what I could get for as low as 30c per task! Learning new skills for this program was relatively easy, though I did make a few mistakes at firs!
One of the things I do, once I have gone through the process of learning new skills, is to share them with as many people as I can so that I can encourage them to ‘give it a go’ and not to be afraid of change or to lack confidence when trying to learn new skills.
