If you have been following my family at all, you’ve probably noticed that we’re all putting our energy back into our creativity and especially getting together our internet presence. We’re all appreciating the time home with our families, and we’re finding the energy to do what we love, too.
Computers are one of the most frustrating tools we’ve invented. Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com
As part of a conversation, we were having (over Facebook Messenger, no less) my mother was struggling to get her announcement onto her blog. I gave her a signal boost and she thanked me in a self-deprecating way saying, “I am not worthy.”
It struck that she was being unfair to herself. She was feeling inferior to me just because I could navigate Facebook better. This is a program that I’ve spent at least five times as many hours on as she has (and that’s a low-ball estimate). I’ve used multiple devices and different versions of apps for it and she’s mostly used the online interface. Add to that the fact that they just updated the layout again and it’s no wonder she was struggling to find the post she wanted to promote.
Why would she feel lesser for that difference in knowledge? I thought about myself and the things that I don’t feel I’m good at. Do I really blame myself for the knowledge I don’t have? What is it in our upbringing that makes us feel like we should automatically know everything about anything we want to do? Or makes us feel like we should know everything about things we’ve never wanted or needed to do in the past?
Would you blame your 4-year-old for not knowing how to make dinner? Would you blame a psychology professor for not being able to do brain surgery? Would you blame yourself for not knowing that a particular noise in your car means that you need to take it in to be repaired before the computer short-circuits?
Before you blame yourself for a lack of knowledge, ask yourself if you’ve needed to know it before and where you might have learned it. We’re all situational, but we’re too quick to blame ourselves for things we don’t know. Tell yourself, “I have something new to learn!” not, “Why can’t I already do this?” Try to make the conversation, “Who could I learn this from?” and not, “I could never learn how to do that.”
Motivation can be a big boost up those stairs
If the thought of learning new things intimidates you, I have a couple of suggestions. I have met many people who were nervous about learning new things, or whose last attempt at something didn’t go well. I have also met a lot of people who were confident in their ability to learn something. Of the two types of students, the ones that succeed more often are the ones who are worried. If you’re nervous, you’re more likely to pay attention and get things done on time and right the first time.
If you had a hard time learning something in the past, I suggest that you look at how you tried to learn it and see if there is a different way. Maybe you have trouble learning from a book and that online teacher basically assigned chapters and gave you quizzes for the whole semester. Maybe you have difficulty retaining things that you’ve only heard and the lecture was always on something different from the book. Maybe you just didn’t have the energy or brain space to take an advanced class in aerodynamics and you need to revisit the principles when you’ve got more time to spend on it.
What if instead of blaming ourselves for not being able to do the things we wanted to do, we realized that it’s something new to learn? More education, less self-indictment. Learning how to re-do things or do things a different way is part of it, too. Maybe you can’t do what you always did, but maybe you still can adjust the process. You might need a magnifying glass and a light to do the delicate crafting you used to do. Or maybe you can still do a larger version of that craft. Maybe you need new tools to do what you used to do in a slightly different way. Don’t be afraid of the learning curve, be excited that your skill vocabulary is expanding.
One of the ways that we can treat ourselves is to learn something new and exciting. If you’re not entirely sure you want to dive in, just go take a look at a YouTube video or a set of instructions and see how you feel about it then. If you need direction on where to look for such things, drop me a line in the comments and I’d be happy to help.
Your situation may vary!
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