16/03/2024
Tip of the day 58: You can be good at anything you choose to
We’ve all heard that saying “You can do anything you put your mind to”. And scientifically, it’s practically true!
Now, if your goal is to become the world’s fastest sprinter or best tennis player, there are factors others than motivation that need to be taken into consideration. However, for the majority of us our goals are likely much more conservative. You might have thought of yourself as someone who’s terrible at maths, or languages, or the arts…. and therefore you never tried to excel in those areas. You tell yourself that you’re not good at that and you likely don’t even try.
But science suggests that our brains have enormous capacity for growth in a new skill. It’s known as neuro plasticity and we can vastly improve a skill by persevering and consciously practising a new skill.
Maybe you always thought of yourself as someone who’s not sporty, but if you wanted to be sporty, you can be! It doesn’t matter if you never did sports before, what matters is you care to develop that skill and make an effort to progress a little every time you try. It won’t be long before you feel stronger.
If it makes you feel good and you enjoy the process, and even if you don’t, but you’re determined to change that for your mental/physical wellbeing, by investing your time and energy into something, you’ll grow more than you thought you could. (Although perhaps not in ways you thought you would!)
If you’re a parent, your child(ren) seeing you habitually putting yourself into the Stretch Zone (just outside of your comfort zone, probably failing at it frequently initially) is a real gift to them. It teaches them that failing isn’t the end of the road, it’s part of the journey.
You’re not too old or bad at something to learn something new. You deserve to go on the journey of potentially finding a new joy in your life.
Learn a new language, do your first run, learn how to do the rubix cube. You don’t need to master, you’ll gain a lot more than just a skill/knowledge, I promise you!