Mental Alchemy - Turn Failures into Successes
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -Alvin Toffler
I tried growing vegetables, they died. Now I'm done with gardening, I won't ever be able to grow anything.
As adults, we appear to have a resilience and learning problem. I've started hearing different variations of that sentence above from countless people. This is a ridiculous mindset to have and it really needs to change.
Think back to when you were a kid or look at your own kids. When you were learning to walk, did you fall down once and never ever try again? Nope, kids try over and over and over and over until they get it down - regardless of the injuries incurred along the way. When you were in school, did you fail a test and completely give up on school? Nope, your teacher (hopefully) kept pushing you to do better next time. When you were learning different sports or musical instruments did you give up when you sucked at it on day one? Nope, everyone sucks at everything the very first time they try something. Hopefully a coach or mentor kept pushing you along to do better. When you were just starting out in the workforce, did you freak out when it was totally different from what you thought it would be and realized your college education was almost useless? Nope, you adapted, learned quickly and did what you needed to do to survive. Resiliency and learning are the only reasons you've made it this far in life.
As we start adulting more and more, this horrendous thing seems to happen where we sssssslowly lose our resiliency and forget how to learn until one-day we have gotten so comfortable and complicit with our ordinary lives that we have lost all resilience and cannot learn anything new. If you fall victim to this without realizing it then all hope is lost for you and you shall slowly slip deeper and deeper into the bowels of old age until you don't have the slightest idea what is going on anymore. I have great news for you though, you can get out of this rut and reverse this mindset!