At ProVantage, we believe it’s never too late to learn more about your job and grow your skills. Even if you are already great at what you do, there is always room to improve!
In the words of Arie de Geus, a business theorist, “The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”
Erika Andersen, the founding partner of Proteus International, a training firm that focuses on leadership readiness, has identified four attributes correlated with self-growth: aspiration, self-awareness, curiosity, and vulnerability.
Below are some simple mental tools anyone can develop to boost all four attributes.
It’s easy to see aspiration as either there or not. You want to learn a new skill, or you don’t. You have ambition and motivation, or you don’t. But great learners can raise their aspiration level. That’s key because everyone is guilty of sometimes resisting development, which is critical to success.
When you want to learn something, focus on the positive — what you’ll gain from learning it. Then envision a happy future in which you’re reaping those rewards.
That propels you into action. Researchers have found that shifting your focus from challenges to benefits increases your aspiration to do initially unappealing things.
When it comes to the need for learning, our assessments of ourselves —what we know and don’t know, skills we have and don’t have — can be woefully inaccurate.
People who evaluate themselves most accurately accept that their perspective is often biased or flawed and strive for greater objectivity.
This acceptance leaves them open to hearing and acting on outside opinions.
The trick is paying attention to how you talk to yourself about yourself and then questioning the validity of that “self-talk.”
Your inner voice works best when it reports the facts of a situation in a balanced way, serving as a “fair witness.” This will open you to seeing the areas for improvement and how to get there.
Curiosity makes us try something until we can do it or think about something until we understand it. Kids are relentless in their urge to learn and master. Great learners retain this childhood drive or regain it through self-talk.
Instead of focusing on initial disinterest in a new subject, curious learners ask thought-provoking questions about it and follow them up with actions.
People can increase their willingness to tackle necessary tasks by thinking how they could do the work differently to make it more interesting. In other words, they change their self-talk from “This is boring” to “I wonder if I could…?”
Once we become good or even excellent at some things, we rarely want to return to being not good at other things. The idea of being bad at something for weeks or months, feeling awkward and slow, and needing step-by-step guidance is scary.
Generally, when we’re trying something new and doing poorly at it, we think terrible thoughts such as, “I hate this,” and “I’ll never get this right; I’m so frustrated!”
Great learners allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to accept that beginner state.
Acknowledging your novice status will make you feel less foolish and more relaxed. Start asking the necessary questions, and you’ll be seen as open, interested, and eager to learn.
The ability to acquire new skills and knowledge quickly and continually is crucial to success in a world of rapid change. If you don’t currently have the aspiration, self-awareness, curiosity, and vulnerability to be an effective learner, these simple tools can help you get there. Get out there, continue learning, and work with a Spirit of Excellence!
If you’d like to read more of our blog posts, click the link below!
Originally written by Erika Anderson
Edited by Houston Hawley, Vice President of Operations
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