7 Foundational Practices for a Life of Thriving Part 6: Develop Skills that Inspire You

Develop Skills that Inspire You

Benefits:

Expand Knowledge, Skills, and the Capabilities
Refine Focus and the Ability to Learn
Develop Physical Mastery
Take Pleasure in Learning
Kindle a Passion for Personal-Development
Live an Inspired Life
Create Career Opportunities
Spark a Positive Feedback Loop around Growth and Development
It’s Fun and the Progress is Visible

For all of us, there was a time when learning was absolutely joyful. Curiosity defines a period of our lives when the entire world seemed wonderful and new. Unfortunately, many people lose this sense of wonder about the time they start getting tested on their capacity to remember and produce skills. Some link pleasure to school, taking tests, and receiving feedback. As a result they pour more energy into these endeavors. But many more find taking tests and getting their results to be painful at worst, and uncomfortable at best. Unfortunately, we can come to associate getting results from tests and grades with the learning process itself. For some, this association is inspiring. For many others, it’s actively discouraging.

Nevertheless, we all care about something. Some subject has the capacity to really rev our engines and stoke our curiosity again. Developing skills that inspire us, that kindle a sense of wonder, can transform our lives. When a person finds pleasure in developing knowledge and skills, it sparks a positive feedback loop that can accelerate that person’s growth exponentially. Learning becomes a truly enjoyable activity. We see how our knowledge and skills develop and we want more of it. Practicing, reading, learning, writing, and creating also present opportunities to experience flow states. Approached this way, practice is more enjoyable than tuning out to watch television, watching movies, or surfing the web aimlessly.

Furthermore, too many people work jobs that don’t inspire them. Many jobs alienate and suck the life out of us. Often this happens because we don’t know what we’d prefer to do in the first place. But by learning about bodies of knowledge and skills that we naturally find invigorating we can come to discover where our passions lie. In this day and age it’s easier than ever to refocus on a specific subject and change the trajectory of our careers and lives. When we earn a living in an area that inspires us, work is no longer an accurate way to describe our career paths. We come to love what we do and thus our jobs actively contribute to our well-being.

Even for those who aren’t looking to change their career path or who already work in an area they love, adding to our skill set takes our self-mastery up another notch. The world is a wonderful place and there is more interesting, unique, and useful knowledge than we can ever fully take advantage of. Overall, actively developing knowledge and skills enhances our quality of life.