Inspired from a WSJ column by Elizabeth Holmes
A new year can bring new skills, but what’s getting in the way? What’s hindering you from learning new things you want to know? Children learn with open minds and fewer worries about mistakes, while adults often think through a new skill in great detail before trying. While skiing, for example, adults may want to be perfect from the start. Can we embrace faltering once in a while? Adults, when learning a new language, typically emphasize mechanics rather than conversation. Children, however, just start talking, unafraid of making mistakes. A big factor in adults’ aversion to learning is honoring the mantra of “get past my inhibitions that this may be too hard or too scary”. Life is a gift we are presented with when we are born. It is a wonderful time to explore and learn and create and be helpful to others and ourselves. What’s holding you back from learning and growing? Can you work in your yoga practice to let go of rigidity and the analytical mind and find complete freedom, eyes wide open like a child, and absorb the new skills you’d like to learn with ease? Can you allow yourself to not be perfect on the first (or 100th) try? Go Grow!
