This week, The Joy Club member and facilitator Kathy Feest shares her passion for learning something new…
Many of the young people around us are heading back to school or going off to university. It’s that lovely autumnal time of year when it’s time to consider what you’d like to do after summer has ended.
Have you wanted to do (fill in the blanks) ….or ….for ages and never got around to it? You tell yourself, now that you’re retired, this must be the time but you keep thinking about whatever it is you’d like to do and never quite begin. Whether it’s learning how to knit, or sail a small (or large!) boat, or dabble with oils or acrylics, watch out for all those gremlins sitting on your shoulder that say “what’s the point” and give you nothing but negative self talk. They may tell you “I’m never going to be any good at this”, or “I should have started to do…years ago.” Or, worse, “why bother now, I’m too old?”
The gremlins need to be dispatched. There are oh SO many reasons to begin. The joy that you discover when you peel away all the excuses for not doing something and commit to YOUR favoured interest beats all the procrastination and self doubt.
Commitment to your interest can develop in a way you would never have considered possible during the earlier part of your life. My husband was a busy hospital doctor who took up flyfishing when he retired. With a bit of encouragement from his wife (!) he joined a class where he learned to tie his own flies for his trout fishing. Now, most weeks, he spends some time on the water fishing, and off the water preparing for his new hobby. Catching fish has the added bonus of getting him outdoors where he can embrace the peace and contentment of nature aligned to an activity that he discovered, much to his surprise and delight, he thoroughly enjoys. He’s made new friends too. Another added bonus for friends and family is a never ending supply of trout which he has learned how to clean and cook. More new skills!
After the hustle and bustle of your busy working and or family life and all that entailed, you may not have had the time to focus on your personal desires. But you do now! What was it that you always wanted to do when you were younger and thought…one day….That day is now! If you need help in unearthing what you might like to do try looking at this: https://www.bristolfolkhouse.co.uk/courses-and-workshops. Scroll through the options and see what appeals. The Joy Club website is also a good place to browse to see what grabs your attention. Follow your instincts. When you’ve found something that speaks to you, look at who can provide you with an entry for whatever it is where you live.
Do you know your learning style? You may not have thought about that for a long time, if ever, and it, too, might give you a clue, not to what you want to do, but how to go about it. Are you a visual learner, or do you like things to be written down in step by step detail? Is your preferred method of learning being in a group of other people who are sharing the same experience, or do you prefer the solitude of working through new things on your own? Discovering your personal learning style might help you to stay on track, but might even give you the courage to begin to pursue whatever it is that appeals to you. This free quiz will help you unlock your style and help you to think about how you like to learn. https://www.learningstylequiz.com/.
I knew I wanted to try something new and different and after considering several options, decided to try my hand at pottery. I had no idea that I would like to work with clay! I’ve completed a twelve week course, and have signed up for another. It was hard at first. I’d become used to being an expert in my field, and in my new task I couldn’t even get the basics right. Practice and more practice helped. The concentration required when learning something new takes total focus and the rest of the worries in your life and the world disappear. Beginning something new at this stage of life brings massive rewards. There is nothing quite like the pleasure of becoming better and better at a skill you have just begun. There is no one you need impress but yourself.
A woman interviewed when she was ninety was asked if she had any regrets in her life and said, sadly, yes there was one. When she was seventy she finally had the time to take up playing the violin, something she’d always dreamed about, but thought that at age seventy she was too old. Had she started then, she would have had the pleasure of playing for twenty years! You are never too old to begin something new. Start today. Enjoy!