One of the things I love about my job is that it’s constantly changing, which means I need to keep learning all the time. As children and young people start back at school, college and university I’m reflecting on this need to learn all through life. This is the first year in a very long time when we don’t have a child in full time education, both our daughters are now gainfully employed, which is wonderful! I am sure, however, that they will both keep learning and growing in their chosen life paths, and I hope we have modelled that approach effectively for them.
I gained a new perspective on this from a very inspirational lady called Liz, who I met this summer. We booked a two day sailing course to prepare for a flotilla holiday we are planning as soon as Covid permits, and Liz was our teacher and skipper. She teaches sailing to those like us who are lucky enough to be able to afford these courses, but her real passion is her work with a charity which provides sailing experiences for disadvantaged and disabled teenagers. We had a fabulous weekend and Liz was a really wonderful teacher. When I told her so at the end of the course she confided in us one of the things she does to help her in her teaching role. She tries to learn a new skill every year, I think she said this year’s was crochet, and the reason she does that is that it reminds her how hard it is to learn something new, and that helps her when she’s teaching people to sail. I love that, and, as a trainer, I’ve decided to try to adopt this for myself. So this autumn I’m signing up for a dinghy sailing course at a local water park, so that I can learn to sail properly, and I’m really looking forward to it!
This is a great example of something practical I can do which I believe will help me to be better at my job, as well as being good fun. Is there something you could do, outside of work, which could help you to be better at your job? Maybe you need extra focus, or creativity, or a better understanding of finance? So even if we’re long past full time education, we can continue to learn all the time.