Tag: #learning

Relearning how I learn

I’ve recently restarted my Dutch course. Half-way through a class, I started questioning whether I was actually any good at learning languages. I realised it was a somewhat farcical thought, considering I’ve been learning languages most of my life. Logically I am rather good at it, since I speak 3 languages fluently and have been learning three others.

To some extent everyone has doubts around their language abilities. That’s just part of the learners journey. Yet there is something about the course structure doesn’t particularly play to my strengths. It’s four hours of class twice a week. I don’t think such lengths of concentration are exactly my forte.

The power of understanding our productivity fluctuations

In the past four weeks I’ve been doing more public speaking than I’ve done in the last six months

On Wednesday I gave the final push to a paper we’re launching at COP on the social aspects of circular economy. In practice, this meant mass reviewing 1000 revisions on track changes and comments to a semblance of a clean document.

Unsurprisingly by Thursday I was knackered. I remarked to one of my colleagues that this was one of the least productive days that I’ve had in months.
When I gave myself the grace to realise how much I had been pushing myself over the last two weeks, I could see that this was a natural cycle of energetic flow.

Overcoming the ‘dread’ of awaiting something important

I had forgotten the feeling of impending doom we often feel when sitting in the waiting room. The idea of being around lots of sick people can make us worry about what untold mysteries may ail us. It’s no wonder then that many of us associate health check-ups with negative emotions.

Unfortunately, many of the health issues we experience are often exacerbated by us ignoring the problem. At a logical level, I think most of us know that. And yet, we can avoid getting our health checked because it scares us.

One thing that’s helped me massively has been shifting the relationship I have with my mind. There are many areas that the brain can be fantastic – delving into deep problems and finding a solution in an incredibly diverse set of scenarios. But what the brain is not so good at dealing with is uncertainty. Using the brain for these activities will leave us reactive, and often fall into paranoia, anxiety and doubt.

The more we judge others, the more we judge ourselves

We judge people. What clothes they wear, what job they do, how much sugar they put in their tea.

Judgment comes from an upbringing in society which puts moral values on what is right and wrong. Our parents, teachers and institutions around us want us to decide the right choices to become the right sort of people.

Whilst well-intentioned, these moral values are generally placed upon us, rather than formed by us as individuals.

Fortunately, there is a way forward. The first step is an acceptance of others and how they want to live life. But I also think there is a greater step. We can decide to reshape how we view the world, and how we live by our own values.