Happy New Year! Whether you are a New Year’s resolutions person or not, feeling more confident, skilled and practiced at something is always a good feeling! I call this a person’s capability. If you stopped reading right now and had to rate yourself of how capable you feel overall in your life 1-10 what would you rate yourself?
Feeling capable ties into our self-esteem, our knowledge and wisdom, and our real-life experiences. As we age it is natural to feel generally more capable in a wider array of areas as we gain knowledge and experience moving through life.
However sometimes we reach a point, where we start to feel that maybe we already know enough, we are capable of living our lives up to the point we have and we kind of ‘turn down, or off’ the growth sector of our capabilities as a human. This is natural as we are under pressure to balance and fit everything that day to day life requires. However, when we give this area a little love and attention, you may be surprised how good growing your capabilities can feel!
Here I talk about 3 ways to grow your capabilities when it comes to learning how to paint, how to make art or how to be more creative. But this could apply to a vast number of categories where you could increase your capabilities. Capable = Can do, competent, actually ‘able’ to do a certain task.
#1 – Be Brave
Sounds simple right? Bravery is needed, anytime we decide to try something new, or something out of our comfort zone. We may not even realize when we have to use this in our day-to-day life but I assure you it is there, and you have been brave many more times than you know in your life already!
We may think jumping out of an airplane may require someone to be brave, but also it may require a different person to be brave to, for example, have brunch by themselves. We are all different but we can all be brave.
What are a few things that make you uncomfortable to think about doing? Even better, what is something you have a keen interest in, but also tend to shy away from or brush off as ‘not for you’ ‘maybe someday’ when the time is right’ or even ‘I wish, but….” Start looking here!
#2 – Remove Self-Doubt
Once you have an inkling of the direction you want to grow your capabilities in, we must start chipping away at self-doubt. Maybe you don’t feel that you have any self-doubt, but if you have previously found a way to ignore this new area you are exploring, it is most likely a bit of self-doubt creeping in and stopping you in your tracks. Removing all self-doubt is a life long process, but removing enough of it to move forward in our development and experience in life is vital and we need to do it right now. But how?
First think about this new venture, activity, class, project or trip you want to take or become capable at. Grab a pen and paper and settle in, ready?
Now think about this area and write down immediately anything that comes to mind. Usually, these can be a pros/cons type list, don’t leave anything out, and don’t only write down what sounds good.
You can probably come up with a pretty good list of things that might keep you from moving forward right? Maybe it’s expensive, maybe you have no idea about the subject, you have no reason to do it besides curiosity or you think people may disapprove. This exercise is to help you split down the middle, the part of you that REALLY wants to try this new thing and the side of you sitting in your comfort zone saying, NAH we all good over here!
Here is the secret: You will most likely always have these two versions of yourself, you must BE BRAVE to choose the side trying to grow. Or you can just stay there in your comfort zone, happy as a clam. It’s your life, no one is going to make you do this.
#3 – Motivate yourself
With no one there to make us do things that help us grow throughout our lives, we have to search for motivation within (and not with our comfort zone couch-sitting self)
So we have decided to be brave, we have silenced enough self-doubt to be able to hear what we really want, now….we must motivate ourselves to take action. Don’t overcomplicate this, don’t….just don’t overcomplicate for the sake of talking yourself out of it. You are so close, don’t turn back now.
Do not think about all of the aspects that this new thing will encompass, just think about the very first thing. For example, you love pottery, you collect it, you admire it. You want to learn about it, you want to try it but have no idea where to start, you certainly don’t have a throwing wheel (Is that even where you start?) you don’t know what kind of pottery you want to make, if this type of thinking goes too long, you will overwhelm yourself and give your comfy self all the ammo it needs to make you stay right there! NO.
Just one thing. The first thing. Of course, you don’t have all that knowledge about said thing, this is what separates you from ‘being capable’ from being where you are now, incapable. You are literally the door between being capable of something or being incapable…it’s YOU! You are the door, the line so in this case the first and only thing you would need to think about is, booking a class for beginner pottery. The rest will follow, you will get from that first step, guidance on what step to take next, and pretty soon you will be engrossed in a new and exciting hobby or adventure. OR you may find after your first class that you love pottery but you hate making it. That is ok too, at least now you know.
Motivation will produce momentum, but it always comes back to that first step.
To recap…
- Be brave, and say no to your comfort zone
- Silence your self-doubt, don’t stand in your own way
- Find motivation, then take the very first step
Using these methods will quickly help you to tackle new challenges and goals effectively, you can then use it over and over again every time you feel self-doubt creeping up to stop you, every time your comfort zone reaches out to swaddle you in normalcy. I know you are capable of many more exciting things and challenges in your life. Here’s to taking the new year as a fresh opportunity to grow and challenge our own capabilities as we navigate through another beautiful year of life on this planet.
Wishing you the best in 2024!
– Rikki
