Plunging into the Sea

My friend was offered a challenging job, but he felt that it was too big a challenge and he was not ready. He thought that he did not have that much knowledge and experience in that particular field to deliver what was expected of him.

Then, there is another idea, “why not take the plunge into the sea and learn how to swim.”

Certainly the could be one strategy to find out how well one can swim by taking a plunge.

Then I reflect on myself, how has been my own strategy in acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills in taking up a challenge, and most important of all, how to have the confidence to do so.

In my case, I think it is my state of mind, or rather, the readiness of my mental state. Then, how do I get mentally ready?

Let me use my recent example of my interest and passion in learning NLP, - Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

First, the ideas I read from the book on NLP attract me. Then I took up some basics from some training courses. (I know that just by attending some training course, one may still not have the confidence, nor skills to apply NLP. And true enough, non of the participants in the training class did anything about NLP or practice any of it.)

From the little ideas and training demonstration, I felt that I have the methodology and solution to solve the world problem, and I tried and applied what I learned to some willing people around me. From there, I found that there is much more learning to be done, and I repeat the some process, learn and apply, learn and apply.

Over time, I pick up more skills and apply more and take up more difficult cases.

Hence, my learning strategy seems to be :

Take the plunge into the sea (thinking I could swim in the sea) and very soon, I struggled and quickly retreated to the shore and learn new skills, plunge into the sea again and swim a bit further.

It is bit by bit, day by day using such approach I gain more confidence and more skills.

Other may prefer to be given a conducive and “safe’ environment to learn, say, to under-study somebody, giving the necessary coaching, right dosages to swallow. It is possible that without the ready state of mind, even with such “protected learning” approach, the person may still feel not ready to take the plunge into the sea.

For me, mental state is the clue.

End