The time I went skiing to train my brain to learn

Reality check: Learning something new in my adult life is all they say and more!

This winter, I went skiing for the first time in my life. It seemed like “THE thing” to do because you do as the #Canadians do! My learning senses were WOKEN up, to say the least. I suddenly felt like I had to retrain my brain to learn something.

I guess what I am trying to say is that up until university and then my work life, there were things that came to me ‘naturally’. But it shocked me when I realized that the natural only felt that way because I was doing similar activities and just repeatedly executing them to reach a stage when felt that it was second nature to me.

But when I went skiiing, a part of my brain and consciousness felt shaken and awoken. Here are some key takeaways:

1️If you don’t keep surprising your brain with new skills and things to learn, you may just forget ‘how to learn’. All those #youtube videos about teaching the brain how to learn suddenly make so much sense to me now!

I legit remember a point when I was on the BUNNY hill, not even the greens or blues, thinking why I ever signed up and then psyching myself up to stand up straight, only to fall a couple more times.

2️This brings me to my 2nd takeaway. You really CAN hype yourself up if you want. It’s all #mind games, and talking to yourself out loud REALLY helps.

I would recommend everyone spend some time talking to themselves out loud to get out of their heads and remove limiting beliefs. Something I do every day is ‘hype talk’ which I remind myself to by putting tasks on my phone.

3️You will fall, you will fail, and people will look at you but then will MOVE ON! I had some really bad falls on the slopes, and people looked at me mockingly, but then just moved on to do their own journey.

And when I looked around, there were so many more people falling around me. For all I know, any of the spectators could very well just be laughing at someone else.

The degree to which I experienced a learning curve between my first and second time skiing was unparalleled and unlike any job I have ever held. Hence, now, I am picking up skateboarding and will try to capture my thoughts through this learning process once again.

the look of panic is evident!