The Benefits of Learning New Skills

Body, Mind

I’m a person who loves routine. I’ve always found it comforting and it allows me to get the most out of my day. That being said, it’s important to change things up and activate our brains in different ways. By incorporating new activities we improve our abilities in so many areas of our lives.

It’s important that we are always working on learning and growing, trying to gather new skills and improve ourselves. Trying new activities improves our brain function and boosts our confidence in other areas of our lives. It’s also quite common that when you start working on a new skill, it can help you improve in your job or other activities. Trying a new sport can help invigorate you and help translate that passion back to your work. Trying creative arts like pottery can help improve your writing or painting. By trying different activities you can open your mind, learn new skills and help your brain’s creativity.

I recently was listening to a podcast, where a guy mentioned that every month he picks a new skill to learn and practices it every day for 30 minutes. That approach might interest you, but it can also be as simple as throwing in a few new activities into your week. These can be activities that you would like get better at or that you have always wanted to try. There are endless amounts of things to try from learning an instrument to practicing your cooking skills.

I made a list of my own activities I’d love to try and work on improving.

  • Ballet – I’ve always wanted to do ballet. As soon as I thought of it, a day later I walked by a studio right by place. I checked to see when the beginner adult classes were. I’m excited to give it a try and see how much I can learn. I’ve never done dance classes, except a few hip hop classes when I was little, so realistically I can only get better. I’ve always thought ballet was so elegant and I loved how much technique there was to learn.
  • Qigong -Adding in qigong into my daily practice. Qigong is a moving meditation I’ve heard lots about. I don’t know very much about it, but I like the idea of moving about and working on my breathing. I’m going to try to find some good videos on youtube and practice it at home or at the park.
  • Drawing and Painting –I’ve recently started sketching more and was given an adult colouring book that I’ve really enjoyed. My next endeavour is to start painting and explore where my creativity takes me. My mom is a painter, so I’m very fortunate to have the tools necessary to make it happen really easily.
  • Slack Lining– This is definitely something that scares me a bit – walking on a small hanging rope above the ground. It doesn’t look like the odds of success on in my favour, but I’ve heard such remarkable things about it that I need to give it a try. I’ve been told it’s a life changing practice and makes you work on being present in the moment.
  • Boxing – When I was young I did a mix of martial arts and I’ve always loved it. I would love to get back into and try some boxing classes. It’s a great workout and it gets you pumped up, confident and feeling strong inside and out.

Make a list of activities you want to try and activities that you may have given up but want to revive.

  • How you can incorporate them into your schedule?
  • Should you try one at time and slowly start adding them in or maybe start with a mix of activities? Whatever best suits you.

Maybe you always wanted to try singing classes but felt awkward, this is a great time to step out of your comfort zone and give it a try. Maybe you’ve wanted to explore new fitness activities but felt unsure, sign up for something like ClassPass to try tons of different types of exercise. Maybe you’ve stopped playing your favourite sport like soccer or basketball, join a REC team or find drop in games at your community centre.

Adding new activities into your life will help invigorate you and help you harness new skills. It’s so important to always be growing and learning. Trying new activities will help you build confidence and your new skills will translate to so many other areas of your life.

With love,

Lucy

bamboo 2

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