This last year gave me the opportunity to start stretching again and now I am watching someone close to me do the same thing. In both situations it was due to a change in employment. As any of us begin something new, we are deluged with a constant stream of things that even if we "knew" them in a different environment, the differences of companies and individuals makes the whole idea seem alien. With time and repetition we stretch and adapt and make these strange and alien activities part of what we know and what we can accomplish.
Sara started a new job and she has been in the throes of learning new processes and procedures. Finally, by the end of last week she had confidence in what she was doing. One of her teammates even mentioned that she was moving around the office and getting things done with a great deal more confidence. I believe her confidence came as a result of the stretching.
When we watch younger people and children, we often see this phenomenon very clearly. We even talk about "growing pains." You may remember, if you had boys, times when the growth experienced overnight was actually painful and would wake them up from a sound sleep. This is probably the most extreme case of this type of growth and change. We also get the opportunity to watch this through the educational process, most specifically when we have our children in college. They tend to go in with one idea, or thought, and at the end of the experience, they have changed the plan several times. All we can hope is they have something they will be able to use as they move forward. I've watched my daughter do this, starting with a degree in Biology and now as she moves to a degree program in Biochemistry. This came as she discovered her love for chemistry and her disappointment when she came to her final chemistry class. Her stretch came as she discovered a need to change majors so she could continue exploring through more chemistry classes. Interesting, huh?
Those of you who know me know I am committed to lifetime learning. I believe we continue to learn from the first day of our lives to the last. The thing I've found out about myself is there are times you may still be learning something, but the rate at which this happens is less than what we should expect of ourselves. When this happened to me in the past, I filled time with activities far from appropriate to get me moving forward again. One of the classic things I do is shop on Amazon and Ebay way too much. I developed whole collections of things which I sold later because I wasn't stretching, I was bored. So in order to not let this happen again, I am developing a personal list of things I will fill time with when I am not stretching. Hopefully, this will be a combination of things to move me forward at work and things which will just make me a better person. One of these items will be learning to weld. This is undoubtedly something which improves my life away from work, not at work.
As I end this thought today, I challenge you to ask yourself if you are continuing to stretch? Whatever your answer, then you need to ask if you really want to. Based on those two answers, decide what to do with this going forward. I hope you find answers which help you to find joy in your day to day world.
Have a great week.
