Skill of the Month Club March 2018

You might remember that I introduced you to two articles by author Randy Ingermanson about learning a new skill and developing a new habit once a month. One of the articles was in January and the other last week Wednesday.

I really liked the idea and wanted to go interactive so I had a poll up with a couple of idea’s what I could learn in March and which habit I could develop. Unfortunately, I did not get any feedback. But to listen to my own advice from this morning I am not giving up.

Well, I gave up on the poll but I still want to develop a new skill and a habit per month this year. I know, I am a little late for New Year’s resolutions but better late than never. And maybe I have developed a skill in the last two months without realising. Let’s have a look:

January:

Habit: journaling daily

That is something I have done on and off in the last couple of years however my experience is that my mental health does go down badly if I don’t. I had been a believer of Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages but did not feel comfortable with the handwriting and the 3 A-4 pages either. It put me much too much under pressure. I also found it difficult with my shifts all over the place and sometimes having to do them at 3 in the morning. So I started a file on my Google Drive which I can access both from my mobile and our laptop. This way I could do them at work on my breaks too without having to carry a journal with me. The goal was to write in it every day no matter what. Sometimes I just write: I feel sh.. and my positive affirmations but sometimes I nearly manage a novel. That works quite well.

Skill?

Not quite sure if you can describe it as a skill but in January I figured out what the featured image means for WordPress blogs and what they do. And you might have seen it: I got a little over excited about it ;-).

February:

February was a really hard month because depression hit me fully and in ways, I haven’t experienced in months. I could not do much but writing which usually helps me through the worst. So which habit did I develop?

Habit: go for a walk every day

Well, I think I am cheating a little with that one because we have Sherky now and have to walk her every day. Still, it is a habit and a healthy at that.

Skill: Using Pablo

Pablo is the image editing service of Buffer. It gives you the opportunity to put writing and/or quotes on images. You can upload your own or use free ones from Pablo. I had been using it before but not to that extent.

And what’s up for March?

Habit: Meditating twice a day

My doctor gave me the book “Mindfulness ~ A guide to finding peace in a frantic world to deal with my depression. It has an 8-week course in it to develop a mindfulness practice. Most weeks ask you to meditate twice a day. And while it wasn’t possible for me to do the meditations of that course I have developed a habit though to remind myself several times a day to let my thoughts and feelings go and just to concentrate on my breath and on just being in the moment. Meaning I fully experience what I am doing at that moment. For the rest of the month, I am challenging myself though to use the Headspace app on my phone in the morning and the evening.

Skill: Using Canva

You might have seen that I adapted the design of the blog a little. That is courtesy of Canva a platform that lets you create your own designs but offer a lot of free stuff to do it with. I have no formal idea of design and am just playing around trying the tools out they have but that definitely counts as a skill in my eyes.

Want to join me in the “Skill of the Month Club”?

Randy Ingermansons idea was that we always want to learn new things and create new habits, however, we never really come around to it. To set yourself the goal to learn one thing a month and develop a skill a month is great because some say it needs 28 days to develop a new habit. A month gives you two or three days more. Of course, you need to set some time aside at the beginning of the month to figure out what you want to change. But let’s do it together. So on March 31st, I am going to write a wrap up post and invite you to decide what to learn in April. Deal?

That gives you two weeks to ponder if you want to join the “Skill of the Month Club” and what you want to. I can’t wait to find out.

[Tweet “The desire for self-improvement is vital. There is no point in pushing children; they need to be the ones who want to learn new skills. Tony Buzan #quote”]

The desire for self-improvement is vital. There is no point in pushing children; they need to be the ones who want to learn new skills.

Tony Buzan

Fellow Bloggers write about learning new skills:

Adventures at the end of the world: Learning New Skills

Something to read about learning skills:

(affiliate link with Wordery)

The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life – Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process by Thomas M. Sterner

In those times when we want to acquire a new skill or face a formidable challenge we hope to overcome, what we need most are patience, focus, and discipline, traits that seem elusive or difficult to maintain. In this enticing and practical book, Thomas Sterner demonstrates how to learn skills for any aspect of life, from golfing to business to parenting, by learning to love the process.

Early life is all about trial-and-error practice. If we had given up in the face of failure, repetition, and difficulty, we would never have learned to walk or tie our shoes. So why, as adults, do we often give up on a goal when at first we don’t succeed? In his study of how we learn (prompted by his pursuit of disciplines such as music and golf), Sterner has found that we have forgotten the principles of practice the process of picking a goal and applying steady effort to reach it. The methods Sterner teaches show that practice done properly isn’t drudgery on the way to mastery but a fulfilling process in and of itself, one that builds discipline and clarity…

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