I lastly took the plunge… actually. At 41, I’ve began swimming classes. 🤿 🌊 Yes – an Australian who can’t swim. I’m fairly certain there’s a photograph of me at Parliament House! 🙈 I’ve averted it…

I lastly took the plunge… actually. At 41, I’ve began swimming classes. 🤿 🌊

Yes – an Australian who can’t swim. I’m fairly certain there’s a photograph of me at Parliament House! 🙈

I’ve averted it most of my life. I nearly drowned once I was 9, and ever since then, water has sat in that class of issues I simply labored round. I’ve tried classes earlier than, however they by no means caught, it obtained laborious and I gave up.

Being in Singapore, with quick access to a pool and a little bit of time, feels prefer it’s time to vary that.
What’s shocked me isn’t simply studying one thing new, it’s how totally different it feels doing it as an grownup.

Something like a freestyle stroke appears to be like easy if you watch another person do it. In actuality, it’s timing, respiration, physique place, rhythm, kick energy… and a number of interested by how and when to have interaction every half.
My intuition is to do what feels pure, carry my head, rush the motion, attempt to keep in management, get to the wall as quick as potential. All issues that truly make it more durable.
So I’m having to gradual all the pieces down and, in a number of circumstances, do the alternative of what my mind is telling me.

That’s the uncomfortable bit. It’s not studying, it’s unlearning first.
As adults, we’ve constructed patterns that work for us. They’ve stored us secure, helped us succeed, made us competent. But in addition they get in the best way when we have to do one thing in a different way.

Which is why this complete expertise has felt very acquainted from a piece perspective. Right now, in a number of organisations, we’re asking folks to select up new instruments, new methods of working, new expectations (AI being the apparent one).

But we frequently skip a step – we concentrate on what folks have to be taught, with out actually acknowledging what they should let go of first.
If you’ve spent 10 years constructing methods of working that make you efficient, you don’t simply substitute that in a single day as a result of a brand new instrument turns up. Even if it’s genuinely helpful.

There’s hesitation, and generally concern. And naturally from the skin, it might probably seem like resistance.
Sitting in a pool, overthinking the right way to kick whereas bending my knees (however not an excessive amount of), I get it a bit extra now.

The shift isn’t nearly functionality. It’s about serving to folks transfer away from what’s acquainted earlier than they’ll absolutely step into one thing new. That takes time, and the precise help round it – assets, methods and leaders.

So it’s been an excellent reminder that studying as an grownup isn’t nearly including one thing new. There’s normally a layer of unlearning beneath it.

As a pacesetter or a studying skilled, the place are your groups being requested to vary how they work, not simply what they do?