{"id":269,"date":"2022-06-08T17:32:13","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T22:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manlife.com\/articles\/?p=269"},"modified":"2022-06-08T17:32:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T22:32:13","slug":"why-mid-career-men-should-try-new-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manlife.com\/articles\/index.php\/2022\/06\/08\/why-mid-career-men-should-try-new-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Mid-Career Men should Try New Things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As we age and get more comfortable in our lives and careers, many men have something of an inclination to stick with what they know. In some regards, that can be an excellent thing. Getting truly good at a small set of skills, whether it’s in a career or hobby, is how we achieve mastery over some chosen field.

With that said, however, I want to make the case here that it’s vital for men, especially in our changing world, to try something new and uncomfortable when we get the chance. I’ll give you four reasons I think are compelling for you to try something outside of your comfort zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learning Is Fun! <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully, throughout your educational life, you had some good teachers. Even if you didn’t, I’m sure you can think of moments when something new finally clicked, and you could do something that you could not before. While the memories are probably long since lost to time, you were almost certainly immensely proud of yourself the first time you tied your shoes.

I do not see a good reason that that sense of pride should be confined to children. Human beings are at their core curious animals, and one of the major rewards we get for learning something new is a sense of enjoyment from having learned something new. Now that I am (finally) wrapping up my P.h.D, I plan on taking the time to learn how to code. Not only is it potentially lucrative, but getting a simple text game to respond put a smile on my face that I had not seen for some time.

The point here is that picking up a new skill, even if you’re a complete amateur, is an immensely rewarding experience that is well worth your time if for no other reason than it can bring some joy to your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It’s Important to Learn How to Learn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This one is especially applicable to folks who have jobs that require the same set of skills on a daily basis. When was the last time that you had to learn something new, from scratch? For a lot of people, that amount of time can be measured in terms of years or decades. In a world like ours, which is constantly changing, learning how to learn is a highly valuable skill that I think we should all embrace.

There are easily several thousand human lifetimes of knowledge out there in the world, and I seriously doubt that most of us can make a dent in learning all of it even if we spent all day, every day, for the rest of our lives, reading and memorizing everything we can. Instead, we have to learn how to make the most out of the limited knowledge, skills, and experiences that we have while adding new ones to our repertoire. For a lot of folks, this is a deeply uncomfortable experience, and, as with anything new or unknown, is likely to be that way. But, if you get used to learning new things, that discomfort can seriously lessen over time, and you’ll have the opportunity to expand and adapt your set of knowledge more flexibly over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Being an Amateur Keeps you Humble<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For most mid-career professionals, the basics of their day-to-day jobs feel easy. After all, you can do it while pretty much on autopilot. That feeling is a learned one, but we forget that over the years. If you ever begin to feel like you’re truly the master of everything you need to know, I recommend trying something new.

For example, you might watch a musical performance and think to yourself “I could do that, easy.” If that’s the case, and you have no musical training, I would challenge you, within a week, to pick up a guitar and learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. After a week of consistent practice and some sore fingers, I would imagine that you would have a new appreciation for artists that you had previously written off as playing music that is easy.

Getting periodic reminders about the learning curve for sets of skills will not only make you humble, but it will also probably make you a lot more patient with people in your chosen fields who are amateurs now like you once were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learning NEw tHings Gives You New Perspectives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before becoming an academic, I worked in both the construction industry and was a fairly serious saxophone player. In both of those fields, learning how to communicate effectively, stay organized, and deal with a lot of personal, and sometimes public responsibility were keys.

When I started my academic career and began teaching at the college level, some of my early mentors were surprised at how calm I seemed giving my first live lectures in classrooms full of eager, yet critical students. Looking back at it now, it was ten years of performing as a musician that helped me get used to the fear of public speaking that so many people have. Of course, I get some level of nervousness before a lecture even to this day. But, the practice in several different fields of learning beforehand certainly gave me an edge. This is true for many things: learning new skills, methods of problem-solving, and patterns of thought will help you see patterns and connections in other areas, and this will make you a more effective human being in a wide variety of circumstances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, I am of the mind that learning is, and ought to be, a lifelong process. Sure, we have no real hope of ever attaining all of human knowledge in our limited amount of time here on Earth. We can, however, learn how to be flexible and adaptable human beings who approach new situations with curiosity, humility, and an eye toward enjoying the journey of learning. If we can do that, and perhaps get good at a few things in the course of a lifetime, I think we will have spent our time well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we age and get more comfortable in our lives and careers, many men have something of an inclination to stick with what they know. In some regards, that can be an excellent thing. Getting truly good at a small set of skills, whether it’s in a career or hobby, is how we achieve mastery … <\/p>\n

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