Try something new

We want results in the least amount of time. Yet sometimes the best approach isn’t the most direct but the most meandering.  The growth we most need isn’t always along a direct path.

None of us can live our best life alone.  Your best life will always involve other people.  Because other people have their own agency, they need to decide for themselves in your favor for you to live your best life.

That life doesn’t come any other way.  Again, you can’t have your best life by yourself.  Your best life involves other people.

There’s many ways that can happen.  Often we gravitate towards approaches that seem more direct because we want results in the least amount of time.  Yet sometimes the best approach isn’t the most direct but the most meandering.  The growth we most need isn’t always along a direct path.

Such is often the case with learning new skills.  If you want your best life, you want change.  Part of that change is learning what you don’t now know and doing what you don’t now do.  And that will never happen until you try something new.

Get on the learning train

We’ve discussed before the need to quit life on autopilot and live life intentionally.  Refusing to break out of the same old routines will keep your life in that same old routine.  To have something you never had, you have to do something you never did.

That’s where learning a new skill can help you live your best life.  Doing something new intentionally breaks you out of the same old routine.  You’re reaching for a new experience you can use to help make a new life — your best life!

As we’ve already mentioned, to have your best life, you need other people.  When you learn something new, you have something you can use to involve those other people in your life and influence them to decide in your favor.

Imagine two people, one who’s content with staying the same and another who’s busy learning a new skill.  Who do you want to get to know more about?  Certainly not the one content with staying the same.  That person will just influence you to stay the same, and that means not living your best life.  However, the one busy learning a new skill offers hope that life can be better than what it has been, that the changes you want to have your best life are possible.

Including learning something new in your conversations with other people will not only give you something interesting to talk about but also makes you more interesting to others, enabling you to forge more effective connections with them that will influence them to decide in your favor.  Learning something new in a class environment can also be the means for meeting the new people you need to have your best life.

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Select your skill

What new skill should you learn?  With no limit on what you could choose, the options are endless.  But the best skill you can learn is always the one you need to learn right now.

This is where partnering with the Lord comes in.  He can help you understand what you should do.  We’ve discussed before how the Lord is anxious to assist us as we journey towards our best life.

That said, He may see wisdom in letting you decide for yourself.  In that event, just follow your heart.  What have you always wanted to do?  Perhaps it’s to play a musical instrument.  Or maybe you want to speak a foreign language.  Maybe you want to have more confidence in conversations.  Perhaps you’d like to learn how to cook something new.  Or maybe it’s to draw or swim or sew.  Select something you want to try and go for it!

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Get after it now

Once you’ve made your choice, don’t delay!  Start today!  Start right now to do something that will move you in that direction of learning your new skill.

Starting now, even if your action is minuscule, sets you up for success.  Results come from one thing and one thing only — action.  So when you delay taking action, you delay receiving results.  The more you do that, the easier it gets to delay more and more.

But when you take action, no matter how small, you set yourself on the path of action.  That makes it easier for you to take more action.  The more you do that, the easier it gets to take more and more action, until at last you have your results.

So don’t wait.  Try something new today.  You’ll get out of life on autopilot and embrace the enthusiasm and vigor from living with intention.  You’ll be better able to influence for good other people in your life as well as to bring into your life those others who you need for your best life.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

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You can listen to the monologue from today's episode of Joy In The Journey Radio here.  Please also feel free to continue the conversation by leaving a comment below.  Want to hear more?  Listen to the whole show by going to the show page for this episode.