When I started to learn how to play golf, things seemed to be easy. We were playing, and a quick learning curve seemed accessible.
That’s how it was until I wanted to learn how to enhance my game to be able to do it right. This decision shifted my experience, opening up the door for a sense of overwhelm. Suddenly, I became aware of too many variables impacting my game and didn’t know anymore where to put my attention. A situation in which setting goals felt more like wishful thinking than anything else.
There is nothing unusual about it.
It’s the moment we lose the confidence that is accessible while playing, and when there is no concern about how we do things. It’s also the moment when we realize how little we know and thus how setting objectives is hardly accessible. There is way too little information present to define goals, especially the SMART ones.
We’ll then find ourselves depending on having a method with which we can learn to do what we set out to do. The way we like to learn is confronted with the method of teaching that is accessible to us. We might even assume that it is the only one available or reject it straightforwardly when it doesn’t seem to allow for the progress we are looking for. It’s also a period where there is little understanding of how to measure one’s learning.
We not only have to learn what to do, how to do it, but also how to assess the learning and the outcome of our actions.
It’s overwhelming. Even more so, when one’s role model for learning is an experienced professional.
It’s when trusting this process is most challenging.
It takes little details that become clear and are experienced as insights and learning to slowly learn to trust the unfolding learning process. These details allow us to build up trust in learning, but also in goal-setting. Which is when we start to own the process. Imagining goals, achieving or failing them, is the part of the process that tells us how learning is progressing, and skills develop.
Getting used to setting goals, we also develop the ability to set the direction for our learning. We’ve understood what questions to ask, and using them, we can choose the journey that suits us best.
