A New Year of Learning: Resolutions

Last in this series about starting a new year of learning it’s time for some final thoughts. The beginning of a new year is a good moment to have a look what we would like to improve in our habits in order to learn better.

We all have our own weaknesses, those things we know we could improve but we just don’t have the discipline, or we simply don’t know how. It’s easy to just say “Well, that’s the way I am, I’ll have to live with it”, but wouldn’t it be better to just face our weakness and see a challenge in it, an opportunity to change things?

Maybe you want to stop coming late all the time, or hand in your assignments on time. Maybe you want to be more focused, to absorb more of the information given to you. I’ll have a look at a four resolutions that are important to me:

1. Collect More

Now I took some time to look at the best way to take notes, I want to put things into practice and collect as much information as possible. The key to this is filtering out the information that seems like unnecessary ‘noise’ to me, and recording the things that are highly relevant. This means I have to stay focused all the time and I have to become able to point out the distinction between information of low importance and information of high importance. And then of course collect the important information in a flexible way.

2. Collaborate

One of the things that can really boost my creativity as well as my self confidence is working together with others. Judging my own work is very difficult, and sometimes I need someone else to inspire me with his own passion for the project. You can really keep each other enthusiastic this way and it can also be a good remedy for too much perfectionism, which can cause a lot of frustration.

3. Stay Hungry

I always try to find new ways to look at my working field and get inspired. Sometimes there are just a lot of other things that interest me. Things that are relevant for my personal development, but not as much for my professional development. So it’s important to find the right balance between those things. If you’re a filmmaker but you’re currently highly interested in astrology, it might be difficult to stay hungry for information and news about filmmaking.
I try to read magazines, find interesting websites or books, things that keep the fire burning for the professional field I’m passionate about. Collaborating can also help a lot in this case. And showing your passion for your work can be very inspiring to the people you work with or you present your work to.

4. Think Positive

I can make my own work, as well as my relationship with my classmates, colleagues or teachers so much easier by approaching them with a positive attitude. When I’m a student and I complain a lot, and give negative comments even on small, irrelevant things, my teacher will start to form a negative image of me. And when this starts happening it will be difficult to change.
Next to that, it’s important to have a positive attitude not only towards other people, but in everything I do. In each field of work there will be a few things that are less interesting or popular go do than other things. Like in every school some classes are more popular than others. But thinking of it as “I want to” rather than “I have to” will help a lot, and it’s easy for others to pick up this positive energy!

Do you have any resolutions for the coming year? I would like to hear about them!

Other posts in this series:
A New Computer: Laptop or Desktop?
A New Year of Leaning: How to Take Notes?
A New Year of Learning: Which Planner?
A New Year of Learning: Preparations

Photo by: Henry Bahus