You’re never too old to learn – unless you believe so

Too old too learn? – It’s not about your age

Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘I’m too old to learn this’ or the all-time classic, ‘You can only learn things when you are young’

Whenever I hear someone say something like that, I can’t help but think, ‘how can you possibly do that to yourself’?’ What would you hold such a belief for? Is that really going to help you get to where you want to in life?

Some years ago, when I was 23 years old, I heard a dear friend (who was the same age) say, ‘I’m too old to learn new things’, when asked if he would like to learn to cook.

Yes, you read 23 years old. Shocking.

What I find funny about this situation is that at the time, he was attending a very prestigious university to get his MBA. Talk about being incongruent.

Learning is at the core of human experience. Giving yourself excuses like you’re too old, or whatever else you could use as an excuse is going to hold you back from achieving your full potential.

Exceptionally effective people know that life-long learning is fun, rewarding, and keeps our brains working. Following is a very inspiring article by Chris Collingwood, MD, at INSPIRITIVE in which he explains the process of modelling, an extremely powerful learning strategy.

What is Modelling? The heart of NLP

You can read the full article by clicking here

The world is filled with human beings manifesting an endless variety of behaviour and abilities.These human abilities are as diverse as the ability to negotiate effectively, tell a joke, empathise with others, manage a large group, compose music, write a book, pay bills promptly, be thrilled by an abstract painting, plan the future, learn from the past, or ease the fears of a child. , Every human being is a repository of abilities at which they are expert, or, in our terms, an “exemplar.”

Is there a way to transfer the ability of an exemplar to someone who needs and wants that ability?

The purpose of modelling is to enable us to answer this question with a confident “Yes.”, 

The fundamental presupposition of modelling-the act of creating models of exceptional effectiveness is:

Experience has patterns of organisation (structure), 

NLP modelling is the process of representing the patterns of organisation of the specific skills and results of excellence of an exemplar, first in one’s own system, then subsequently in a form that can be taught to other people. The evidence of successful modelling is when the modeller’s performance achieves similar results within the same context and time frame as that demonstrated by the exemplar. It requires an extended tacit modelling phase of unconsciously taking up the skill, followed by a period of use before a final a phase of building an explicit description for transfer to others.

NLP modelling is the core activity of NLP and is the process that led to the applications of NLP that exist currently. The ability to work well with one’s unconscious is necessary for NLP modelling.

How powerful is the information you just read? How much different can life be once you turn your attention to this type of knowledge?

Next time you think about learning something, no excuses. Go out there and become exceptionally effective.

Edited by Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer at INSPIRITIVE.

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