The Personal Renaissance Mindset- Part 2- Podcast #56

by | Homeschool, Inspiration, Personal, Podcast

We’re back for part 2 of The Personal Renaissance Mindset. This is where we talk about how to cultivate a family culture that encourages lifelong learning and creating! You can find the Personal Renaissance Mindset part 1 episode here!

The “Personal Renaissance” mindset came out of a conversation Deanna had with her husband. They were talking about how people sometimes have a mid-life-crisis but they were going to have a mid-life Renaissance instead!!

Elements of A Personal Renaissance Mindset

We covered key points 1 (A love of learning) and 2 (An Accurate Understanding of “Expert”) in the previous episode. Here’s the rest of our thoughts on how to cultivate a Personal Rennaissance mindset:

3. Practice Trumps Natural Talent

  • Never make having a “natural talent” for something be the deciding factor for if you pursue it or not!
    • Because skills come from practice, anyone can learn anything! Yes, natural talent combined with lots of practice can yield phenomenal results- but we don’t have to be phenomenal to make working on the skill worthwhile.
  • Often what looks like natural talent in others is really a deep interest and curiosity for a subject. That curiosity drives a person to spend time on it and pushes them past the doldrums of practice, practice, practice.
  • All the things we have passion for, have dull moments. Practice is hard work, even if you are passionate. Finding dull moments doesn’t mean you don’t have the passion anymore.
    • It’s good to communicate to our children (and ourselves) and it’s going to take a lot of time to become really good at something. We all find moments in our journey that we become discouraged. Push past that!
  • Be willing to value the process over the results. The only way to go forward is to go through the hard work, which requires patience.
  • The willingness to do the work wins over natural talent.

PR Mindset Hurdles:

  • Imposter Syndrom: feeling like “who am I to think I could become a _______?” It turns out that all people are still just people.
  • The Comparison Trap: Don’t compare your first try with an expert’s results. We all have to start somewhere. You have to be willing to produce a “bad first draft” before you’ll ever write a book. Comparing yourself to others is almost never helpful, so stop doing it!
  • Perfectionism: “You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great” – Zig Zigler
  • Expectations: Be careful with expectations.
    • A passion for something doesn’t mean we already have skills.
    • Continue to be full of grace for yourself and others! Let people be full of expertise AND let them not know a thing. Share what you know AND be willing to say when you don’t know. It’s ok to know AND it’s ok NOT to know- we just want to keep learning from each other!

4. Using Good Judgment

  • Be gentle with what you know. There are two extremes to avoid:
    • 1) Being a know-it-all and making others feel bad for not knowing
    • 2) Pretending not to know anything so no one feels bad for not knowing or so no one calls you a ‘teacher’s pet’ or equivalent.
  • The key is to have our hearts in the right place. Knowledge doesn’t make us superior or inferior. We all have something to offer and contribute.
  • Be willing and able to learn from people who have different views from you. Learn how to pick through and glean the truth from a variety of sources. Be able to talk to a wide variety of people and glean from their experiences.

Practical Tips

  • Be aware of what you don’t know. Start learning and be on the lookout for what you don’t know. The Classical Model of Education is great for this! (episodes #23-27 and 43)
  • If you’ve been out of the habit of learning and creating, get back in it! It’s never too late to start being curious.
  • We have an entertainment-based culture that tends to over-value entertainment. It’s tempting to think that whatever we’re learning must be public, marketable, or look cool when posted on facebook. However, learning and creating have intrinsic value.

Things We Mentioned

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