When was the last time you learned a new skill?

I am playing a role in a musical in which the character plays the ukelele. I did not know how to play the ukelele, so I was excited to get started. What's more fun than learning a new instrument? I played the piano and then the flute as I grew up but never stringed instruments. Once I started to practice, I was actually surprised at how slowly I made progress. My fingers didn't want to make the chords, at least not in a way that sounded in tune.

When was the last time I attempted to learn an entirely new skill? I'm not even sure.

So often, we do what we are good at and just do more of it until we are either great at it or living on autopilot. Everything from daily tasks to the central tasks of our career were at one point things we had to learn. As we get older, there are less and less occasions in which we absolutely must do something totally new, for which we have very little preparation or skill. We either build on what we already know or pay someone else to do things we don't know how to do. However, learning to do something completely new provides the opportunity to become humble about your skills, aware of your own learning process, connected to new parts of your brain, excited about obvious improvements, able to share a new activity with others, and eventually able to add a new "special skill" to your resume.

Who knows, maybe someday I'll join a ukelele band in Brooklyn (I hear there are many. In fact, I've seen one that played exclusively Gilbert and Sullivan tunes). Right now, I am a long way off from ukelele bands giving concerts. I'm just trying to get the fingering for Gmajor7.

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