Do you improve or just go through the motions?

Improvement in life takes various forms.  For most of us, we are forced into an improvement system as we grow from infant to young adult.   

We are forced to go to school and learn more and more.  We have to learn rules of the world and how exactly we fit in.   

But at some point as we become adults, we slow the pace of improvement.  Instead of constantly pushing to learn more we start to settle in.  We learn enough in our career to be able to support our family and then stop any major leaps in knowledge. 

Instead of striving for improvement-based goals, we simply set goals to acquire more stuff or take more vacations.  We don’t have the external push towards improvement so we ignore it.

We think, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

Let’s look at an example.  When most of turned about 16 years old we learned how to drive.  At first we were incredibly awkward behind the wheel. 

But over a few months we start to become a bit more fluent, enough to pass the test and obtain our license.  Then we slowly learn a bit more from experience being on the road and being placed in different environments, with different drivers around us, and different navigational structures and roadways. 

But does anyone believe that someone who has driven for 20 years is worse than someone who has driven for 30 years?  Or do we simply settle in to our routines and habits?

I would argue that we develop routines and then stick with them.  If you are someone who forgets to use a blinker when you turn, you are probably not actively looking to improve that area of your life.   

If you drive too fast, or drive too close to other drivers, you are probably not looking to change in any way. 

In other words, once we develop a set standard for how we do things, we level off and stop improving.  Sure we gain more experience but that experience doesn’t translate into greater ability to operate a vehicle.   

The first few years learning to drive are filled with new ideas and better ways to do things.  But after we do it over and over for years and years, we don’t keep improving at that pace.  Instead our skills and abilities plateau.   

But it isn’t just driving a car that we see this pattern.  Throughout our lives we probably find that without that external push like we had during our schooling that we settle in to our normal habits and routines, regardless of where those are driving us. 

But this doesn’t have to be the case.  We all can learn to keep improving and keep raising the standards in our life.  We do this by addressing the systems and habits in our life.  We tweak the routines and slowly, over time, get better. 

Improvement is available to everyone but you have to find a way to break out of the normal habits and routines in your life and look to make little adjustments to keep getting better and better, and avoid plateauing.