Story time! I have had an on off kind of interest in sewing, knitting and crochet for YEARS now. How many exactly I can’t tell. The thought of being able to create my own clothes was always appealing to me, but as many others out there, I hesitated starting something new. Especially as adults, I feel like we often struggle with starting over or learning something new entirely. Which bags the simple yet famous question: Why?
Picking something back up as an adult: Personally I think it has a lot to do with shame and possibly disappointment in ourselves. Going back to a craft, sports, or whatever it is you haven’t practiced in years means confronting yourself and your „lost“ abilities. There’s also a fear of judgment which is deeply engrained in many societies, keeping us away from what we want to pursue, learn and try. Thoughts such as: „If I hadn’t stopped, I’d be WAY better now!“, „What if I fail? What if it looks bad? What will people think of me? What will I think of myself?!“
First of all: All those thoughts and feelings are pretty normal to have, considering that many of us grow up in social environments which kind of demand that as soon as we turn 18 we should have figured it ALL out. That we somehow should be able to do it ALL. Despite having naturally given strengths and weaknesses, which are topped off with a healthy dose of varying interests. So picking something back up and / or starting over sometimes seems like – „failure“? I mean, if you hadn’t stopped doing that thing, you would be SO MUCH better now already! Right? Yes, you are right, but you probably dropped that hobby for a reason. For example, as a teen or twenty-something year old, there are other things which suddenly are more interesting and arguably more important than the ones a few years before. There’s a LOT to figure out. And later? Jobs, family, partner… the list goes on. So there will be certain things which will fall short. Some due to a decline in interest. Some, sadly, due to outer circumstances, you couldn’t do anything about. Perhaps you had to move and didn’t have the infrastructure anymore you required to do that thing. Perhaps for a time you simply didn’t have enough money.
Whatever it was, it’s valid and ok. What isn’t just ok but AWESOME, are you wanting to pick that thing back up! For real, you are SO COOL for this! And you know what? The upside of it all is – you have a brain which stores information and skills! Your body also remembers things such as movements and probably will intuitively do a lot right!
Will you need to relearn some things? Yes. Will you need to polish your old skills so you can built on them? Also yes. BUT!! And this is important, you most likely won’t have to start from scratch. Trust in your ability to remember things and give yourself some time getting back into it. Chances are it will happen faster than you think right now.
Learning something new entirely from scratch as an adult:
As adults, we often avoid learning something new. We want to avoid looking stupid. Learning something new is for children, after all, right? For them, it’s normal to „fail“ but you’re an adult! You are not supposed to fail! Right!?
WRONG!! I know that that’s wrong, you know that that’s wrong, but still we do it! In fact learning new things also WAY into adulthood is freaking AMAZING for our brains! We humans are curious by nature. We love to explore, to discover, to learn. Why should that stop as soon as we hit 30? Why should we suppress our nature?
The only reason I can think of and probably is just a tiny part of the answer to this is that we are SO afraid of being cast out of our „tribes“!“ that we rather stay where we are acting competent instead of learning something new, looking incompetent for a short while and after a certain learning curve being even MORE competent as a whole human being. Which if you think about it would make us even more valuable for our „tribe“ aka. What we call society today. Other factors might also be people who discouraged you in the past, or perhaps even picking on you for simply trying. On top, there are things you hardly can learn alone or not publically. Sports are a great example here. You can pick up a certain kind of dance WAY faster and easier in a real class instead of trying to copy the moves from a YouTube video. Or just imagine trying to learn how to roller-skate. Now, THAT’S hard to learn in a flat.
Our brains are AMAZING, fascinating organs which adapt and develop faster than we think.
Take my sewing for example. YES! I actually did start sewing and even knitting! Just today, I (FINALLY) finished the second curtain for the door of my room! The seams straight? HELL NO! Both curtains are a little lopsided, which you can see as soon as you put them up. But that’s ok because I am a beginner. Also, I started to notice that I already got more comfortable using the sewing machine. I am not as worried about ruining the fabric as I was when I first tried it. So that’s progress! I also VERY consciously pick out easy projects when starting a craft. I know myself. Otherwise, I’d just be frustrated, would throw the half finished thing in the corner and NEVER pick it back up again.
Also! I am NOT perfect at this! I have to constantly remind myself of all of this. You know that I am not an imposter for trying something new or picking something back up.
So I guess…: Trust yourself and your ability to figure things out (again); be patient with yourself; pick out easy projects first (if you are anything like me). don’t listen to the perfectionist and critiques in your head and HAVE FUN.
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