Learning Fatigue

No one can sit back in their job these days and resist ongoing learning and collaboration. But it does get hard to go on training when you've done the same job for 25 years. How do you keep fresh, and vital, with vision and energy?

Perhaps that's why in midcareer, mid-life, many people try a different approach. For some that means wholesale change; for others just a time of renewal and empowerment, often through a better understanding of self. I guess that's why my employers are enabling me to take time to sail around Britain and I'm grateful to them. So, I need to focus this adventure on renewing my vision, passion and energy for my job as well as in learning a new skill set that will enable me to take people sailing safely.

The diesel engine course on Monday was interesting in as much as it was different, new and outside of my usual experience. That led to an eagerness to learn and a want to apply that new understanding with something to offer, even in keeping a cool head if a crisis should occur. After 25 years in a job it can sometimes be easier to be the trainer rather than the trained; that's where we might get training fatigue: is anything new, have we not heard it all before? Perhaps that's why I am doing this voyage for my Extended Ministerial Development Leave in the expectation that doing something very different will better equip me in what I do every day. So, let's see what happens in the weeks ahead.

I'd better contact the store about my PLB today, I leave for Falmouth next week. The tip for my trip: Persevere in Learning Boldly.