Evolucion (not a typo)

If you are a lifelong learner, yay you. Well done. If you aspire to be one, no doubt you will get there. Because many would agree that staying curious and being adventurous are inspirational goals. And, here’s a thought that may feel contradictory: Growth, personal and professional, requires a commitment to unlearning. Occasionally letting go of behaviors, perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, worldviews, and ways of thinking can be extraordinarily helpful with living into that always-the learner mode.

As futurist Alvin Toffler wrote: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

Cultivating a willingness to second-guess ourselves and question authority, especially our own, begins by asking, “What's working in life and what's not?” “What used to work but no longer does?” These two questions may be the beginning of the end for well-established habits and beliefs you have spent a vast majority of time fully living into. And this is not for the faint of heart, especially if these habits and beliefs are multi-generational and/or historical habits.

Interestingly enough, unlearning isn't like learning. It isn't merely additive—adding new knowledge or habits to your existing inventory. It's subtractive. It's stopping a certain behavior, questioning a certain assumption or expectation, or decommissioning a habit. It's recognizing and accepting that a change needs to happen.

Unlearning requires patience and the desire to take one step backward in order to take two steps forward. After all, you’re attempting to think, act, and perceive things differently, to break down often long-held beliefs, biases, and behaviors, and the core perceptions that fuel them, and it can sometimes require patience – extreme patience – like many, many years of patience. But it can be done.

The fact is, extinction is part of evolution, and nature itself operates by focusing on what works, not what doesn’t; on successes, not failures; on adaptation. So, evolve, baby. Evolve. Viva la evolucion!