When you become successful at anything in life from your job to your volunteer activities, you become comfortable. You know what you’re doing. You know your audience. You become complacent. You stop pushing yourself to learn and develop new skills. This is a pit you cannot afford to fall into. The world is constantly changing. You need to learn more, not less. When you stop learning, it happens — STUPID.
Not STUPID because you aren’t intelligent or creative. STUPID because you don’t avail yourself to all the ways you can learn online — most are free or low cost. As you stagnate, you lose ground to those around you who continue to learn. You see diminishing results, though you may not realize it until you are so far behind you have to run to catch up.
So, following are instances of real people being STUPID. Take this as a warning if you are comfortable. Take this as encouragement if you are pushing yourself to learn and become more than you are.
Stay-at-Home Mom
In today’s world, many families need both parents to work. When kids are introduced, everything needs to be reevaluated. This is my personal story.
I was working in a pre-press department at a local commercial printer. My husband was an electrician. When I got pregnant, we planned for how our lives would change and what we preparations we needed to start immediately.
One of those was finances. We looked at what we both made, the amount of taxes and other amounts were deducted from our checks and the cost of daycare. After reviewing all of the costs associated with whether I would work or stay-at-home we came up with a difference of $20 / month. So, if I worked, by the time I took all the expenses of child care into account, I was actually making $20 / month. Why did I say this twice? $20 / month for an average of 160 hours of work was insane. Child care alone would eat up almost half of my paycheck. So I did what anyone would do, I stayed at home.
At first, I tried to do work on the side to make up the $20 difference, but soon realized that working as a freelancer was costing me more than it was making me. So, that went away as well.
Fast forward seven years and a second child later. We saved a lot of money by my staying at home. My children could use both Windows and Apple operating systems before they started pre-school. They knew their alphabet, colors, could do some basic math and even read a bit. So, I used my time wisely . . . for them. For myself, I didn’t push myself to learn.
So, when I went back to work, I was lost. I had been doing graphic design and pre-press before I got pregnant the first time. I had practiced my skills intermittently over the years, but not enough to keep up with the latest software. I became acutely aware of this when a customer of the print shop contacted me to come in and help out when they had their employees in the marketing department leave. One found a different job, the other was pregnant and decided she couldn’t deal with the stress of doing it alone until they found someone to help her. I managed to get the basics done until they managed to hire people two weeks later. It was a struggle because the software was newer than I had used and I was unfamiliar with it.
You think I’d learned this lesson and started practicing my skills. No. I was STUPID.
I went back to taking care of my kids . . . and tinkering around with my software when I had the time. So, the same company contacted me a few years later to help them out again. This time, they had fired someone who refused to use the software their design agency used, causing a disconnect between the design stage and final steps to get the pieces into production. This was the same software I’d used years before. However, they’d changed from an Apple system to a Windows-based one. So, not only was I behind on the version of the software, but it crossed platforms as well. At times I felt I was drowning. I ended up getting the same software at home so I could do the tutorials provided with the programs. This was before YouTube, so I couldn’t get help there.
Even though I had been out of the industry for years (with a few exceptions), I was willing to learn. The person I replaced who refused to learn the new software was STUPID and lost his job.
Uninspiring Leader
My oldest daughter decided she wanted to be a Brownie Girl Scout. Of course, I had to join with her to make sure she was safe. (Yes, I am very overprotective.)
Her first troop had a leader who was not willing to improve herself. When they had extra time, there was a jug of pony beads and string to make necklaces. This was always their extra activity. Many of the girls were bored. They did the same things all the time.
It was my daughter’s first year, so she was excited and happy. She was learning new things from someone else. The rest of the girls enjoyed themselves, but had settled into the knowledge that nothing new was really going to happen. Cookie sales, the same songs, the same craft . . . This is not to say they didn’t do new things. However, it was limited to what the leader was willing to learn.
There was so much more they could have done. Even doing the same things but with a twist would make the presentation and knowledge seem new, even if it wasn’t. This was STUPID. Most of the girls dropped out or changed troops.
I ended up taking over the troop. The first thing I did was tell the girls they could not do the same badges they had the year before. There were a couple we had to do every year (cookie sales and Girl Scout Ways at that time) so that all the new girls knew about our organization and the old girls had their knowledge renewed. After that, it was new.
I have heard from many of the parents over the years that the girls still talk about their time in the troop and how much they loved it. It makes me feel good that they had a positive experience while learning the world through my point of view.
Uninspiring Events
After many encouraging words from girls and parents, I knew the girls were happy with the seemingly chaotic way we did things. I had everything planned (just a bit of OCD on my part), but there was no reason to the badges we earned . . . the girls chose them and I presented them. Things changed when I took over the Service Unit position of Event Manager.
Not thinking ahead, I looked at all my old programming to pull things I had previously done successfully with my troop. I pulled activities I had done with my independent Girl Scouts (then Juliettes) as well. I didn’t think of my own girls. They had done it all before. They enjoyed the events, but they had already “been there, done that.”
Of course, they didn’t tell me this until the end of the year. I felt bad. Even worse, I felt STUPID. I should have asked for feedback at each event to determine what everyone thought, not wait until the end of the year. The girls who had participated that hadn’t done the activities before loved the events. My own girls gave me a shoulder shrug.
Differing World View
Thirteen years later, I’m still at the same company that I had helped out twice. The second time, my youngest had started school so I stayed. In the work environment, there are always things you need to do that you have to figure out. Today, not only do I do graphic design in regards to print, I create things for the Web and mobile devices. I provided files worldwide in a variety of languages to different markets.
I take a lot of online classes and workshops to expand my skills and meet the ever-changing demands of my job. Instead of feeling overwhelmed when I need to learn something new, I feel energized. I’m excited to try something different. It helps alleviate the boredom of sitting at the desk. I’m no longer STUPID. However, I do have times when I really wish I had continued learning while staying at home. I meet up with knowledge that I should already have. I have to backtrack and learn what I should have already so that I can learn something new. It’s happening less and less, but I think I need to be reminded that it’s easy to be STUPID.
In Girl Scouts, my work with girls tends to be the events I run. I also spend a lot of my time volunteering to help adults. It is my goal to help them learn new things to take back to their troops.
Do I use the programming I did for my troops — Daisy, Brownie, Junior and multi-level — as well as that for my independent girls? Yes, I do. Do I use the event experiences that I learned as I ran Service Unit events? Yes, I do.
But I choose not to be STUPID.
When I do something, I create a badge program (Enrichment Project) or supplement for other leaders to utilize. Once the information is presented in those forms, I only allow myself to use it again if I do it with a twist or as a small part of another training with original projects. I do not want adults avoiding my programming because they’ve “been there, done that.”
I chose not to be STUPID.
It’s a lot more work for me. However, it enriches those people I work with through meetings, events and training.
It’s easy to be STUPID. We’ve all been STUPID. Going with the flow is comfortable. It feels good knowing something will work without a lot of effort. In the short term, you may convince yourself that you’re doing good work. However, you’ll quickly discover that in not pushing yourself, you’re losing more than you could ever imagine. This might be your skills to compete in an ever-changing job market. This might be failing as a role model for your girls.
I would like to challenge you to be SMART.
Examine your own life. Where are you in your goals? Have you stagnated? How are you being STUPID?
Then, ask yourself these questions. What can you learn? How can it improve your work or your volunteer efforts?
It takes improvement, desire and change to be SMART.
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