Your brain learns best by doing, and teaching.

If you just sit and listen, or watch carefully, your neurotransmitters will clump up into a traffic jam at the first unfamiliar concept or a seemingly impassable barrier, and wait to learn about that concept or how to overcome that obstacle before they re-engage. 

You might imagine you are learning as you listen or read, but your retention rate is statistically dismal. ( less than 5% of what you learn is retained from listening to a lecture and less than 10% is retained from just reading according to most experts). Real learning happens when you take action. 

You can apply this idea of engagement to your senses as well. Touching the pages of a book enhances your chances of knowledge retention since it engages your tactile senses. The more you involve yourself ( touch, smell, sound, etc., the more likely you are to remember what you learned.) 

Once you make the mistake or run into the feared obstacle, and correct yourself or overcome the obstacle, your neurotransmitters will put their collective tiny "feet" on the gas and move onto the next obstacle you noticed ahead of time, where they will again jam up and wait for the answers before moving on. 

This is why is it critical to make mistakes as you learn how to do the task or repeat the memorized content correctly. Think of procrastinating as delaying learning, rather than failure or achievement. 

Experts estimate that active learning, which involves doing something, results in a retention close to 90 percent (enhanced by teaching your new knowledge to someone else), while disengaged learning results in a retention rate well under 25%. 

Replace the goal of accomplishment with the goal of learning, and you will begin to see failure as guidance, and success as nothing more than a sign that you are headed in a beneficial direction.

That makes it way less scary to start. 

Yes, you will look stupid. No, it will not feel good. But after awhile, you will see a bad-ass courageous learner in the mirror, and that is one of the most satisfying experiences of all. Because if you are willing to be a learner, you can essentially try anything you want. 

Have a smart and happy day. And remember to learn something new. 

Thanks for reading my post. I appreciate your attention more than you know.

Mary