OPINION
AUGUST 2021
Pausing for a Sense of Wonder Can Boost Learning and Goal Achievement
Wonder usually comes naturally to children, but adults tend to lose touch with their natural sense of wonder — they forget, on an emotional level, how awesome things can be and how exciting it is to start something new, something that you have a strong desire for. It’s enjoyable — and practically helpful — to remember a childlike sense of wonder, and really saturate yourself in those positive, pleasurable, motivating emotions.
Causes for Wonder
Photo by Christopher Ruel on Unsplash
BY PATRICIA SANDERS
Feeling a sense of wonder about learning or pursuing a goal is a way of celebrating in advance — and it can help you get there, too. Outside my house there’s a long, steep set of stairs to the top of a hill. Up there, you can sit at a picnic table and look out on a beautiful view: green hills, little white houses, and beyond them, the ocean. When I moved here six months ago, I was so out of shape I couldn’t walk up those stairs without stopping to rest. I avoided them, because it was unpleasant. But a couple days ago, I realized I was quick-stepping up them all the way to the top. A lot of strenuous walking and Pilates had paid off. You often hear people say nobody ever really changes, but they do. Those changes might not, in most cases, go deep into who we are. But they do happen, and when they do, it’s a minor miracle — bringing good things into our reach that had been impossible before. Any major undertaking will change you through the effort and effects on your life. It will affect those around you as well, because they’ll experience the changed you in their world. Learning something new, specifically, means you’re creating lots of positive changes: • Change in the contents of your brain, obviously — with positive impacts on cognitive function. • Change in your identity — e.g., learn to play the guitar, and now you’re a guitarist. • Change in your potentials — learn a new language, and now you can talk to millions more people (maybe fall in love with one of them, a person you never could have met before). Learn some math, and now you can be an engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, a math teacher, etc. etc. And so on. • Change in your activities — you’ll become able to do things you couldn’t do before, and you probably will do them. Your changed identity will lead you to opportunities you might not have imagined before you started. • Change in your opinions, possibly — based on your new knowledge and broader scope of experience.
The role of desire When you anticipate and consciously value all the changes consequent to pursuing a goal or learning something new, this can boost your motivation — building and fueling your desire. Desire, in turn, acts as a force multiplier: it energizes and focuses you.
When you add a keen desire to learning or pursuing an achievement, you increase the likelihood of accomplishing whatever you’re aiming at. In the case of learning, you also increase the likelihood of acting on what you learn — because you’re placing a focus on the benefits of the learning and the pleasure you’ll derive.
Enter Wonder Consciously cultivating a sense of wonder sparks, fuels, and sharpens motivation and desire. A sense of wonder generates a pleasurable experience associated with the goal or learning intention — and the anticipation of more pleasure to come. A keen sense of wonder about the implications of the changes you’re about to incite — through learning or any other kind of goal pursuit — highlights its value to you and contributes to the pleasure of anticipating achievement. A sense of wonder generates a pleasurable experience associated with the goal or learning intention — and the anticipation of more pleasure to come. A sense of wonder for what you’re about to do or learn translates into a sharp, intense feeling of gratitude-inadvance and a longing to make the anticipated changes real. In that way, a sense of wonder offers a powerful tool to boost learning and goal achievement.
The Wonder Approach An introductory course in just about any subject will often start with some kind of survey of the field — the history of the topic, or a look at how the subject fits into a broader area. These often dull preliminaries typically consist of perfunctory reviews, throat-clearing, and hemming and hawing before the instructor gets down to the actual material. What they could and should be is a pause for wonder. Education theorists have advocated a “wonder approach” to learning: “We suggest wonder as the center of all motivation and action in the child.” Little kids excitement about going to school stems from lots of reasons, and many of them are social — but it also comes partly because they know school is a big step toward adulthood. They know school is going to change them in major, exciting, empowering ways. I suggest grown-ups could learn a lot from children’s excitement, and the way that excitement motivates them. A sense of wonder energizes you and contributes to success. When you take time to really feel a sense of wonder, you’re firming up the connection of your desire with your plan, and your plan with the pleasure it will bring in the future.
If you rush into learning or a new, challenging endeavor without stopping to think — and feel — about it, you can miss out on noticing the full meaning of it: • A new undertaking means becoming able to do something you’d really love to be able to do, maybe have always wanted to do. • It means, very possibly, changing your life — moving toward a life that’s more creative, fun, or rewarding than what you’re currently doing. • It often means joining a community — all the other people who are doing what you’re setting out to do. • In learning, it means delving into a subject that’s meaningful to you and potentially fascinating in itself — offering inherent enjoyment along with the pragmatic benefits. I suggest pausing to feel all that. It’s really very awesome.
Reasons for a Pause to Wonder A “wonder session” provides a moment to look ahead and really think and feel, in a relaxed and happy way, about what you’re about to do. Like the person about to go on a journey, you look ahead to where you’re going, visualize what the journey will be like, and get a bead on your final destination — even if at this moment it’s only a point on the horizon. A pause for wonder gives you a perfect opportunity to set your intentions. It’s a moment to think about your expectations, what the journey will be like, and what you could do to make it more enjoyable or more likely to succeed. The pause for wonder can double as a planning session, a chance to ask questions like: • What’s the level of effort and time you’re willing to put in, and does that match up with the difficulty and desirability of your goal? • Will it be fun all the time or will it be a drag a lot of the time? Are there ways to make it more enjoyable? • What are the ways the activity will challenge you, and how can you meet those challenges to make it more likely you’ll get through them? • What else can you do to enhance the process — such as set up a workspace, tell your friends what you’re doing, promise yourself to take self-care breaks when you need to, and so forth? • Are you really excited about this new thing, deep down? And if not, why are you doing it at all? The pause for wonder offers a moment to set your intention and solidify your desire to achieve it, to look at the tasks ahead and seek ways to make the most of the process you’re about to undertake, and to be sure what you’re about to do aligns with your real values.
A Call to Wonder Now that climbing those stairs is so easy, and not a chore, I go up to the top of the hill a lot more often. I’ll take a glass of wine in the evening and sit and watch the clouds slide across the ocean and the stars appear in the sky. There’s so much in our lives that’s disappointing, sad, and painful — it’s good to remember and really feel the excitement and potential of reaching for a new accomplishment, new skills, new capabilities, and new understandings. Feeling that sense of wonder is a way of celebrating in advance — and it can help you get there, too. u
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