At the beginning of the year, I mentioned that I set goals for the year and for the week. One of my weekly goals, with no correlation to an annual goal, is to try or learn something new. That’s it, no restrictions on what. It can be a new food, a new restaurant, random trivia that is somehow useful, or a new game… anything that I look at and go “oh, I didn’t know that” or “I tried something.”
When I visited California in December, most of the restaurants I went to were new to me, so rather than counting those, I looked for new (to me) foods on their menus. As a result, I tried a seared ahi salad one night, and Wild Alaskan sand dabs another. Locally, I’ve tried a couple new restaurants – including my recent visit to Balmoral – and explored a couple places in Valparaiso, Indiana last week.
Learning applies to work as well. Working in IT is a constant opportunity to learn, both about the software that I work with, the business processes our assorted clients use it for, and other software that can tie into it. I’ve spent the last week or so learning software that I’ve owned for several years (as part of a package), but never had a reason to use. The added bonus in this case was succeeding at what I was attempting to do, which involved repeatedly searching online for tips on the software as I struggled to customize one bit or another.
And that’s the reward for trying something new… accomplishing my work goal was satisfying, just as learning a new game can be. Trying a new food… well, that depends on whether I like it or not. So far, so good.