Personal resilience, Day 8 – 11th of March 2020

Learning and coping with change

As human beings, we are creatures of habit and, as pack animals, we have a tendency to follow others.  The impact of this is that when something changes it can challenge us prompting questions such as:

• Why is this happening?
• What will the outcome be? Good or bad?
• What does this mean to me?
• Can I change?

Economists tell us that we are now in the 4th Industrial Revolution.  Technology and artificial intelligence are no longer features in sci fi films they are influencing what we do and how we do it now.  Change is happening faster and that pace is likely to increase.  The only thing that we can be certain of is that the future is uncertain!

Learning allows us to extend our perspective and enhances our ability to change.

Learning is different things to different people. It can be:

• formal, e.g. a training course
• informal; e.g. reading a book
• experiential; e.g. learning by doing something
• social; e.g. a dance class

Learning has also been shown to be critical to brain health and helps us avoid diseases such as dementia.

It is a good idea to write down what you want to learn each year.  This should include a mix of what do you need to do to do your job better as well as what do you want to learn for fun.  Once you have identified what you want to do it is easier to identify how to do it and also prioritise the time to be successful.

The Farm Advisory Service offer a whole host of learning opportunities.  You can attend our events and workshops for a mix of formal and experiential learning.  You can find all the upcoming events on www.fas.scot/events.  The listings are added to throughout the year so keep checking back for new events and workshops.  We also have a huge range of written materials, podcasts, webinars and videos which you can find at www.fas.scot/publications/

If any of these emails or exercises have affected you and you feel you would like to speak to someone, support is available through RSABI.  You can call them on 0300 111 4166.  Their helpline is open from 7am to 11pm all year.

These resources have been developed by Kim Walker of Advance Consultancy for the Farm Advisory Service.