the art of learning new things as a terrified adult

With just a few days left of March, I’m sliding into your inboxes a little late with this newsletter - but I have a good reason: I’ve been busy getting my driving license!

That’s right, I am now legal on the roads of Zimbabwe (and all other countries that accept this license) - a mere twenty years after I first got my provisional license in the UK at the tender age of 17.

Learning to drive at this stage of life has really made me consider how I approach trying new things: and has made me consider what motivates me, how to identify barriers, and what it means to be a lifelong student.

Buckle in, and I’ll tell you all about it.

The vehicle inspection department in Eastlea, Harare, where I did part of my test

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As someone who genuinely loves learning new things, it’s odd that I had a mental block around driving for so long. It’s partly to do with having been traumatised by a terrible instructor when I was 18. He would interrogate me about ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ asking why ‘all Muslims hate women’, and cheerfully warned me not to drive through certain neighbourhoods because ‘they’ll glass the car if they see an Asian driving it’.

I hated getting in the car with him and dreaded every single lesson with this man who enjoyed deliberately intimidating a young woman in a confined space. Although I had paid for a block booking of 10 lessons, I trusted my instincts and quit halfway through. I didn’t get my money back, but I’m proud of my teenage self for knowing what my boundaries were and maintaining them.

Unfortunately this bad experience fed into a narrative I was already primed for, which is that learning to drive is hard. My parents, who have always told their children that they are capable of anything, both struggled with learning to drive. I remember how dejected my mum was having failed her test several times before passing, and seeing my dad start and stop and start lessons before he also eventually passed after several attempts.

I could (and should) have taken a very different lesson from their journey: how amazing were my parents for learning new skills in their 30s and 40s? How inspiring that they carried on persevering with something they struggled with for so long? But instead, my outlook went the other way - driving was obviously A Hard Thing and I very much liked being Good at Things. Being a straight A student came fairly easily to me, so the idea that I would find something difficult, or would even have to work at, was distinctly unappealing. And so….I avoided even trying.

It’s a lesson in how the stories we tell ourselves can affect so much - and has a real life impact on what we do ultimately do or do not achieve. Which leads me to my first tip for learning something new:

Step 1: spend some time identifying what your barriers to learning have been in the past and why - and how you might overcome them

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If it’s not too cliched to say…having children was the thing that finally motivated me to learn to drive. But not in a cute, ‘I want to be the best person I can be for them’ kind of way. After my daughter was born, I found myself lying awake at night catastrophising: what would I do if there was an emergency and I was home alone with the kids? How would I get them to the hospital in the event of an accident? In this city where public transport is non-existent and emergency services are patchy at best, how could I safely make sure my kids got where they needed to go?

We are fortunate enough to have a fantastic driver, F, who handles our school pick ups and drop offs, as well as helping me get around. He’s been with us for the last 4 years and is an indispensable part of the family - but I know that once we move back to the UK, whenever that may be, relying on someone else to drive won’t be an option. The obvious answer was that I had to learn to drive myself.

Step 2: pinpoint what your motivation is - it can be rooted in practicality, or financial reasons, or lofty goals of self-actualisation - or in my case, complete fear. But knowing what motivates you can also keep you on track

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Around the same time that I was thinking of taking driving lessons again, Little Lad was struggling to learn how to ride his bike. I could already see in him the propensity to avoid things he wasn’t immediately good at - just like me - and I didn’t want him to inherit that. So I made a deal with him that if he learnt to ride his bike, I would learn to drive.

Avi and I bought him a little red two-wheeler with big rubber tyres and didn’t attach the stabilisers. He practiced, sometimes diligently, sometimes with pauses for weeks, but with a lot of encouragement he kept going. And when he finally learned to ride it properly, taking corners at speed, beaming with pride - I knew I had to keep up my end of the bargain.

Step 3: sharing accountability with another person or a group can help you stick to your commitment - whether that’s having a buddy to do things with or making a pledge to commit to a team

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My first lesson with my Zimbabwean instructor, T, my hands gripped the wheel so tightly that he laughed. Rrrrrreeeelax! We are here to have a good time!

We are NOT, I screamed inside. We are here to NOT DIE.

Driving in Harare has its own particular brand of peril: craters in the roads, a lack of decent street lighting, traffic lights that are frequently down, and a disturbingly high prevalence of drink-driving among locals and expats alike. When I say that I was nervous, it’s an understatement.

I had found T’s number on a WhatsApp group. In that first lesson, he handed me the keys with no further explanation and I had to rummage around the recesses of my memory to remember which pedal was which. After mashing the brakes and lifting my clutch too quickly a few times, we finally got going. I crawled along the backroads behind our house, strewn with potholes and dust, at 10km/hour.

You need to let GO of the wheel a little, T said. You can’t MOVE it if you are holding it so TIGHT.

It sounds counterintuitive, but in a way, the very laid back approach to teaching was what I needed to relax me enough to actually be open to learning.

Step 4: try to ‘rrrrrrelaxxxx!’ and enjoy the process

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On my second lesson, T decided I could manage a roundabout and to cross two lanes of traffic. Halfway around, I realised I couldn’t see anything out of my rearview mirror because T had not reminded me to check my mirrors and I hadn’t driven in so long, I forgot that that was what you are supposed to do.

T’s instruction was heavily focused on the technicalities for passing the test: we practiced 3-point turns and parallel parking constantly. I had to reverse into a space marked out by huge oil drums over and over and over again. We spent hours perfecting my hill-start and only got shouted at by a passerby twice.

When I went for a practice drive with Avi, I could see his horror that I merrily took corners at a high gear, never remembering to change down, and I confessed that I wasn’t actually sure how to stop the car: I sort of just pressed the clutch or the brake as the spirit moved me, but never knew quite which one to do when or why. Miraculously, Avi continued to accompany me for drives and explained what I was supposed to do, and gradually I got the hang of things more.

Our driver, F, was also invaluable. He seemed to enjoy sitting in the passenger seat while I drove and gently reminding me when to change lanes, alerting me when to give way and stop. The guards who control the gate of our compound always waved me off cheerfully for my lessons. I learned that one guard, P, had just passed his test a few months before and was especially keen to talk test strategy with me. Don’t roll back on your hill start, you will get an INSTANT FAIL, he merrily advised on the morning of my test.

As it turns out, I needed a mixture of all these styles of instruction and encouragement. While T prepped me for the test and explained the technicalities of the manoeuvres, Avi and F helped me drive longer distances safely and P and the other guards cheered me on too.

Step 5: find your support team - different people can help in different ways

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The Zimbabwean formal test preparation materials are a bizarre mix of genuine driving theory, health advice, and moral instruction. The great thing about this is that it definitely captures your attention:

actual content from the driving theory handbook

‘the Zimbabwean man today can be faithful’ - good to know

Step 6: study and practice and enjoy the full range of your learning - the good, the bad, and the downright bonkers

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Final thoughts….

It can be intimidating to learn a new skill as an adult, especially something that seems ‘standard’ - like learning to ride a bike, or to swim, or drive - that you’ve been putting off for years. Sometimes it’s a fear of failure, sometimes it’s just that this thing has grown to be such a Big Deal that taking it on requires mental capacity and commitment we just can’t summon. Even with fun things, we often promise ourselves that we’ll finally take up knitting, or learn French, or take that pottery class - but there are always reasons not to do it: time, money, energy.

But an unexpected side benefit from learning to drive, is that I am hooked again on learning new things. I’ve remembered that I am a curious and determined person: someone who, in the days before kids, took evening and weekend courses in photography, watercolour painting, storytelling, flower arranging, South American politics, and more, simply because these things interested me and I had the time and funding (thanks to a generous scheme from my employer). It’s made me want to be that person again.

I’m already looking for the next challenge: will I brush up on a language, or take swimming proficiency classes? Will I try and gain a formal qualification in something that has always interested me, like interior design, or directing, or food styling? I’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you’ve always wanted to learn - or what classes you’re currently doing and why. Maybe you’ll inspire my next goal - and I hope you’ve been inspired to make one too.

Take care,

Shahnaz x