Don't Fear New Places

If you're learning a new skill, taking a new course, changing jobs, changing career or, relocating to a new country, you need to read this:

When I was growing up. I moved a lot from school to school. I attended over five nursery schools and three secondary schools

Each time it was clear that I'm moving to a new school, my heart would skip to no end. I'd think about the friends and connections I've made. I'd think about the teachers I'm used to, familiar environment that I've mastered, it's not an easy experience.

But soon I realised something.

New places are supposed to look and feel strange

I'm supposed to feel uncomfortable. I'm supposed to ‘fight’ for my space and register my authentic brand.

These new spaces have established cliques. Good friends who do not want to part. The ones who top these classes do not want to lose their position to a new dude who just came. So I had to fight. Fight for my space. In some schools, I meet champions and established bullies who do not want to yield their notoriety to a new boy.

Do you know the strange thing I've found in those new schools?

Sometimes I make better friends. I meet better teachers. I had a better experience. Even though I was scared I was going to lose my former Good friends. I'd have fought my parents if I could.

The same thing applies to most of you. you don't want to leave this current place. You don't want to pivot to a new career. You don't want to be called a newbie. You don't want to start learning how to hold the ‘mouse’ again.

You should have closed some doors and opened new ones, you should have evolved, but no! You keep holding on to the old. You don't want to be the newest ‘kid’ in class.

It is not meant to be easy. Prepare your mind to hit a hard rock and to walk through a rough patch. I know you've imagined how you'd walk through the YouTube tutorial/course. How you will practice and walk through your first project.

Listen. It is meant to be slow at first. It is meant to be hard at the beginning. And if it was easy, a lot of people would be doing it now. You will sweat in your butt crack. You will feel like a slow learner. Your back will ache, you will want to go back to the things you've been doing before, which are easy for you to do.

Prepare your mind.

New places always look and feel strange. Don't feel somehow. Embrace the feeling and don't rush yourself. Pick the details. They are the bricks of growth. Don't jump over your learning process just to save face.

Take water. Take a stroll and come back to it. Don't jump to new and seemingly easy things. Don't fall for the Devil’s treat.

Yes, it's supposed to look like looking for a needle in a hay sack! Whoever said it would be easy lied to you. I was invited to an event at Maryland 6 years ago when I still lived in Ibadan. I looked like a JJC(Jolly just came). I didn't know which road to cross and where to board the next cab going to Ibadan. The place looked strange. I asked for directions and I felt like a fish on the sand. I didn't know I would be on that street, five years later as a resident in Lagos, going to my worship centre. Now it's nothing to me. There’s no anxiety, I have mastered the neighbourhood.

The fact that it feels strange doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean you should be scared. I had the same experience at Bishop Phillips Academy in Ibadan on my first day at the secondary school. The school felt so strange, I started crying right in front of their old school hall. I didn't know anyone. I sat alone and cried as a little boy who didn't know where to go.

Just three weeks after my crying. I led my mates as a class captain to clean that same field. We called it ‘portion’ at that time. It didn't feel strange anymore, because it had become my new home. You will master that tool. You will become a captain in that new industry and territory. Don't be afraid of new spaces. Have a great week and breakthrough from within.

©Abiola Iyiola, 2025