We want to get things right faster
I always agreed with the motivational quotes that ‘learning takes effort’ and that it ‘takes time’. But when it took ME time to learn something, when I couldn’t get something right, and didn’t understand it quickly, I panicked. The longer it took me to learn something, the more I worried that I wouldn’t be able to get it right, that there was something wrong with me, that I might not be smart enough to ever get it right.
It was exhausting and I carried a lot of anxiety about this, throughout my studying.
I find my students have very similar experiences.
Why do we have a desperate need to learn fast?
In the moment, at our desks when we’re alone, we definitely want to feel the progress of learning. We want to be able to FEEL that we’re smarter and know more when we get up from each study session. We want to know that we’re now able to get more marks.
When we don’t have that feeling, we don’t feel so good.
Where does this come from? Is it normal? Isn’t this the way EVERYONE feels?
People with a growth mindset don’t struggle with struggling… here’s why
Take-aways
- Our studying approaches NOW, are based on the idea of learning we developed earlier in our lives.
- The feedback you got at school impacts what you think learning SHOULD look like
- If we got good marks at school, chances are we see ‘struggling’ as a bad thing
- We are happy to keep putting in effort… IF we can see progress. When we don’t feel progress, we start worrying
- Most accounting students have this challenge… for a REALLY obvious reason!
Consider this carefully. When you’re struggling, when you have higher levels of anxiety about not learning and getting stuff right faster, think about where this comes from for you, and whether it actually SHOULD apply to you.
CHOOSE the way you study, consciously. Understand that learning might not actually work the way you thought it did!
