Deal with challenges while learning
During your pursuit of a worthwhile learning goal, you continually
face challenges. Overcoming challenges is one reason achieving a goal is so
rewarding. Sometimes though, challenges can seem overwhelming. This section
outlines some of the common challenges you may face.
There are may ways to overcome common challenges you may face during your
learning journey. Developing a better understanding of these challenges, as
well as techniques to address them, helps you move forward faster when these
challenges arise. The challenges we tackle in this section include:
- Motivation. Lack of motivation is often the largest issue that
arises when times get tough. However, lack of motivation can also come
from other sources as well, such as misaligned goals or internal or
external conflicts.
- Fear. Fear and nervousness, in many guises, degrade learning
performance in several ways. I describe fear’s dual nature, and how to
combat fear with knowledge, understanding and other techniques.
- Mistakes. Rather than seeing mistakes negatively, learn to see
them as steps towards your goals. You can learn from your own mistakes, as
well as the mistakes of others.
- Pressure. I outline some tips on how to deal with the impact of
pressure on various techniques, both during learning and at other times.
- Wrong assumptions. You can use the ACT model to overcome wrong
assumptions.
A tip before we begin. Medical students often develop the symptoms of a
disease they are studying. If you read this chapter and suddenly believe
that your lack of motivation comes from a deep internal conflict about
possible success and the impact a mistake, due to making a wrong assumption
under pressure, would have on that success, stop for a moment! Are you
suffering the Medical Student Syndrome? I cover this in more detail at the
end of this page.
Keep it up—deal with motivation issues
In any challenging exercise you have times when your motivation is low.
This is just one more challenge that you need to overcome to continue
towards your goal.
Issues with goals and objectives, and internal conflicts, are a major
cause of motivation issues. Reviewing your own past performance can help.
Other people can also be of great help. They can give you feedback and
guidance. They can also act as motivators, whether they know it or not.
Sometimes you may have some management issues to deal with, such as too much
tracking, too many distractions or too many outstanding issues.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
- Detailed discussion on a range of motivation issues
- Goals and objectives: Use of internal motivators and external
motivators (eg reward and punishment), goal relevance, goal difficulty,
and inconsistencies.
- Internal conflicts: Change anxiety, learning versus performance
orientation, and risk perception.
- Learning performance: Getting feedback, affirming learning ability,
and reviews of how far you’ve come
- Enrolling others to assist: Talking to other people, using
consistency, helping others, and using the importance of the goal as
motivation (eg gung-ho “Important work” motivation).
- Management aspects: too much tracking, distractions, other
responsibilities, and issues.
- Further points: Changing focus for a while, enjoying the journey,
review further references, and getting further help.
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Knowledge—your weapon against fear and nervousness
Fear has a dual nature. It’s both a protector and an inhibitor. You can
use this understanding to help defeat fears that hold you back, as well as
learn how to use knowledge to manage fears and stay safe.
In any learning activity involving significant challenges, you may
sometimes feel nervous. What underlies this nervousness? It’s usually fear.
Fear of accidents, not being able to handle an event, not being able to
recall information, or even sometimes fear of success.
There are some activities that can help you find the right balance
between too little and too much fear. Firstly, use a “balanced model” of
fear. Both too much and too little fear can harm your livelihood. An
effective way for controlling fear is to make it known. Accept you have the
fear and then find more information. Understand the particular issue causing
the fear.
Fear of failure is a common issue, less known though is fear of success.
You can use positive experiences to help you work through fearful events. As
well, there are techniques to help you disassociate yourself from a past or
feared event if it holds an irrational amount of fear.
Lastly, two more techniques can help - uncover hidden fears, and control
breathing to control nervousness.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
Use the balanced model
- Finding the right balance between too little fear (reckless,
foolhardy) and too much far (static, paralyzed).
- How fear is usually (but not always) a warning from your body or brain
that you may be putting yourself in a dangerous situation.
- Different fear positions for different activities.
- What influences your approach to risk and fear, and assertions that
can help move you towards or away from risk and fear.
Remove the fear of the unknown – make it known
- How to remove much fear by making it known, and tips on how to do so.
- What to do with “worst case scenarios,”
- Tips for finding out more about exams and tests, journeys into new
areas, and finishing training.
- Further assertions to help remove fear of the unknown.
Understand fear of failure
- Understand more about the fear of failure
- See how “positive thinking” can actually be harmful or dangerous.
Learn how to apply positive thinking in the right place.
- Symptoms of fear of failure, such as escape mechanisms (fight or
flight, procrastination, sleep), anxiety (stress, nervousness, neck and
back aches, out of control feelings, sleeplessness, hypertension, and
more), and irrational self talk.
- Steps for how to manage and overcome the fear of failure.
- What to do if persistence doesn’t help.
Understand fear of success
- Describes how sometimes your fear may not be of failing – it may
actually be fear of success and what that entails.
- Symptoms, including sabotage.
- Questions to help explore whether you may have some underlying fears
of success, including life changes, complications, moving from structured
to unstructured learning, additional pressures, and possible decline.
- Suggestions for dealing with fear of success.
Positive past experiences – use as anchors
- Suggestions for using positive past experiences as anchors to overcome
fears.
Negative experiences – disassociate yourself
- How to separate emotions from negative experiences or imaginations,
using mental imagery or visualization.
- Describes a disassociation technique called the disassociation movie.
- How you can also use this technique for phobias
Strategies for common issues
- Three strategies for common fear-related issues. The “seventy by
seven” technique is useful for uncovering hidden fears. Breathing normally
is a key element of handling nervousness. Lastly, I give some tips on
handling exams and tests.
- How to use the “seventy by seven” technique
- Tips for breathing normally to unlock nervousness, including
visualization, shunt, overcoming hyperventilation, learning to laugh (the
benefits of laughter and seeing the funny or humorous side of things),
using other people to help you (eg the naked audience, or a colleague
helping you out), relaxation, and using other Memletic Techniques.
- Four ways to minimize or overcome nervousness associated with an exam
or test. Includes understanding the source, realigning views, reframing
the purpose, role reversal (for demonstration or oral style tests), and
relaxation (the 90% rule).
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A quick reminder is that fear is usually a warning from your body or
brain that you may be putting yourself in danger. Sometimes your fear
signals real danger. If you are putting yourself into unknown or dangerous
circumstances, pause and take a step back. Ask yourself how you can make it
more known. How you can discover, understand and reduce the risks?
Mistakes—shortcuts to faster learning
Many people avoid mistakes at all costs, however mistakes are a key part
of learning. You progress faster by accepting and making the most of your
own mistakes. Another shortcut is through using the lessons from mistakes
that others make.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
Your own mistakes
- Further points on the importance of making mistakes while you learn.
- Key factors that determine how well you handle mistakes, including
attitude, reaction and learning from them.
- Points on attitude, including accepting mistakes (but not accepting
danger).
- Steps for dealing with mistakes immediately, including acknowledging
it, rectifying it, planning a response (if required), verbalizing it,
making a note, and not hiding it.
- Tips for learning from mistakes, such as capturing them, getting
assistance, replaying them to understand lessons, and documenting
feelings.
Other peoples mistakes – your shortcut
"It is necessary for us to learn from others' mistakes. You will not
live long enough to make them all yourself." (Hyman George Rickover)
- How to use the mistakes of others to accelerate your learning.
- Where to find information on the mistakes of others.
- Examples of two aviation accidents / disasters caused by human error
and mistakes, and tips on learning from them (even if you are not in an
aviation field).
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Under pressure—impact on techniques
A technique may work well when you practice it in the comfort of your
home or classroom. When you get out and try it in the real environment
though, you may find it doesn’t work as well as you expect. This is often
due to pressure.
I’ve found that pressure causes issues with techniques both during
learning as well as after you’ve learned something well.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
- Examples from my own experiences in flight training, both during
training and afterwards.
- Tips for recognizing and changing techniques when they don’t work well
under pressure.
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ACT! Recognize and act on assumptions
Wrong assumptions are a problem in many fields. You can improve the
assumptions you make by becoming more aware of when you make them.
Recognizing assumptions can be challenging in any environment.
There are two main kinds of assumptions:
- Conscious assumptions. You consciously accept a piece of
information as a fact, while understanding that it may not be.
- Unconscious assumptions. You unconsciously accept a piece of
information as a fact, without questioning whether it is. These are the
dangerous assumptions, however they are also difficult to detect because
they are unconscious!
We all make many assumptions about the world we live in. In our time
pressured society, making assumptions allows us to be as effective as we
are. Imagine if every day we had to check that each part of the car worked
before starting it. Imagine if we had to call the local transport office to
make sure the train is coming that day. Think about having to ring the bank
every day just to check our money is still there.
There are two parts of assumptions to consider:
- Strength. Our assumptions become stronger with experience. The
car starts most of the time. The train usually arrives. Our money stays
where it is (well, if we don’t touch it). The more we experience the
expected outcome, the more we treat the assumption as fact.
- Impact. The need to question assumptions usually arises when
the impact of our assumption being wrong has an effect we would rather
avoid. However, this is difficult if you don’t realize you have made an
assumption.
Unfortunately, wrong assumptions cost our society much time and money.
Wrong assumptions by pilots (and others) cause accidents and loss of life.
Many aircraft accident investigations show the pilot made an assumption that
led to the accident or incident. Some of the most common are “I can get
through the weather” and “I have enough fuel.”
The key to staying safe is to turn unconscious assumptions into conscious
assumptions. Once they are conscious assumptions, you can then use a simple
process to decide whether the assumption is safe.
I've created a technique called the "assumption buster" technique. This
technique is a good way to deal with unconscious assumptions. You can apply
this assumption buster technique to check assumptions you make in any field,
not just aviation. You can train yourself to recognize and act on
assumptions before they become issues or problems.
There are two steps. The first is to set up triggers for common
assumptions. Assumption triggers are visualizations and assertions you can
review that help pull your assumptions from the unconscious to the conscious
mind. The second step is to ACT on them when they arise. ACT stands for
Assumption, Contingency, and Test.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
- What are assumption triggers, how to obtain them, and how to activate
them using visualization and other techniques.
- Using the ACT technique to move from a conscious assumption to action.
- Includes an example of making assumptions about the weather in
aviation – and how to deal with it using the ACT technique. Also includes
examples possible triggers in an aviation context, such as weather, fuel,
location, “I’m OK,” and other people’s actions.
- A discussion on the medical student syndrome, where medical (and
psychiatry) students pick up the symptoms of the disease or disorder they
are studying. Discusses why this is relevant to this chapter on
challenges.
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The Medical Student Syndrome
Another variation on wrong assumptions is one I briefly discussed in the
introduction to this chapter. This is the Medical Student Syndrome, where
medical (and sometimes psychiatry) students start to believe they suffer the
disease or disorder they are studying. These students then make a second
mistake. They do not try to test their thinking, for example by discussing
it with a doctor or specialist. There have been many cases where students
have convinced themselves they suffer the disease, only to have tests prove
them wrong.
I’ve included this anecdote because you might do something similar as you
read about the challenges in this section. After reading this section, you
may feel there are one or two issues relevant to you. That’s fine. Reread
the information on those issues, try the techniques to resolve them, and
keep moving forward.
However, you may find yourself rationalizing why it’s so difficult to
move on while you suffer from several of these challenges. If so, try
talking to someone or at least write down your thoughts. You may be
suffering a similar syndrome to those medical students. Talking to someone
else or putting pen to paper often highlights mistaken assumptions. Be open
to them! If you get defensive, that behavior may show you are defending
thoughts that you want to believe are true.
Lastly, be aware you may also talk yourself into believing something to
justify inaction. If you have a history of procrastination, review the
section on motivation to help you keep moving. |
