How to overcome frustration about learning:

I have often faced frustration in life while learning.Sometimes the frustration grew to such an extent that I either gave up or got angry and shrieked out in anger. This reaction is normal since frustration comes when you cannot have what you want. Most of the time, things seem easy and achievable. Looking at what others have achieved, the road seems easy but it never is. In this post, different ways of overcoming frustration faced while learning will be explored. This subject is quite important to me since many give up on their dreams or think that they are not made to learn a particular skill. My answer to them is that it is always worthwhile to try. To overcome frustration this blog will explore three main strategies. The first one being to admit to yourself where you are in your learning, the second one being to break down the skill into smaller parts and the last is to give yourself the possibility to fail.

To start learning you need to be honest about where you stand. A good start is to admit that you are not as good at something as you think. This conflicts with the ego. The ego in many ways can be an illusion, guiding us towards a misconception. By overcoming the ego the weakest points are highlighted. Working on the weakest points comes in many forms. Sometimes it means changing direction and mastering the very basic skills. In maths or science and other disciplines, going back to the basics of the discipline lead to solving the bigger challenges. Pointed out by Socrates’ :“All that I know is that I know nothing”. With this quote, Socrates implicitly points that whatever is being learned fully master is impossible as we will always be begginners, it is wise to acknowledge your ignorance. Learning takes time, and to take a step to overcome the frustration is to know where you stand on the spectrum of developing the given skill. So, being honest with yourself and where you stand is a good way to start learning.

Similarly, when facing the frustration of learning, weighing the strengths and weaknesses in the learning process is crucial. Overcoming the frustration that learning provides. Frustration while learning is characterised by a wall, a wall that many bang their heads on in despair and develop cognitive distortion symptoms. Cognitive distortion is irrational or exaggerated thought patterns that lead to psychopathological states.(healthline.com). Cognitive distortion leads to symptoms such as a negative though pattern, self-devaluation or anxiety.Significantly, mental filtering is a cognitive distortion that is common while learning it is characterised by a filter that lets through only negative thoughts while filtering out positive ones. It is easy to see that you are stuck ,to think that you are stagnating even when you are still growing, as things go slower. Acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses leads to a more nuanced view. Highlighting the positive brings motivation and strengths that can alter something mediocre to make it better. (Les thérapie Comportementales et cognitive Pour les Nuls). Changing a negative into a positive. This becomes crucial in this day and age of negative thinking. Overcoming the frustration barrier is essential in life for dealing with many problems. This is to say that weighing your strengths and weaknesses overcomes a negative thinking pattern and the frustration barrier of learning.

However, when facing the frustration of learning , a big wall turns up that has to be climbed. Therefore breaking down a skill into smaller chunks increases the learning capacity and the possibility of getting to the other side of the wall. Dividing the skill into smaller pieces highlights what to work upon. It becomes crucial with the Parento principle, that stipulates that 80 percent of the results come from only 20 percent of the energy put into a given skill. (https://elearningindustry.com/) These leverage points become significant part of learning. Indeed, they are efficiency gains in the learning process. Like a compass indicatting you where to go. Cutting down the skill into smaller pieces solves the problem and pushes towards a better understanding of the skill. The leverage points are found by re-learning and mastering the very basics of one skill. By doing that, you are paving the way for much harder tasks . Take the examples of maths if you know by heart basic multiplication, subtraction and addition can lead you to solve higher level problems. Higher maths is deeply ingrained into the basics of maths and knowing this can guide learning. In this case, the leverage point is achieved when cutting down a skill you then know which way to go to become more productive and resilient. This is to say that cutting down a skill into smaller piece is really good for solving problems .

Indeed, breaking down the task into different components can overcome the Dip. The Dip is characterised in the learning process by a feeling of having reached an all time low. By breaking the task into smaller pieces, you will be a lot less overwhelmed. When you are struggling at a given moment, cutting down things into smaller chunks gives clarity, as the journey left seems less overwhelming. Throughout life things seem harder and harder, more and more complicated. You should acknowledge that the dip exists and cutting down the process of learning enables you to know when you are going through this dip. It can be quite overwhelming that the thing that you are trying to get better at is levelling off, but you shouldn’t be overwhelmed by it. Once the dip has been overcome will get better a lot quicker and overcoming this frustration of the dip will build your learning and make your motivation stronger. So staying strong and facing the dip can build resilience strength and confidence.

Furthermore, for overcoming the frustration of learning, a good trick is to learn that you cannot always succeed; that there will come times where the nightmare of failure will come knocking at the door. However, by admitting that there is space for failure takes away a lot of the pressure that sits on your shoulders. When admitting that failure is possible it enables us to see the process differently. During his rematch with Andy Luiz, Anthony Joshua said he concentrated on the process rather than the result. This is CBT(Cognitive, Behavioural, Therapy), where you change the way you see things. In this case, AJ changed the way he perceived his training and the way he saw the fight that he ended up by winning.Furthermore, he said in his Sky interview that everyone said that he had to retire, that he was dead as a boxer. Instead of concentrating on the press he said he concentrated on the process. He clearly distinguished the difference between Pressure and stress. In his case, pressure came from the critics and his reputation, while the stress was low because he concentrated on the process at hand through his training. He concentrated on what was certain: his training and not on the uncertainty of the match. This mentality can be re-used in learning by admitting that the possibility of not learning something is possible but concentrating on the process instead of the outcome. In this case, by admitting that there is a possibility for failure pushes away a lot of the frustration that comes with learning.

Even though admitting the possibility of failure is important admitting when you have failed and disengaging completely with the thing that you are trying to learn is even more . Disengagement can happen on two levels, the first one is when you disengage with the effort but continue the engagement. The second one, is when you disengage completely. By allowing space for failure you are accepting failure in advance( The importance of Goal disengaging in adaptive self-Regulation). Time is crucial in the decision of disengagement. Time is scarce, so it is crucial to make the most of. Sometimes you hit your head against a wall and just cannot manage to put in place the right factors to handle a skill. By disengaging with the thing that you are learning you are setting yourself psychological, time and physical limits. By allowing yourself this space to fail you are diminishing the impact that failure can cause while at the same time anticipating the next step(Forbes). Furthermore, by allowing yourself time for failure you are not constantly playing with the idea of giving up because you know what will be the limit for giving up. Giving yourself space for failure is not the same as giving up, you are allowing yourself boundaries both psychologically and physically.

To conclude, this blog post was mainly made for everyone to know that they can learn anything while at the same time not feeling the need to carry on . In this blog post, different ways of overcoming the frustration that sometimes we meet when learning have been highlighted. This can be done through admitting where you stand on the skill or through breaking down the skill and if you really cannot handle it, it is okay to give yourself space for failure.