How to learn better?

[SecondCor521]

Hi all.

I'm 56 years old. Lately I've been working on self improvement in various ways.

One thing that began to irk me today is that I don't learn as well as I want to. Specifically, I have to do the same life lesson repeatedly before I get it.

Some examples:

1. Losing weight. It turns out that not overeating and exercising results in weight loss, and overeating can't really be done without gaining weight. Who knew, right? If I showed you a chart of my weight this year, I'd say I've had to re-learn this lesson at least three times judging by the number of shark fins on the graph.

2. Don't land flat. This is a flying thing, and it doesn't really matter what it is except that I was landing flat this summer, my instructors pointed it out to me then, I understood what they meant and why it was something to avoid, and then I went out and did it again yesterday; twice I think.

3. Codependency is a bad thing. I've been codependent for most of my life. I understand it's not good, but unlearning the behaviors is difficult, and with each specific sub-behavior I keep hitting the same thing repeatedly. This has only been something I've realized and understood in the past few months, so I should probably give myself grace on this one. I'd still like to improve faster though because I'd rather live more of the remainder of my life in non-codependent fashion.

4. Trying less is sometimes more. This is sort of a meta example. I've figured out that if I try too hard, I can tense up, and trying to be perfect on all the things means I loose focus on the important few things. But again a flying example: I had a great flight about two weeks ago when I had sort of a relaxed indifference and was being kind to myself. Yesterday's flight I had high hopes, and as soon as I started making little errors, I compounded them by beating myself up over them. Since I want to do well on my upcoming check ride, it would seem logical that I should choose the mental attitude that results in better outcomes, but part of my brain stubbornly continues to insist that intense perfectionism is the way to go.

I'm sure this is common to the condition of mankind, but if anyone has any tips for doing better anyway, I'm all ears.

 

[pacergal]

Ahh, Perfectionism. It's a life long personality trait I am very familiar with.
The best advice I can give you what I try in my own life, accept mistakes with grace. I know that setting realistic goals is the best thing, but it is sometimes hard to do.
Mistakes are often times a path to growing and learning.
"Good Enough" is OK, but it has taken me 69 years to get to this as often as I can! Still beat myself up occasionally,, though.
No tips, other than the above, I have found helps me.

 

[NeilDH]

Perfectionism has been discussed in a recent thread: Advice needed: Getting over needing to "achieve" (and perfectionism)

 

[Koolau]

We here are happy to listen and maybe even give advice. Having said that, have you considered some sort of counseling. For instance, weight loss can sometimes be aided by speaking to a nutritionist.

Your flying issues, maybe your instructor can offer some help in the "mental" aspects of flying. (Let's face it, we were not born with wings so just talking ourselves into leaving the ground is mental)

By the way, I've made a lot of landings in a small aircraft. I'm not familiar with the term "landing flat." Could you explain? Is that not keeping the nose wheel up? I'm very curious.

 

[imjustawarrior]

I live by the mantra: You only fail if you give up.

Mistakes happen. Mistakes are not failing. I try to learn from them and move on. If possible, I try to put a corrective action in place to help avoid repeating mistakes. I hate repeating mistakes. At work, we would create checklists to capture our learnings. We would review the checklist before sending out a product to be manufactured. I have similar checklists in my personal life. The best example is a document for doing taxes. Since I only do them once a year, the document really helps. I have started one for Roth conversions. Checklists, written procedures and such are useful until something becomes a habit. We learn a lot through repetition. Keep practicing.

Maybe you need to put little notes up in various places to remind you of what to do until it becomes a habit.

 

[SecondCor521]

We here are happy to listen and maybe even give advice.

Thank you! Just writing out the next paragraph below was helpful.

Having said that, have you considered some sort of counseling. For instance, weight loss can sometimes be aided by speaking to a nutritionist.

My issue in the OP is not a result of not knowing what I need to do. It's usually either a loss of discipline, like "Oh, I'll just bend my diet rules for a bit", or flat out denial, like "I bet somehow the laws of nutrition don't apply to these cookies", or bad habits that just don't die, like snacking late at night mindlessly.

In general I'm against any form of external counseling. I'm stubborn, a DIYer in all things, often arrogant, and I've had multiple bad experiences with counseling.

Your flying issues, maybe your instructor can offer some help in the "mental" aspects of flying. (Let's face it, we were not born with wings so just talking ourselves into leaving the ground is mental)

Yeah, he's just like "Don't do that." And I go, "Right." And then I do it again. And he says, "Don't do that, really." Sometimes he acts irritated or animated or emphatic or loud, which is either a FOI thing or a real thing - it's a bit unpleasant for me but it works. Kind of like touching a hot stove.

By the way, I've made a lot of landings in a small aircraft. I'm not familiar with the term "landing flat." Could you explain? Is that not keeping the nose wheel up? I'm very curious.

Correct. For tricycle gear airplanes, as I'm sure you know, you want to land on the two mains first and then let the nose come down. Two reasons I know of for this. First, the mains are stronger and less delicate than the nose wheel so can handle landing stresses better. And second, less risk of a propeller ground strike. "Landing flat" is essentially landing on all three wheels at the same time.

It started as a bad habit this summer which I thought I corrected. Yesterday one of them was me trying to hit my designated point on a short field landing. I don't know why the other one happened - rarely I just do something wrong that I've been doing right for a while. Some sort of training regression, or random mistake, or fatigue - the cause is not always clear.

 

[SecondCor521]

I live by the mantra: You only fail if you give up.

Mistakes happen. Mistakes are not failing. I try to learn from them and move on. If possible, I try to put a corrective action in place to help avoid repeating mistakes. I hate repeating mistakes. At work, we would create checklists to capture our learnings. We would review the checklist before sending out a product to be manufactured. I have similar checklists in my personal life. The best example is a document for doing taxes. Since I only do them once a year, the document really helps. I have started one for Roth conversions. Checklists, written procedures and such are useful until something becomes a habit. We learn a lot through repetition. Keep practicing.

Maybe you need to put little notes up in various places to remind you of what to do until it becomes a habit.

Good ideas, thanks!

I do have checklists like you describe for a lot of things (including, like you, taxes. Also packing for trips). It would be good for me to mull over how to apply the checklist idea to the various items I mentioned in the OP. Specifically it is a challenge in relationships because I don't yet have a mental pathway that looks like "Oh, you're about to interact with another human; check your checklist!" Although I do have one for some people in my life for various reasons, so maybe I can find a way to make it generic.

 

[SecondCor521]

I think part of this just may be another version of my threads where I'm too hard on myself.

I've made a lot of changes in the past 12 months, and made a lot of progress - I ran a marathon, lost 40 pounds, and did 99% of my pilot training, and am a more emotionally intelligent person now. "Why can't I go faster?" is not a reasonable complaint all things considered.

I do still wonder why sometimes we learn a lesson the first time and other times we keep repeating the same mistake over and over. Some of it has to do with habits - most of us haven't developed a bad habit of touching hot stoves, but if we got positive feedback from people pleasing in our youth, the habit could stick. Some of it is probably not being ready or not wanting to change yet; weight loss probably falls into this category for many people, including me until recently.

Maybe the general answer is that if we wanted to be different, we would. There's probably a valid if unhealthy reason for continuing to make the mistake.

 

[SnowballCamper]

Relax. And visualize what right looks like, and the actions you need to take to achieve it. rehearse them in your mind in a gentle routine manner (not a critical correcting manner). Repeat as necessary, especially before performance day.

 

[COcheesehead]

In the words of Homer Simpson, if you try and fail, never try again.

 

[Dreamer]

I can address the snacking late at night problem. When I see that I am gaining weight and snacking on unhealthy things, after dinner, I use a proxabrush, floss and brush my teeth. If I had not already done those things last night, I would have definitely eaten something.

Also remember that none of us is perfect (especially me), we are only human and I think that is a good thing.

 

[Aerides]

The things OP discusses are not so much "learning" issues, but new behavior issues. Learned behavior isn't the same as learned knowledge.

Learning to ride a bike or a language is one thing, but learning to eat better, well, we ALL know how to do that, but we don't all do it all the time. Because it's not as simple as what we know to be the healthiest thing for us and just doing that.

We also know that sweet/fatty/salty thing tastes better, and we didn't unlearn that just because we learned that more broccoli is better than another cookie.

We know that sometimes the path of least resistance in a relationship is the choice to make for this minute/hour/day, when that might not be the best choice for the next 20 years, but it's not a matter of learning, but deciding in the moment how much one wants to take on right now.

 

[SecondCor521]

I appreciate that insight and it is very helpful, Series.

I suspect "deciding better" is a result of sustained effort and a sober evaluation of one's long term goals. Any additional info welcome.

(Writing this on my phone, thus the brevity.)