We Can Learn Hard Things
Alison Shea
Talent & Learning Executive | Driver of Innovative Growth & Improvement | Creating Measurable Business Solutions
It is tempting to think that when something feels hard, it is your body or brain telling you to stop... but there is a difference between hard and pain.?
Sometimes, it is a fine line.
Hard and painful to discern at times, but discomfort can sometimes be where the growth begins to happen, the strengthening of something new...
What is the most painful lesson you ever learned in life?
What is the hardest lesson you ever learned in life?
I have been thinking a lot about that lately. There are some hard lessons that I learned from succeeding… eventually.?
And then there are the lessons that took the same failure over and over again, the same situation wrapped up in different paper, so I didn’t realize it was a duplicate lesson until I finally learned it.?
We know from research that when studying new information, making errors and correcting them is even more powerful for learning than just studying the correct information.
We can boost the impact of our own learning by consciously correcting our errors.
Maybe it is because of my natural inclination to teach and to nurture, so I am always actively looking for problems to help solve. I want to clear out what is blocked and align for productivity.?
The thing is, that is most effective with organizations or humans who want help or to learn, and it will require change…
Sometimes you may encounter an organization or human that thinks they want to learn to do something new, something that is different from what isn’t working.?
Different can be scary, though, and sometimes it is less scary to distract from finding a fix by looking for a “root cause” to blame for the same problem that has been in existence longer than anyone remembers.?
When being scared of changing becomes the reason that a problem still exists, there is no solution or knowledge of the root cause that will change anything.?
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
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Sometimes doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is optimism, and sometimes it is just insanity…?
This thinking trap affects both individual humans and companies.?
I really love what Albert Einstein said about problem-solving:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.?
The lesson I learned was when trying to help an organization or a person to evolve into the future they wanted, was to evaluate first what was holding them back rather than focusing first on identifying what the solution would be.?
This premortem approach to solutioning is similar to another thing that Albert Einstein said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
While I am not proposing that exact time allotment, the point is really that most often fixing a problem relies on leaning into understanding the problem first, not just hoping to try the same thing again, and maybe magic will make it come out differently.
What made this a hard lesson for me to learn was that I wanted to use my natural inclination to learn it. I did not want to have to learn to do something different to solve this problem that I kept having.
When we force ourselves out of the learning groove we’ve created by what generally works for us. It can feel wrong, even if it is merely new.?
I tell people learning new things, “different isn’t bad”.
I tell them, “different isn’t wrong”.
Different can just feel hard sometimes, and so learning something different can be learning something that feels harder…?
but we can learn hard things...?
Just as we can do hard things.
Learning and Doing hard things will make us different, it will make us better, and isn’t that the point of learning in the first place…
5 years building talent at SpaceX | 15 years building leaders in aerospace & technology | ex-Air Force Pilot & recovering Ironman
1 年This really spoke to me Alison Shea. When I was in high school, I decided to join the swim team. For the first two weeks I kept trying to tell myself, "it isn't quitting if you don't like it." Four years later, it turned out to be one of the most important things I ever did. Doing hard things is the best way to grow.
Retired
1 年"Doing the right thing at the right time!" continues to be my norm. I'm the son and grandson of coal miners from eastern Pennsylvania. My grandfather lived with us and I watched as he lost his health, lost the use of his lungs due to coal mining related illnesses, and I watched his demise and death. He did not get to know me and I was young. Same with my father, disabled when me and my siblings were teens. So to this day, still, I do the right thing, keep people safe, protect the environment, and by reason of this the organization I represent maintains its reputation. My point, I learned a lot from failure, to not do the right thing is easier than the hard right way.
Author; coach; adjunct professor; mentor; retired senior executive
1 年This reminded me of a quote I often use, "Sometimes we win, sometimes we learn." It's not about winning and losing, it's all about learning from our experiences, good and bad.
Author, Narrative Storyteller and Facilitator
1 年I love your last quote. So simple and so true.
I build your team's management capabilities to create a workplace that's better for your employees, better for your bottom line.
1 年Alison Shea If it doesn't challenge you, it won't change you!