I often feel frustrated when learning something new, especially when it’s extremely difficult. The trouble I’ve had handling frustration has caused me to quit a number of activities before I ever truly learned them. Over time, I’ve gotten better at managing frustration and having the patience to keep practicing something until I get the hang of it.
I can handle frustration much more easily in small doses. When it comes to the frustration of learning something new, I’d rather put a little bit of time into it every day (or almost every day) than spend long hours practicing it. That minimizes my frustration while still allowing me to see regular progress. A perfect example is unicycling. When I was just starting out, I decided I would get 10 good unicycle rides a day and have fun with it. At the beginning, I could hardly go a foot forward before losing control. Even as I got better, some days seemed as if I had regressed tremendously, and others felt as if I’d be stuck at that level forever. Doing only about 10 minutes of practice every day made even the most difficult days bearable and allowed me to practice through the frustration until I eventually got good at it. Although it took almost a year for me to ride smoothly more often than not, this method still allowed me to see decent progress without quitting from frustration.
With all of this in mind, I can’t stand impatient, demeaning teachers who add to my frustration. Those kinds of teachers tend to expect me to be able to do more than I can at any given moment, even when I’m brand new to something. They also might talk about how they learned this particular skill much faster than I did. All of this is made even worse when they only explain things in ways that make sense to them instead of learning how to explain them in ways that make sense to me. Teachers who do any or all of those things make me want to quit.
Accordingly, I so appreciate patient, supportive teachers who help minimize my frustration and bring an abundance of positivity. These folks remind me that it’s ok to make mistakes when learning and encourage me to be easier on myself during the difficult parts of the learning process. That’s much nicer than acting like every mistake is the end of the world. Their encouraging and supportive spirits motivate me to continue learning at my own pace and make it much easier for me to learn new, difficult things.
I always feel sad whenever I see someone berating another who is learning something new, especially when it’s extremely difficult for that individual. That’s why whenever someone asks me to teach them something I know, I strive to be a patient, supportive teacher. I use encouragement, point out where the person is succeeding, offer thoughtful tips, and celebrate with them in their successes. At some point in the process, I often remember how bad I’ve felt whenever I’ve been on the receiving end of bad teaching. That reminds me to pause, be patient, and work with the other person to figure out why it’s not working so that we can work together until we find a way to make it click.
I’ve become even more averse to bad teachers since losing my dog Sawyer last year. My patience in general has gone down since he died, and that is especially apparent when it comes to teaching and learning. At this point, I’m more apt to disengage from a bad teacher and either seek out a good teacher or learn on my own. I’m largely self-taught in juggling and unicycling, so I’m pretty good at figuring out how to do difficult things and then putting in however much practice it takes to get good at them. Fortunately, the more new things I learn and the more skilled people I meet, the more I cross paths with great teachers. I look forward to experiencing more of that as I continue adding to my bag of tricks.