#18: Learning To Grow

Growing To Learn

Welcome to Recalibrating! My name is Callum (@_wanderloots)

Join me each week as I learn to better life in every way possible, reflecting and recalibrating along the way to keep from getting too lost.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me ✨

This week we are going to talk about the specific fears that prevent our esteem from growing and how learning to grow provides a life-long journey of transformation.

You can read the online version of this entry here.

Recap

Last week, I introduced the fourth level of Maslow's Hierarchy: Esteem Needs. I explained how esteem is itself a paradoxical tension between internal esteem and external esteem. This tension is between the self and other, making it difficult to grow self-esteem in a world that favours external esteem.

Building self-esteem requires growth. Change. Change from who you are to who you could be. However, this change introduces another paradox: we need esteem to grow, but to grow, we need esteem.

This week, we are going to continue by exploring the blocks many people face on their journey of growing their self-esteem and how the concept of learning plays an integral role in this change.

Confidence Is Self-Belief

Esteem is a complicated topic because it affects each of us differently. What gives one person confidence might terrify someone else. What one person takes for granted as a natural skill might be what someone else has been working towards their whole life.

Confidence is a form of self-belief. I believe that I am something (identity). I believe that I can do something (ability). These beliefs forms foundational aspects of what it means to be me (my self) and provide internal anchors that stabilize me when life becomes turbulent.

But many people do not believe in themselves. They cast doubt on their identity and their abilities, or others cast doubt for them.

Over time, this lack of confidence and abundance of doubt leads to stagnation, a belief in the inability to grow, preventing growth.

It's hard to grow if you don't believe you can.

The source of this doubt can be difficult to identify, and will vary with each person.

Let's explore a few common growth blocks that I (and many others) experience on a regular basis.

By understanding the blocks of belief, we can identify strategies to overcome these blocks. We can learn how to grow.

Addressing these blocks may feel scary and difficult. That is okay. Fear is a natural response to new things, but that does not mean we need to let fear rule us. Here's a quote from the sixth Dune book (Chapterhouse) that addresses the concept of novelty (newness) and how it relates to change:

The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. We feel threatened by such demands. "I already know the important things!" we say. Then Changer comes and throws our old ideas away.
- Chapterhouse: Dune

While others can be the Changer (external esteem), it is even more important for you to be your own Changer. Believe in yourself.

Fear

Fear.

Even reading the word can be enough to evoke the emotion. We do not like being afraid. Fear triggers our fight or flight response, moving us to react, rather than act, in a given situation.

Fear of new things goes even deeper. Fear of the unknown (novelty) is the prime fear. The one fear to rule them all.

However, to change and grow, we must venture into the realm of the unknown. To remain within the known, what we have always done and who we have always been, is the path of stagnation and mediocrity. We cannot become who we are meant to be if we do not change along the way.

To become = to begin to be.

Beginning requires a change of state, a shift from what was to what is, leading to what could be.

Beginning requires something new, something different. Not the way things were before.

To grow esteem, we must discover the actions that naturally build our self-confidence over time. This discovery phase requires exploration of new things to see what works and what doesn't.

What makes you feel confident? What drains your confidence? Which experiences are autotelic? (more on this topic later)

The only way to know is to move from the unknown into the known. We must try new things to find that out.

Trying new things is scary. Even the thought of trying something new might make you feel a bit strange and afraid.

We face internal resistance to changing our behaviour.

Why?

Fear of Failure

A big one is the fear of failure.

A fear of not being good enough.

But what does it mean to be enough?

So much of our society values the concept of success. We want successful lives, careers, families, hobbies, etc.

However, we often do not stop to consider whose definition of success we are actually pursuing. Who defines what "enough" is?

What does it take for one person to be successful over another? The answer will vary of course by the person, the job, the life.

Since the definition varies so much, we lump many of the definitions of success together, resulting in an amorphous goal that is difficult to define. It's easier to conform than to stand out.

In line with this thinking, society has created massive issues related to perfectionism.

We aren't exactly sure what success is, so we put much of our energy into trying to make our actions perfect.

We don't know what success is, but we know that perfection is definitely not failure, so it must be what success means.

Unfortunately, much of what we do does not even have the option to be perfect, especially in the knowledge economy. What does it mean to write a paper, a report, a brief "perfectly"? The answer is that it depends on the subjective thinking of the person reviewing the created knowledge document. It depends on what someone else thinks.

Similarly, in the creator and attention economy on social media, success is variable. We create art, a video, a newsletter, etc. We publish it, then await the response of the masses. Success depends on the response of others.

This external response dictates how we feel about the creation of the work in the first place, external validation. External esteem.

Of course, you should value the feedback of those with more experience than you. You should value the data that social media provides you. However, a fear of not meeting these external expectations can lead to the development of perfectionism issues that makes it hard to achieve your own definition of success.

Over time, we learn to spend a disproportionate amount of effort on these works that were probably good enough without the extra effort.

It is the difference between striving for 100% (perfection) and aiming for 95% (good enough). That extra 5% takes a lot of additional time and energy to achieve, and the result is often not worth the extra effort (or impossible to reach).

Especially in subjective situations, it is important to recognize that perfection does not exist. It is a mythological construct that we have invented to encourage people to put in more time and energy to maximize output. Ironically, this reduces output as we burnout trying to achieve an impossible state of perfection.

Even worse, we take this perfectionist mentality prescribed to us by society and let it inhibit exploration of our selves.

We do not try new things because we are afraid of failure, of not being good enough.

Instead of sticking with the perfectionist mentality, we can redefine the concept of success, the concept of what is good enough given the circumstances. In this way, we can reserve our energy for moments that deserve going above and beyond. We can choose that moment based on what matters to us, instead of having that moment chosen by others.

We can redefine failure to mean not even trying in the first place, rather than not meeting impossible standards set by external validators.

By reframing these concepts of success and what is enough, we overcome the hurdle of failure by taking the first step forward towards something new.

By thinking more deeply about what success means, we can recognize that failure is merely a stepping stone on the journey to success.

Fear From Comparison

Another common fear is that of comparison.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

We are afraid that we won't live up to others around us. This fear puts us into an us vs. them mentality. Self vs. other. Tension.

Comparing the self to others all of the time is not good for our self-esteem. It moves the locus of our identity outwards, making it externally anchored and therefore vulnerable.

While achieving goals can boost our self-esteem, when those goals are tied to external success based on our comparison to others, we open ourselves up to having our esteem crushed when that external success is no longer there. There is a void that is left when we expect external validation and do not receive it.

This fear of what others will think of our actions can be debilitating, leading to burnout and anxiety.

That is not to say that comparison is always bad. Comparison can provide a benchmark to improve motivation and push the bounds of our own accomplishments.

However, when this comparison leads to a reduction in self-worth due to a fear of not measuring up, healthy motivation is lost and unhealthy behaviour begins.

Everyone is on their own path in life, moving across different terrain and at different speeds. What works for one person may be detrimental to someone else.

Instead of focusing on how you compare to others, compare yourself to yourself. See how you measure up to where you were and track the trajectory of where you are going. Build your self-awareness through tools like metacognition and journalling to monitor your own growth.

By following your own path of growth, by remembering how far you have come, you can use comparison to the self in a healthy way that encourages further growth and motivation.

Remember, Remember

That said, many people do not remember where they were. They do not remember the problems they have experienced in repeating loops for years.

How can you tell how far you've grown if you cannot remember where you started? How can you solve your problems if you do not remember them?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. --George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905

If we identify a problem, we can work to solve it (change). However, if part way through the process of trying to solve the problem, we forget that the problem exists in the first place, we do not change.

Instead, we remain in a loop. Each time we remember the problem, we are hit with deja vu of having thought of the issue before, but not actually moving forward to solve it.

With the reduction in attention span over recent years, burnout from the pandemic and corporate life, it can be difficult to remember where you started. Our daily actions perpetuate looped behaviour.

We run in circles, staying on the ground, instead of growing upwards.

When running in circles, we cannot develop our self. Instead, we run in the loops prescribed by others, furthering their definition of success rather than our own.

This type of behaviour results in stagnation, a failure to grow. We do not maintain our unique selves, our originality. Instead, we contribute to the conformity of society and lose engagement with our own lives.

Remembering is the first step towards leveraging knowledge to generate original ideas, according to Bloom's Taxonomy.

Once we remember the problem, we provide a benchmark from which to move forward and measure our progress.

Measuring our progress shows signs of growth, which boosts our self-esteem along the way, furthering our confidence and making it easier to continue growing.

Much like the flywheel discussed in Entries 7-8, we can build momentum with growth over time until we are living in the unknown without fear.

Change and Growth

Now that we've talked about some of the common fears associated with change and growing self-esteem, let's look at mental models that describe how change occurs.

By remembering that we want to change, we can learn what to change and how to change it. We can learn to grow.

Learning to Grow

Learning is a concept that surrounds much of our lives. Childhood is one long learning process, continued into post-secondary education by many people.

When we first start employment, there is often a steep learning curve associated with the position as we learn how things work.

However, for many people, this is where learning stops or drastically slows down. Learning requires energy to think critically, energy that many people have in short supply as they constantly strive for external esteem validation.

Over time, people lose their learning muscles. Learning new concepts becomes more and more foreign as people spend more time in the known, fearing to venture into the unknown.

People do not want to be reminded that they do not know everything, preferring to remain in a state of ignorance rather than put their limited energy into changing their understanding of their worlds.

Unfortunately, the world does not work like this. New events happen every day, new technologies are invented. The world changes.

The only constant is change.

To reduce the activation energy required for learning new things, there is only one action available to us: practice.

Practice learning new things. The more you learn, the easier learning becomes. Your mind literally changes as it learns new things, becoming more responsive and receptive to learning.

This is called neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt with new experiences. Learning creates a form of structural change that literally modifies the pathways of the brain over time.

Accordingly, by exposing ourselves to new experiences, the unknown, we can strengthen and develop our brains like a muscle, becoming better and better at responding to new scenarios.

We can learn to grow.

Repeated Experiential Learning

Learning occurs in cycles. Cycles that repeat in perpetuity. Each cycle, knowledge is gained that forms a base from which the next learning cycle begins, building upwards.

In one learning cycle, you may take a step or two and feel disappointed with your progress, only to realize later that those first steps allowed you to run in the next cycle.

Learning is not linear.

David Kolb developed a non-linear model in 1984 to explain how learning occurs:

Kolb's Learning Cycle from Simply Psychology

Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience - Kolb

Transformation is another word for change. By transforming experience, we can generate knowledge that builds upon itself, growing. Learning is growing.

Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle provides a structure for the process of effective learning. According to Kolb, a Learner must progress through four stages in order to effectively learn:

(1) having a concrete experience followed by: 
(2) observation of and reflection on that experience which leads to: 
(3) the formation of abstract concepts (analysis) and generalizations (conclusions) which are then: 
(4) used to test a hypothesis in future situations, resulting in new experiences.

In other words, effective learning occurs when the learner has an experience, reflects on the experience, conceptualizes the experience (learns), and then experiments with the new concepts, thereby solidifying the learning.

We Are Our Experiences

We are each the culmination of our experiences.

The more learning cycles you experience, the greater the amount of knowledge you will have transformed the experience into. The more you will have transformed your self.

Over time, this knowledge creates a base that can launch you into many new areas of learning. The thought of learning something new is no longer overwhelming, but exciting.

Your self-confidence will have grown, providing you with belief in your ability to solve new problems and have new experiences. The fear of the unknown recedes to the background, allowing you to move forward with less anxiety, comforted by the self-esteem you have grown.

If fear of the unknown is the prime fear, learning the skill of learning itself is the prime solution.

But, if your learning muscles are out of shape, learning is not exciting. It is daunting, frightening, and generally overwhelming.

In this article from Simply Psychology, they note:

low self-esteem hinders learning ("Students with a low self-esteem will not progress academically at an optimum rate until their self-esteem is strengthened.")

Remember, we are dealing with a paradox here. To build esteem, we need to grow, and to grow, we need esteem.

This paradox is not a problem to be solved, but is a path to experience.

To grow, to change, to build your esteem, you need only take the first step forward, planting the seed that will grow into self-belief the more you nurture it.

Remembering this step and using it to maintain momentum through learning cycles helps build your esteem and overcome your fears.

Overcoming your fears it not easy. There is a reason that most people stick with the status quo, remaining in a state of stagnation.

But there is more to life than living in loops, of letting the fear of change rule who you are and who you become. There is the option of true engagement with experience, of living your life to the fullest.

It all starts with belief that change is possible.

I believe in you ✨

Next week

We have just touched the surface of what it means to learn and I am excited to continue diving into strategies of learning and change.

Next week, we'll continue with experiential learning and specific strategies on how to kickstart your cycles of change.

Stay tuned ✨

P.S. If you are interested in learning how I format my second brain to capture moments that matter and learn the patterns of problem solving with new technologies, please consider upgrading your subscription to paid. Your support means more than you know 😌 ✨

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