Staying Motivated/Learning Things as an Adult Learning

[10tmf]

Not quite sure if this is the right spot for this, but I've been going down a rabbit hole and doing some cursory diving into the adult learning process and I came across a few quick reads/watches I thought other people here might find interesting:

- The Five-Stage Model of Adult Skill Aquisition
- Analysis: Getting Better at Fighting Games (video)
- The Will to Keep Winning

The first is a very short paper just outlining the five different stages of adult learning in general while the last two focus on competitive video games at a high level. I know it may sound weird, but I actually found a lot of what was said in both the video and the book (The Will to Keep Winning) very useful for dealing with motivation issues.

The video is about 8 minutes and picks some key points from both the paper and the book and is a good overview, that being said, the book is only 121 pages and a super easy read if you're so inclined to pick it up (I found it super useful).

 

[Mengu]

I think it's easy for adults to get discouraged and lose motivation due to an apparent lack of progress. This is mostly due to a lack of perspective on how long it should take to learn something. I have an artist friend, who was not very happy with his progress over the last 4 years since he started painting. I asked him how often he drew/painted, he said about 3 hours a week. That's a total of 624 hours over 4 years. At an artist atelier, that is less than 3 months of study. I told him, imagine yourself as a student at an atelier, after about 3 months, instead of the 4 years you think you have been painting. How do you feel about your artwork now? He suddenly thought, his level was quite reasonable.

Now imagine how far ahead a second year atelier student is, compared to my artist friend. That's the level he was comparing himself to. And of course, the gap in experience level is ginormous (about 10x).

Dancers often fall into this same misconception. Sure, I've been dancing for nearly 2 decades, but it's laughable to compare myself to a more dedicated dancer who has been dancing even a tenth of that time. They can easily be ahead of me.

Whatever your discipline, it takes a LOT of hours, to git gud. The only way for an adult with limited time to be satisfied with their hobby is through enjoying the process. Results are always going to be a comparative crap shoot.

 

[IndyLady]

I admit I haven't visited the links yet, but one thought that Mengu's post reminded me of: I'm a strong believer in the incubation effect (i.e. take a break and let something simmer for a bit, come back to it and suddenly it seems so much easier and obvious) based on personal experience. I find myself with the proverbial raised eyebrow every time someone starts one of these "how to accelerate progress" threads - the reality is, you just have to put in the time and allow it to sink in.

Also, sometimes we actually are progressing but we don't really notice/realize it. I've had periods where I felt like I was really in a slump or plateau or backslide with regards to my dancing no matter how hard I tried, and then suddenly out of the woodwork I was receiving all sorts of compliments and positive feedback.

 

[10tmf]

Whatever your discipline, it takes a LOT of hours, to git gud. The only way for an adult with limited time to be satisfied with their hobby is through enjoying the process. Results are always going to be a comparative crap shoot.

I agree with this, but I'd actually extend it to encompass everyone--even those that have time. One of the things that most fascinated me about the book was how Daigo (the author) managed to keep himself motivated to practice and improve without it just feeling like a grind/job and his answer ended up being akin to learning to love the activity itself and finding joy in small improvements.

Also, sometimes we actually are progressing but we don't really notice/realize it. I've had periods where I felt like I was really in a slump or plateau or backslide with regards to my dancing no matter how hard I tried, and then suddenly out of the woodwork I was receiving all sorts of compliments and positive feedback.

I definitely suffer from this. I recently felt like I was in a slump and actually getting worse because my practice time has decreased as my workload increased for the last couple of months, but I took a video of myself a couple of days ago and even though my critic started correcting things left and right I could tell there's already a massive difference from where I was even just four months ago.

 

[FancyFeet]

I also find that with dance, adults understand what they are supposed to do easily and quite thoroughly - but often have difficulty executing it for quite some time. This can be incredibly frustrating. And children are the opposite - they can do it right away, but likely will not be able to explain it - and definitely won't understand the 'why'.

Adults also tend to prefer to practice/learn without an audience. I call it the desire to 'fail in private'. Learning how to get out of your own way often accelerates progress.