Don't Give Up on the Steep Part of the Learning Curve

I started flying again yesterday.  I hadn't been up in the air for about 10 years (in a small plane), and I went up with an instructor to get my flight review.  It's been awhile, so it will take more than one review session.

Some things went smoothly and some were more difficult.  I've been here before--on the steep part of the learning curve. Actually, I'm on a re-learning curve, but it's just as steep as anything when I first learned to fly, because when I first learned, we took everything slowly.  Now, I'm trying to relearn everything about small plane flying in a few weeks. 

After my first hour back up in the air, I was both exhilarated and tired.  A part of me was asking, "Do I really want to do this?"  Fortunately, I recognize this steep part of the learning curve.  I've been there with my oil painting and with my jazz piano, and I know that the steepest part of the curve doesn't last.  The fun, easy parts are coming. 

Unfortunately, many of our children are not learning how to persevere.  We need to teach them that the steepest parts of the learning curve don't last, and that it is worth going through them to get to our goals.

This relates a little to another issue I was pondering last night.  I was watching my grandson with his first efforts at crawling.  My wife commented on how much energy he was putting into learning how to crawl.  Now, in my line of work, one of the main things on which I work with people is their motivation.  Clients often come in to my office with very little motivation to do things.  (Fortunately, they have enough motivation to get to my office--so that's a start!)  They may be depressed.  Or there may be some other issue which interferes with them accomplishing goals.  The thought struck me last night, as I was watching him struggle so mightily to crawl and to move himself around the carpet, "Don't all children start being motivated like this?  How and why does such tremendous motivation go away?  How do we become couch potatoes?"

Here are a few answers I came up with.

1. Depression
2. Dementia
3. Harsh parenting
4.  Lax parenting
5.  A culture that addicts us to TV and video games
6.  A general decline in physical energy
7.  Perhaps a programmed decline in mental motivation (that is, the natural life cycle of our brain)
8.  Negative learning experiences--experiences in life in which we "learn" or think that we learn that we are helpless and cannot influence our environment or achieve things.

Notice that I did not include laziness in my list.  Those who have read some of my past blogs will understand why.  I do not consider laziness to be a scientific explanation.  It is a moral explanation.  It does not really explain anything.  Consider my grandson for example.  Let's say that he becomes "lazy" by the time he is 14.  He does not look lazy now.  If he is acting "lazy" by then, there will have to be some kind of reason.  So enough of that word.  I don't like to use it.

So what other word can we use?  The word (or words) would be "lack of motivation."  It is a description without moralizing.  So let's look at the above list of reasons one more time.  (This list is in no particular order.  I just started with depression and dementia because I see a lot of them in my practice.)

1. Depression.  Depression can be inherited.  It can also be the result of severe stress.  Life sometimes wears us out by the stresses we face.  Clinical depression is more than just the blues, and it definitely results in a severe loss of motivation.  It is not clear just how much people truly recover from severe depression.  Not only may they be unmotivated during the depression, they may not return fully to their previous levels of interest and activity without some encouragement.

2. Dementia.  Dementia starts being a problem for some people in their '70s, and sometimes earlier.  In the early phases, people have less and less motivation to do new things.

3. Harsh parenting.  I think that harsh parenting may temporarily lead to more motivation of a sort.  People feel driven to do things out of anxiety and fear.  But I think it takes the joy out of life.  It removes the joy of exploring life and doing new things.  In the end, harsh parenting often leads to compulsive or passive-aggressive behavior, not to a joyous trying out new things. Harsh parenting often leads to low self-esteem and other types of negative thinking, such as pessimism; and these lead to low motivation.

4. Lax parenting.  Huh?  Am I not contradicting myself here?  Just because harsh parenting may lead to problems with motivation, that does not mean that lax parenting leads to good things.  (If I had to label the in-between type of parenting, I might call it something like "structured parenting.")  Lax parenting does not teach children how to persevere when they become discouraged.  We all feel like giving up on some new endeavor at times.  Parents who let us give up easily are not doing us any favor.  Parents who park us in front of a TV set or video game to keep us occupied all the time are not doing us a favor.  Which leads to #5.

5.  A culture of electronic media which are quite addicting.  I don't think that we have seen the end of this.  Future media will be more appealing and addictive--not less.  As  a culture we are going to have to find how to keep our children active mentally and physically in the face of more and more appealing electronic and virtual activities that will encourage passivity.

6. A general decline in physical energy.  Getting older takes our energy away eventually.  My grandson is motivated partly because he has so darn much energy--and he will have more and more for awhile.

7. Perhaps a programmed decline in mental motivation (programmed in our brain).  Our brains are probably programmed to be somewhat less exploratory as we get older.  This serves the purpose of conservation of mental and physical energy.

8. Negative learning experiences--experiences in life in which we "learn" or think that we learn that we are helpless and cannot influence our environment or achieve things.  The theory of "learned helplessness" and the research supporting the theory, show that if there are numerous enough--or severe enough--experiences where we do not have control, then a kind of depression results, and we just tend to give up.

I'm sure there are other reasons as well.  My point here is not to elucidate every single type of reason for people not being motivated.  I simply want the reader to ponder the following question:  "Am I motivated to keep trying new things in life or not?  And if not, why not?  What can I do to stay involved in life?"  Or if the reader has children or grandchildren, the question becomes, "What can I do to keep their motivation high and to encourage them to enjoy life, learn new things, and to persevere?"