Making Friends With the Learning Curve

I have a few confessions to make.
I’m a Reese Witherspoon fan. I have also seen her movie Legally Blonde close to twenty times. If you have never seen the movie, Witherspoon plays Elle Woods, a rich sorority girl who studies fashion merchandising in California; until her equally rich law school-bound boyfriend breaks up with her. Elle decides to attend law school herself, after reading about her ex’s brother in a magazine. Elle takes the LSAT (the law school admission test) and gets into Harvard Law School. She moves across the country with what seems her entire bedroom and her Pomeranian, Bruiser. While the story is a little extreme, the point of the story is not.
We all suffer through many learning curves in our lives. As with anything new, it can be difficult, especially at the rate in which we learn a concept (Elle went through this A LOT). While not exactly a slow learner, I have always been a bit of an underdog. Did I learn to tie my shoes by the time I was 3? No. Ride a bicycle by the time I was 5? No, again. Don’t get me started on math (I did summer school at the end of 9th grade because Algebra just wasn’t my thing and still isn’t). This blog has even been a bit of a learning curve. My point is that there is no level anyone can achieve in life that takes learning away. We can be a prominent businessperson and still struggle with our business at times, be a college graduate learning how to navigate the world that no longer has strict rules, or the little kid still learning how to ride that bicycle. In my own experience with learning curves, I’ve had to remember a few things:
-Accept where you are at in life and start there: As the saying goes, the only way out is through. Please don’t misunderstand this as sitting still. Absolutely not. I’ve had to take stock of how I learn to be okay with moving forward. I’m not going to understand someone telling me how to operate a Mac computer the first time (could be because I’m a visual learner). However, learning comes from doing. Wouldn’t you rather learn it and make mistakes than to guess how it works later?
The second part of this stage is what comedian Steve Harvey refers to as the “when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired” stage. Raise your hand if you have been here. I started this blog after getting tired of hearing myself say “I want to start a blog.” Sure, the learning curve is steeper than those steps I climbed on a 5th grade field trip, but can’t we all look back and think “If I didn’t go through that situation, I wouldn’t be smarter/wiser/more aware today?” Give yourself points for that.
Your journey is the only one that matters: In other words, don’t compare your journey in life to others’. We all go through this with our inner mean person and wish we had the nicer car, smoother hair or the cutest dog at the Westminster Dog Show. But ask yourself how much energy you really want to spend thinking about how awesome someone else’s life is. We are always learning where we can improve. It’s why we are here on Earth in the first place. That is our purpose.
By the end of Legally Blonde, Elle Woods learned that despite some tough situations and a rough beginning to law school, all she ever needed was a little faith in herself. Make peace with the fact you may not always get something right the first time, but you owe it to yourself to keep going. You never know where a road could lead!