Please Don’t Be Good at It! Why Feeling Frustrated in a Learning Environment Is Actually the Best Place to Be.
This month, I’d like to talk a bit about learning—it’s a fundamental part of growth and development. Without it, we would never improve. And ultimately, isn’t that what we’re all here to do?
Can you remember how you learned to roll over? Crawl? Stand up for the first time? Walk?
Learning is an amazing process. Once we’ve learned something, it doesn’t take long before we become completely unconscious of how we did it.
Cast your mind back to the last time you learned a new skill. Was it learning a language? Learning to drive? Picking up a new hobby like cross-stitch or crochet? How about gaming? Or something more physical like paddleboarding? These are all skills we took time to learn, going through the process from not knowing to knowing.
Ideally, we want that process to be as fun and enjoyable as possible—but sometimes, there are tricky moments that take a little more patience. In this article, I hope to explain a simple model for learning and why those frustrating moments are actually critical for improvement and skill-building.
Set Your Goal Before You Start
Whatever your aim—whether it’s to de-stress, improve mobility, manage pain, or work on posture and breathing—when you come into a Feldenkrais lesson (or a Pilates, yoga, or movement class), take a moment to consider your goal and how you’ll get there.
Last month, I talked about the essential role of awareness and how paying attention to how we think, feel, sense, and move is key to development. The great news is that when we become more aware of what we’re doing and how we do it, we generally get better at it. With repetition, this becomes learning.
If Something is difficult knowing our why is key to keep us motivated to stay in the learning zone.
The 4 Stages of Learning
Take learning to drive, for example. It might seem simple now, but we all know exactly what the goal was: get a license to drive. There are four stages we move through in the process:
Unconscious Incompetence
Before I even decided to learn to drive, I had no idea about driving. I was completely unaware of how to do it and had no interest.Conscious Incompetence
I realised I could gain more freedom, independence, and carry more stuff. This was my all important motivation to keep me going. So, I took some lessons and started the process. I wanted to learn, but I didn’t yet have the skill.
This is the most frustrating but most important part.Conscious Competence
After some practice, I started remembering the manoeuvres and repeating the skills. When I was thinking, sensing, feeling, and moving in a coordinated way—with full attention—I was able to drive.Unconscious Competence
I passed my test. After a while, I’d hop in the car and—boom—I’m at the supermarket before I know it. Now I can drive with skill and safety while letting my awareness focus on other things, without driving needing my full attention.
The Real Goal: Effortless Coordination
This is the goal of learning: to expand our awareness so that the most important things get our focus, while the skills we’ve mastered (like driving) fade into the background, requiring minimal effort.
We want to carry out tasks with coordination, ease, and focus— have fun with our friends and family and do all the things we love to do without having to be distracted with constant monitoring of discomfort or stress.
Maybe you can remember the days of frustration: struggling with clutch control, mirrors, signals, holding the wheel… Those days when it just didn’t work out.
This is the learning phase—the frustrating yet vital stage of conscious incompetence.
Learning anything requires resilience: the ability to stay in that uncomfortable place where you know you don’t know it yet, but you can regulate your emotions enough to keep going.
We all have different tolerances for frustration, and we all learn in different ways and at different speeds. And that’s okay.
What Learning Looks Like in a Feldenkrais Lesson
Generally, in a Feldenkrais lesson, we spend a lot of time in this slightly confusing learning zone. Some movements will feel easy and flow naturally; others will feel difficult—like mixing up the pedals when learning to drive.
This is the best place to be. Trust me—you are learning.
You don’t have to be good at it yet!
I encourage all my students to get it "wrong". That’s part of the process. Tune in to your awareness, go slowly, and things will improve.
Build Resilience, Speed Up Learning
The more resilience you have to stay in this learning zone, the quicker real learning takes place—and the longer the benefits will last.
Ready to Embrace the Learning Zone?
Join me for a Feldenkrais lesson—online or in-person—and experience how small, mindful movements (and a little bit of healthy frustration!) can transform the way you move and feel.
Click here to book your class or email me to arrange a free consultation or private lesson.