A Prolific Learning Principle: Have a Positive Attitude

Be Conscious of Your Attitude

Negative emotions such as anger, frustration, stress, fear, and depression can bring learning to a standstill. We must make sure we enjoy what we are doing.

It is well-established that negative emotions change our body chemistry. This negatively affects our ability to learn and function. Most of us know that feeling of sudden stress or fear in front of a crowd that suddenly it’s like we cannot think or speak clearly. Many people know what it’s like to suddenly freeze up in the middle of a test of some type. Anything that causes negative emotions reduces our ability to learn. Bad situations in life reduce our ability to learn. Poor methods of learning can cause negative emotions which reduce our ability to learn. Sadly, many people have come to associate stress, frustration, hard labor, failure, and a host of other negative emotions with learning. The idea of “no pain, no gain” often dominates our attitude toward learning. This is often due to using inappropriate and poor methods for learning things. Poor methods directly cause negative emotions and reduce our ability to learn. The only way we can make that work is to redouble our efforts and through sheer effort try to make up for the fact our learning ability has been reduced. Sadly, we’ve often become used to wasting time and effort by forcing ourselves to inefficiently keep at things long after we’ve stopped any semblance of effective learning.

To become a prolific learner, our learning must be both enjoyable and effective. When we use appropriate learning methods which are enjoyable and effective for us, our body chemistry will be in a healthier mode. Our brain will be functioning nearer its full potential. We will look forward to doing more things. We will get into a healthy upward spiral where we enjoy what we are doing and we start to see satisfying results. We want to keep going back and doing more and we make more progress. This is in contrast when we use poor methods which lead to an unhealthy downward spiral where we start getting stressed and frustrated, start reducing our efforts, and see less progress. We start avoiding tasks and end up on the road to giving up. Many of the other prolific learning principles point out ways in which we can make learning more enjoyable and effective.

We must learn to monitor our attitude. We need to become aware of when negative emotions are rising up. We need to recognize the source of those negative emotions and learn to deal with them. Many methods of learning we use are inherently stressful and ineffective. Simply forcing ourselves to work harder only makes things worse. We need to learn what types of learning methods are both enjoyable and effective for us individually. What works for another person might not work for us. If we are using a poor method of learning, negative emotions will often be a result. We need to learn how to adapt and find new methods of learning which will work for us. We need to learn to be comfortable with the rate of progress we are capable of instead of worrying about deadlines.

Once we start using better learning methods, it becomes easier to deal with negative emotions. Once I started using more appropriate and effective methods for language learning, I found it much easier to deal with frustration and stress. When I’d catch my jaw tightening and find myself holding my breath to concentrate on something, I realized I needed to relax. At first, I’d find that my entire body had tightened up and I was sitting tensely gripping the book I was trying to read. I’d sometimes just need to walk away and do something else or stop working for a few minutes. After a few weeks, I often found that simply taking a deep breath and laughing to myself that this is supposed to be fun is what it took to relax. Now, I’ve found that a few deep breaths and a humorous reminder to myself I’m having fun is usually enough to go back into a relaxed mode. I’ve also learned to apply that what I’m doing other things as well. When I was first learning about effective foreign language learning, a number of successful language learners gave similar advice when asked what was the most important thing to do. Many of them said that the most important thing to do today is whatever it takes so that you enthusiastically want to start working again tomorrow.

I also now work with my attention span instead of fighting it. As long as I am enjoying what I’m doing and am focused on it, I can be relaxed and work effectively. However, at some point, my brain just reaches the end of its useful working span and starts to rebel. There are times I’m simply distracted and need to refocus. However, often, I’ve learned that with any particular task, I’ll have perhaps a 10 to 20 minute window of good focus and attention to work with. Once my brain tires of the activity, instead of spending the next 20 to 30 minutes trying to force myself to do more, I simply switch to another activity. With regard to language learning, I’ve found that having a handful of different ways of practicing, studying, and using the language allows me to switch activities and keep my brain engaged. When my brain says “enough is enough!” with one particular activity, I just move to the next.

Prolific learning is about enjoying learning. We need to learn what methods produce enjoyable and effective learning for us. We need to gain experience and practice using those methods. Reducing and eliminating negative emotions in learning is mostly about finding enjoyable and effective methods of learning for us.