Alexandra Niel shares six strategies for managing frustration while learning new skills after leaving corporate work for entrepreneurship. Pause to breathe, give yourself grace, prioritize which skills matter now, focus on progress over perfection, ask for help, and step away when frustration peaks.
Do you ever feel frustrated when you're trying to learn something new? I know I do, but I found 6 different things that I can do to help with the frustration, and that's what I'd like to share with you today, so stay tuned. So learning something new can be fun, but it can be really frustrating. I know when I made the shift from being in corporate to becoming an entrepreneur, I had to learn a whole new set of skills from deepening my coaching practice to doing my own marketing, doing my own selling, all of these things that I hadn't really had to do before for myself. I was doing it for my company, which was a completely different thing, but doing it for myself was a completely different ballgame. And I found that I would get so frustrated because I couldn't figure out the algorithm or I couldn't figure out whatever the heck it was that I was trying to figure out. But there were a few things that I did that really helped to manage this frustration that I knew was part of learning. And the first thing is I took a breath. I took a breath. You know, sometimes when we get frustrated, our breathing gets shallow, so our brain doesn't get as much oxygen, so we're not thinking as clearly as we would want. So pausing, taking a breath, and then going back into it can really help to manage that mindset and that— manage those, those emotions. The other thing is I've learned to show myself some grace and to be patient. I'm not by nature somebody who's patient, so having to learn how to say, you know what, it's okay, you're learning, and you're learning at the pace you need to learn at, you're learning exactly the things you need to be learning, so it's okay, give yourself a break. When I think back about this book that I read, Growth, um, which is all about, you know, growth mindset and all of these things, I realized that I have for certain things a fixed mindset. And a fixed mindset dictates that you can't fail, you can't make mistakes, you have to know everything, instead of being open to the possibility of learning and to the probability of, you know, having new experiences and bringing these experiences into your life. So that was one of the things I learned, is that for certain things, including learning, I had a bit of a fixed mindset because I wanted it to happen like this, and I had very little patience. So learning to, over time, become more patient with myself and extend myself some grace really has made a difference. The other thing is is understanding what are the skills I need to learn, what are the skills I need to learn right now, and what can I leave for later. So that really depends on what's in the plan. What do I need to achieve next, and what are the things that I need to learn in order to reach this goal or to make this be successful? So I don't have to learn, and you don't have to learn everything at the same time. But you can plan. And when you plan, you can build downtime, you can build learning time, all— and implementation time. All of those things together, you know, once you put it over a certain time frame, takes a bit of that urgency and a bit of that frustration because you're kind of on a journey, and the journey will take the time that it will you know, that it will take. I also started, instead of looking for perfection, looking for progress. Because the more I tried for things to be perfect, the less I did, because I got stuck in the "Dang, this thing's got to be perfect, and if it's not perfect, then I can't move forward." So learning that it's more important to continuously make progress, and it doesn't matter if it's little steps and then one big step, or you make two big steps and then you take a step back and you have to kind of readjust and reassess. But looking for that consistent and constant progress helps with that frustration because you don't feel like you're stuck. When you're looking for perfection, sometimes you feel like you're stuck because you don't feel like you're moving fast enough or you're not doing the right things. So looking for progress over perfection made a huge difference. Another thing I did was I started asking for help. I was so used to doing things on my own, so used to being self-sufficient, so used to taking care of other people that I forgot that it's okay for me to ask for help, just like it's okay for you to ask for help. So instead of thinking, I gotta do it all myself, I gotta be my own superhero, I gotta figure it out all by myself. No, you actually, you don't have to. There are other people that can cut your learning curve because they've been through the same thing you're going through. There are people that have things that they can teach you that can make your, um, your experience so much less painful. And there are people you can collaborate with. So as you're growing and as you're learning, you can actually have some fun together. So learning doesn't have to be this frustrating, time-consuming thing. You can actually derive a lot of pleasure around learning if you set it up in the right way. And the last thing was that I found if I was getting too frustrated and I was getting too anxious or too honoree, or, you know, if I snapped at my boyfriend because um, you know, I was too in my head and too frustrated, I walked away. I would take a break and I'd be like, okay, you know what, today is not the day for this because clearly I'm not in the right mind frame. So let me set this aside until tomorrow, next week, whatever the case may be. But taking a break allows you to get some distance and it allows you to get some perspective so you understand a little bit better where you're coming from As you're giving, you know, as you're having that distance, it's also an opportunity to reassess whether or not you're doing the right thing. So don't be afraid to take a break. Again, you don't have to do everything right now for whatever it is you're working on. Pace yourself, give yourself time to assimilate and put into play the things that you're learning. So This is what I wanted to share with you today. I hope you have found it helpful. I hope your learning journey is exciting and fun and you're making progress, and I will talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.
