Why You Keep Learning the Same Lesson (and Why That’s NOT a Bad Thing!)

Y’all, I teach communication — I stand at the front of classrooms and teach other people how to handle hard conversations. But when it’s my turn? Sometimes, I still react poorly, or say the people-pleaser thing, or say nothing and stew about it for three days…

Whenever that happens, I think: Haven’t I learned this lesson by now?!?

Maybe you can relate — whether it’s learning…

• how you handle conflict, or change, or boundaries,

• how you manage your time, or your budget, or your schedule,

• how you embrace acceptance, or gratitude, or patience,

• how you survive your toddler’s grocery store meltdowns. (Been there!)

Whatever the lesson, I think so many of us know the experience of having to learn the same thing many (mannnnyyy) times.

Whatever that “still-learning-it lesson” is for you, I hope this article convinces you: still learning isn’t a failure. It’s actually a really good sign.

So if you’ve learned a lesson and are somehow still learning it — this one’s for you.

Most of us treat understanding as the finish line. We get it — so we’ve got it!

I fall into this trap all the time. I’ll read an article about active listening and think, yes, got it. Then the next day, in a mentoring conversation, I catch myself jumping in with advice before my mentee has even finished their sentence. Oops. Maybe I didn’t “got it” as hard as I thought.

Cognitive scientists have a name for that feeling, and it’s not flattering: illusion of competence. Researchers Asher Koriat and Robert Bjork found that when we’re in the middle of learning something, the information is right in front of us (we get it) — which creates a false sense of fluency (we got it!).

But their research shows — understanding it when it’s in front of you is not the same as knowing it. (Just because we get it doesn’t mean we got it, at least not yet.)

That reminds me of my students — when we’re in the classroom together, talking about communication, and they have frameworks in front of them, they’re like, “Ok, got it! On to the next thing!"

What I have to remind my students — and myself — is that understanding is just one early step in the learning process.

Bloom’s Taxonomy, a popular framework about learning, puts comprehension at the second rung of a six-rung ladder. So — two of six! This framework explains that knowing what something means and being able to apply it in real life are genuinely different skills — and there are quite a few ladder steps left between them.

Climbing that learning ladder takes work. The good news is — this is work that we can absolutely do.

The, well, interesting news is — the work might not look like what you’d expect.

Let’s explore what steps you can take to help close the gap between understanding and applying.

Researchers Robert and Elizabeth Bjork spent decades studying what actually produces durable learning. Their finding stings a little: activities like re-reading, outlining, taking notes, and cram sessions — which can feel productive, in the moment — can actually harm long-term retention. Because, the Bjorks found, that kind of quick work just isn’t effective.

If we truly want to learn something, we need slower work. Things like —

• Teaching or explaining the concept to someone else. (It’s one thing to re-read it, it’s a whole other thing to explain it to someone else. If you can’t explain it clearly, you may not know it as well as you thought you did.)

• Spacing out your practice over time instead of cramming. (Returning to something after a gap forces your brain to retrieve it — and that retrieval is where some realllll learning can happen.)

• Practicing in low-stakes versions of the real thing. (Things like role-playing the difficult conversation with a trusted friend, or running the presentation for your car’s steering wheel — this rehearsal, even if it’s in a safe context, still builds the muscle.)

• Testing yourself instead of re-reading or planning or outlining. (Closed-book, no notes. It feels harder because it is — and that’s exactly why it works!)

• Putting yourself in real situations that require the skill — before you feel ready. (Don’t (!!!) wait until you’re confident to try your new lesson. The re-reading, the research, is helpful — but at some point, you gotta jump in. Take on the stretch assignment! Raise your hand! The real-world reps are where the lesson moves from your head to your bones.)

Fair warning — these aren’t easy. Y’all! Seriously, these 👏 are 👏 genuinely 👏 hard. But we can reframe that difficulty, that friction: It’s not a sign we’re doing it wrong.

Let’s explore why…

The thing about friction is — it tends to come with a side of stuck. We feel stuck because we assume we’ve hit a wall. (That we’re not cut out for this. That maybe we should try something else.) The stuff is hard, we keep having to practice, are we ever going to get it?

But what if that feeling of stuck isn’t a wall? What if it’s more like… the last and final mile of a difficult race?

A 2023 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences talked about that “stuck” feeling as a plateau. (We hinted at this in this month’s issue of PAUSE, our newsletter that can be read in just three minutes.)

Researchers Musfeld, Souza, and Oberauer found that learning doesn’t build gradually and evenly, like climbing a staircase. Instead, progress plateaus — sometimes for a long time — and then clicks into place, almost all at once.

The plateau is the last mile.

A lesson “clicking” is almost always preceded by the learner noticing the plateau. By the learner feeling the friction. (Which, to be clear, doesn’t always feel great, when you’re recognizing that this is a lesson you keep having to tangle with. But how much better would it feel if we knew — as these researchers showed — that the plateau is a sign we’re about to have a breakthrough.)

So the moment you catch yourself thinking, wait, haven’t I been here before? — that frustration might not be a sign you’re stuck. It might be a sign you’re about to land! (!!!!!!)

Lessons about courage, trust, and your own capacity — or lessons applying complex skills in communication, performance, and leadership — the ones that live in not just our heads but also in our nervous systems — they take a while!

After all, some lessons are quick. (“I’ve only touched a hot stove once!”) But lessons that build new and different skills — they can take years.

This timeline was elaborated on in the 1980s, by brothers and skill researchers Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus, who mapped skill building out across domains, and showed that moving from novice to truly competent — not expert, just competent — takes years of real exposure.

Which means it takes years of not just understanding the concept but working with it — having to practice with it, adapt with it, and apply it to new situations.

(And that’s just to move from novice to competent. The most current Dreyfus model, described in the introduction of Teaching and Learning for Adult Skill Acquisition, goes: (1) Novice, (2) Advanced Beginner, (3) Competence, (4) Proficiency, (5) Expertise, and (6) Mastery.)

Patricia Benner found the same thing studying nurses: even well-trained, bright professionals needed one to two years of practice after their education before they could perform reliably under pressure.

A few things the research actually supports:

• Expecting progress but not demanding mastery. It’s important for us to recognize and celebrate progress, but we shouldn’t let our hunt for progress drive our expected timeline. Let’s stay realistic about how much progress we should see, and how quickly, so that we don’t lose motivation. (A great trick: talk to others who have mastered what you’re trying to master, and ask what their routines looked like.)

• Welcoming the return of a lesson. When a lesson comes back around, we’re not starting over — we’re going deeper. Each pass adds a layer that the previous one couldn’t. I might feel like I’m learning the same lesson (like when I finish a keynote that I was freaking out about, breathe a sigh of relief, and think, “When am I truly going to learn to trust myself?”), but I’m not starting from scratch each time; I’m building, layer by layer, toward that next competency.

• Noticing the plateau, and not panicking. The stuck feeling before the click is documented and normal. It’s not evidence that you’re not learning; it’s often evidence that you’re about ton reach your next level. Keep going!

• Giving ourselves generous timelines. The lessons worth learning — about your own courage, capacity, and judgment — are not one-offs, and aren’t semester-length. They’re career-length. Maybe life-length! That’s not discouraging, that’s just honest — and if it’s work we’re glad to be doing, then the lessons are worth engaging with for a long time, anyway.

I try to talk — frequently and loudly — about the lessons I’m still learning. Like how to show up on big stages. Like how to recharge as an introvert with a people-facing career. Like how to create in a world full of rapid-feedback and negative comments. Like how to show up authentically in the age of filters and AI.

I don’t know if I’ll ever hit mastery over these concepts — maybe I’ll just keep learning them.

And that’s okay.

I know I’m in good company.

You’ve got this. 🫶