Episode 225: Daniel T. Willingham: Why Learning Is Hard and How To Become Better At It
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Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits & Hustle. Crush it! So today we have Daniel Willingham on the podcast who wrote a book called "Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy." You went to Harvard, right? You've been teaching at the University of Virginia for many years. Are you still there, by the way? I am still there. Oh, you are? Okay. Have you been there this whole time? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I came here in 1992. I mean, I went home some, you know, in the evenings. But yes, I've been working here since 1992. So do you want to just start? Let's start by just giving people a little bit of background on who you are and why you wrote this book called Outsmart Your Brain and what makes you the, you know, the experts. I mean, I know why you are, but just kind of give us a quick origin story of who you are.

For sure. Yeah. So my background is in experimental psychology and the work I did in graduate school was sort of at the intersection of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. So I was interested in both mind and brain and I studied learning and my work at that time was very technical. So there's sort of the old joke that you get a PhD and your parents tell your friends, like tell their friends, my son is a doctor, but not the type who helps people.

I sort of went one better. So I studied learning, but I couldn't help you learn anything really because the work I was doing was, like I said, very technical. And I did that for about 10 years post-PhD. So I taught for a couple of years at Williams College, and then I came here to the University of Virginia. And then there's an education nonprofit in town. And

the head, I had had a reason to meet with the person who founded it. And he said, why don't you come into, we have this big annual conference with like five or 600 teachers. Why don't you come and talk to them about cognitive psychology and how learning works? And I said, I don't know anything about like how, you know, education, like I'm the type of person who studies learning, who can't help you learn. And he said, no, we get all that. But like, we just think it would be, I just think the teachers would find it

Interesting. So, you know, I have an ego like anybody else. I'm like, sure, I'll come talk to your teachers. And so I showed up. Well, before I showed up, like two weeks before I was supposed to give this talk, like this is now six months later and like I'm creeping up on the talk and I suddenly panic and I realize, what am I going to tell teachers about how people learn that they don't already know?

And so, but it was too late for me to cancel. So I literally just sort of picked some slides from the course I had been teaching to sophomores here at UVA for years already by that time. And so it's like the first course you would take in learning, about learning in college.

And I showed up at this conference and to my astonishment, the teachers not only didn't know it, but they thought it was really interesting and applicable to the kinds of things that they were doing, helping people learn how to learn. And my core, this was like 2001. And my

My career completely changed at that point. I suddenly realized, wow, my field has been doing a terrible job of telling people about what we know about learning and attention and all these aspects of our own minds that we want to be able to better control. And so I shut down my basic science lab

and worked on writing for popular audiences, for teachers, for students, for parents, for just adults who want to understand learning more thoroughly and specifically be able to learn more effectively in their own lives. So that's what I've been doing for about the past 15 years or so.

And so you had another book before this book, and what was the name of that book? It was called- I had a few. Probably my most popular is called Why Don't Students Like School? And that's directed to teachers. I also have a couple of books about reading as well. So let me ask you, so why is learning so hard? I feel like there are people who are just naturally more gifted at learning in school, at academics, and there are other people, me included in this,

who just really had a hard time in school? Why is that? - So I think those are two slightly different questions, and let me start with the more general one of why most people find learning kind of challenging. And this is really the theme of the book, which is that we tend to use strategies for learning that feel like they're working, which seems perfectly logical, and then also don't feel too difficult.

But the not feeling too difficult, this is why the book is called Outsmart Your Brain. Your brain kind of tricks you into doing strategies that feel effective but actually aren't. So the analogy I draw in the book is suppose you had a friend who says they're trying to get into shape. One of the things they want to be able to do is they want to be able to do a lot of push-ups. So you go visit them one day when they're training and you find them and they're doing push-ups on their knees.

And you say, why are you doing like you want to be able to do a lot of pushups, you should be practicing regular pushups. I mean, in fact, it'd be even better if you like practice the really hard ones, like the ones where you launch yourself off the floor and clap. And your friend says, you know, a couple people told me that. And I tried that. But like, I can barely do any of those.

And the point here is I'm trying to do a lot of pushups and look, when I do them on my knees, I can do so many pushups so fast. And so people recognize that you need to challenge yourself when you're doing physical exercise. It turns out the same is true when you're trying to learn something. A lot of people, when they want to learn something, they end up doing the mental equivalent of pushups on their knees.

So, this is why one of the reasons learning is hard. And I think the analogy works in the sense that also that like it's not the pushups on your knees is no exercise at all. And it's not that the things people do when they're trying to learn are completely ineffective. They're just not very efficient. And so, they could make much better use of their time if they knew some other strategies.

It's amazing that you use that particular analogy. I don't know if you know my background at all, but that is my background, fitness. All right. Yes. And so whenever I have people on the podcast, I don't know, most of the time they use these fitness analogies because of my background, which is really funny. But why I love that analogy is because there's like two trains of thought of the push-up, right? You have some people who really believe that you should be doing it on your knees to get stronger, and then as you get stronger, you go onto your toes. Right.

I'm a believer that if you want to do a push-up, you got to do a push-up on your toes. And you know, even if you only can do one push-up or half a push-up, it's still better than doing those knee push-ups because you're never going to get to the... How else are you going to get to the toes if you don't practice on your toes, right?

So that's, I love that you use that. So can you talk about then using the same type of, you know, staying with that kind of analogy of challenge yourself on your toes with your brain? What would be some ways that we could do those more challenging learning techniques so we can get better versus, you know, doing the half-ass way of being on your knees with the pushups?

Sure. I mean, there are lots of examples I could give. I'll start with reading. So when people are reading, we read for different purposes, obviously. And the type of reading I'm talking about now is not like where you're reading for pleasure, you know, you're reading sort of light reading.

nonfiction or a novel or something like that. But instead, there's something that's probably work-related that's kind of serious, then kind of challenging, and you're reading not for the purpose of being entertained, but you're reading for the purpose of learning something new. When you're doing that type of reading, the thing that people tend to do is they fall back on the type of reading that is familiar to them.

And the type of reading that's familiar to you is you like kind of plop down a chair and you just start reading. Like when I ask my students, like, how do you read this? They look at it like I've asked a really strange question. They're like, I don't know, like sitting? Like, what do you even mean? Like, how do I read it? Like you put your eyes on it, you just start reading. And coupled with that is people highlight.

And highlighting feels like a great idea because it feels really efficient. You're like, I'm noting now what is important so that later if I need to revisit this, I can find the important parts really easy and I'll save time. I won't have to reread the whole thing. But the truth is when you're reading something that's kind of challenging and new to you, you don't know what's important.

And so you're not very likely to highlight what's actually the most important content. So this was examined in a pretty clever study by some researchers with college students. And the researchers went to the used bookstore on campus and they bought 10 copies of like the Poli Sci 101 textbook and the Econ 101 textbook. They bought 10 copies of each. And then they just compared, these are used copies, and they just compared what had

the previous owner highlighted. And what they found was all of these students had highlighted different things, right? So it just sort of goes to show when you're first starting out, you don't know exactly what you're doing. So what's a better way to tackle reading that's challenging and unfamiliar?

What you want to do is instead of just sitting down and starting to read with your highlighter in hand, you actually want to have a little bit of a plan. So there are studies showing that the way that you read and what you get out of what you read differs depending on what you perceive to be your goal. What am I expecting to learn from this?

And so you can, and even if you have very vague expectations, because like someone told you to read, your boss told you to read this, you don't really know what it's going to be. If it's semi-technical reading, there's going to be headings and subheadings. So you can look at the headings and subheadings and from that sort of figure, what does this seem to be about? What am I expecting I am going to know by the end of...

having read this and that should generate some questions and now when you're reading you're thinking of two things one is did i pose the right questions or not and two if i did pose the right questions what are the answers and so that's going to get you thinking much more deeply about what you're reading and as you're doing it instead of highlighting take notes

And notes are a better idea than highlighting because you can edit them more easily so that if you later, you know, two thirds of the way through, you suddenly realize, oh, I'm not I actually didn't really understand what this was about. Then you can adjust your notes, whereas highlighting, of course, that's not an option.

Well, I find that what happens a lot of times with some people, like I was saying earlier, is again, I'm going to use myself as an example. I get distracted really easy. If I'm not interested in the material, I'll get very distracted. I can read the same sentence 77,000 times and not comprehend it. So I don't know what to write. I don't know what kind of note to write. I won't know what to do. And it becomes very difficult.

What can you, do you have any like tips and suggestions for people who get distracted easily when they're trying to like learn material and they're not normally good at reading? - Absolutely. So distraction, I mean, there are two different types of distraction and they call for slightly different strategies. There's distraction from without.

that's literally like there's something happening around you and so you're distracted. We've all heard like you should be in a quiet place with the minimum number of distractions. That's absolutely right. Sometimes you're not able to do that, but when you think about it, I don't know about you, but like I'm way too optimistic about where I'm gonna get work done.

And so when I'm more real, you know, I'm like, oh, I'm waiting for a plane. Oh, I'll read this article when, you know, when I'm at the gate. And then there's like kids screaming and someone spilling soda on me and stuff. You know, it never works out as well as I think I'm going to. So being a little more realistic about, you know, planning and how easily you are distracted, I think can help a little bit.

Rest breaks definitely help. Lots and lots of empirical research on that. And that is very much in line with sort of our intuition that you do come back fresher from a break. The one thing I'll suggest for your audience is think about what you're doing during that break. Like don't

do something that actually doesn't make you come back feeling like you've had a break. Like some people are like instantly on their phone and they're like, you know, updating Instagram and doing all this stuff. And it's actually kind of taxing. And so when they come back, they don't feel like a little bit rested and a little bit refreshed. They just, you know, they feel equally or perhaps more exhausted. So think about that. The other way that people get distracted is of course, social media and, you know, the,

having trouble thinking about what you're doing, like if you find that your thoughts are frequently drifting to social media, I'll throw one idea out there for your listeners, which is think about whether you really want, whether you really enjoy social media or whether you just kind of want it.

Now, we've all heard that you get this dopamine rush from social media. And the common perception is that dopamine is sort of the reward neurotransmitter. Dopamine plays a role in reward, but the role it plays that's probably more important is as a let's do that again neurotransmitter. It's a neurotransmitter that tells you this was a good thing. You should keep doing this.

And it runs in parallel with other neurotransmitters that are more that feels good, right? As opposed to you should do this again in the future. And I think one of the things that can happen for, and I know this happens for me, is that

Those two things are separable. The feeling of really enjoying something is not identical with I should keep doing this again. And so the keep doing it again outlives the enjoyment. And something that initially was very fun actually becomes not that much fun, but you keep on feeling the urge to do it.

I've had this conversation a lot with a lot of my students and they'll talk about feeling addicted to Snapchat and I'll say like, oh, so you must really love it. They're like, actually, I hate it. It's like it dominates my life. It's so boring. I feel obligated to get on. It's like, oh my God, you're so beautiful. I can't

Right. And it's just like, it's inane and it's, but they do feel this urge to do it. And part of that is of course, social reciprocity, their friends are doing it. And so they feel like they've got to do it, but they say it's more than that. If that's all it were like, I would bundle up,

all those things together and just like get it done at 6 p.m. or something. But instead, I do feel this urge. So this isn't true for everybody, but like I would interrogate your own motivations a little bit and think when I'm distracted by social media, do I really enjoy it when I'm doing it or do I just kind of want it? That, by the way, that's a wonderful commentary because I think that's so on the nose because we are so...

and pulled towards doing it. And I don't think it's because most of us even actually like it. It's because we feel this like necessity to do it because what are we missing? Like the fear of missing something, of not knowing. It's like retrained our brains in a certain way. And so you're saying there's a big difference because I know for me, for Instagram, I was like, I don't enjoy it. It's actually like the opposite of being in it.

the opposite, but it's like an obligation. It's an obligation. And then like a feeling of like, what am I missing? What's on there that I don't know? And it's like, that's takes you down a whole other rabbit hole. And I know I'm not alone, especially if you're constantly having to feed the beast, right? Having to constantly post, having to constantly do that. So I guess the question I have for you is because there is, you're saying there's a difference between having that feeling of need and

Because that's how your brain now is, that's really the neurotransmitter versus the want. How do we really distinguish and how do we actually not even distinguish because I think we can distinguish, how do we stop ourselves from being pulled to something that we know intellectually we don't want to be doing?

Yeah, well, I think recognition can, for a lot of people, that gets them a long way there because they recognize, okay, so let me think now. Why exactly am I doing this? If it is social obligation and reciprocity, I've had talks about this actually with my children as well as some of my students.

How old are your children? Yeah, I've got a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old. So they're sort of right in the sweet spot of like, you know, that

of that social obligation feeling. And we've talked about sort of talking with your friends about like, I do have Instagram, but here's what I use it for. And so just so you know, like, love you to death, but I'm not going to be on there every day commenting about how pretty you are or whatever it is. I'm going to be on periodically and that, you know, here's what I'm using it for.

And, you know, obviously, if like these are your friends, they're going to be fine with that. So, yeah, I mean, I think that more broadly, taking it away from just my kids, you know, more broadly, you can think about what is it that is prompting me to feel like I still need to be doing this? And is there another way that I can meet that need? So, for example, I would imagine that, you know,

You've got professional obligations. It's not just personal social obligations. And so, you know, that's a different thing than you do need to be getting on because it's such an important channel. But you can think of that's probably feels a little bit less urgent that there's the constant fear of missing out and you can more readily bundle that and schedule it.

Hmm. Okay. I like that. So you talk about in your book about being an independent learner. How do we become an independent learner? What is it in your definition?

Yeah, my definition is where you are responsible for your own learning. And so the easy way to think about that is contrasting it with someone who's not an independent learner. Small children are not at all independent learners. Our expectations of children are appropriately zero, right? And I joke in the book, like no preschooler ever came home and their parent chided them like, you know, you're...

Your teacher tells me you're not really trying to learn your colors, right? It's like we understand it's completely it's completely up to the teacher to create an environment where the child is going to learn. And then slowly as school, as the child moves through the grades, they become more and more responsible for their own learning. And, you know, by the time they come to me in college, you know, they're

most of the learning they do is really they're doing it on their own. Our expectation is for every hour that you're in classes, you're probably spending three hours or more learning outside of the classroom. And so that's all up to you to regulate how that learning happens.

So what do you think, by the way, of the idea that because we all learn differently, do you think it's going to shift and change how people in school are going to learn? Because right now it's pretty much no matter where you are, it's about going to lectures or taking notes. And I feel like we're people, it's really in like the zeitgeist right now, people talking about all sorts of different types. Not everyone can learn like that anyway, like we're talking about.

Do you think that we're going to start learning differently, have different modalities to learning, or that's kind of not going to happen? So there are two pieces to that question. One is the question about how differently do we really all learn? And the answer is there are lots of ways in which the way that we learn is actually highly similar.

And in a way, that's not that surprising. I mean, everyone's got a circulatory system that kind of works roughly the same way, a digestive system that works roughly the same way and so on. And so you've got a central nervous system. And the basic architecture of how your brain works, like it can't be that different across people. Like evolution has not created several different categories of brains. Like there's a human brain. And

the basics of how it operates are probably highly similar across individuals. What's different is what individuals have learned in the past, what they come into a new learning task already knowing, which is enormously important for what your experience is going to be in that learning task.

If you already know a lot of similar stuff, then this new learning task is going to be very different than if you're coming to it brand new. And of course, we have different motivations. We have different goals going into a learning task. We have different senses of ourselves as learners. If you see yourself as decidedly not a math person, but then you're starting a new business and someone tells you like, well, you're on your own, like you're going to have to figure out the accounting.

you're, you know, you're of course going to be like, oh my God, I've got deep trouble. I've never been good at this. And the way you react during, you know, suppose you take an online accounting course. Well, one of the things about learning is there are always setbacks. You know, you fail a quiz or you like, there's something you just really can't wrap your mind around, but your interpretation of those setbacks is so different depending on your self-image as a learner.

So if you're good at math and you're taking the accounting course, you go into it thinking this is not going to be hard for me because I'm always good at this stuff. And when there's a setback, you're like, oh, they explained that stupid because I didn't understand it. It must be their explanation was bad. Whereas if it were me, who's always struggled a little bit, I'd be like, I knew it. I knew this was going to be the hardest part of starting this business because I just have always sucked at math.

So those are ways in which people really do differ, but it's less about like, oh, your brain is really different than mine. It's more like your experiences have been different than mine. And that's led to different things that you know and can do. And part of that includes sort of your perception of yourself. So that's the first part. Then the second part is

Is because of, you know, chat, GPT, God help us, and Zoom and all these other things, is school radically going to change? It's very hard to know. I mean, I can tell you, I've been in education now for 15, 20 years. And, you know, for a while it was Chromebooks are going to change everything. Schools are going to look unguessably different. Then it was Oculus. Oculus is going to change everything. There's always...

some new tech thing that everyone's saying is going to change everything there are two reasons that none of them have panned out yet one is that uh you just get unanticipated complications that make it harder to implement in classrooms than you thought it was going to be the second thing is that education is a conservative enterprise it's conservative partly because teachers

are used to doing what they've always done. And they feel like I've got a good thing going here. Like you had better be pretty charming if you think I am going to completely change what I've been doing for the last 20 years, because, you know, you've got a VR set. Like I need more than that.

And the other thing is that parents are really conservative. Parents want school for their children to look like they remember school being because most of them look back, not all, but most of them look back and feel pretty positively about the experience they had. So that's why not much has happened yet and why I suspect not much is going to happen in the future.

That's interesting to me because I think I get what you're saying, but the Chromebook and the Oculus, but the chap GPT, that to me is a little different only. And I hear what you're saying because I've heard those what you've said before about like there's there's going to be all sorts of kinks in the system that will make it very, very difficult that we haven't even thought of. But, you know, like the chap GPT thing, like I can say, hey, do a.

an essay or a two, 500 word thing on World War I or on this. And it will literally give it to me, right? Like within like two, and if I don't like it, I can tweak it and modify it. - Yeah. - So how does that, 'cause we've never had that before.

Doesn't that change the game though? Because kids can now don't, they don't have to rely on their brain at all to think about the stuff and the steps. They can just type it into an AI thing and it just pops out for them. We never had that. Even with Chrome, that's never been an option.

So there are two answers. One is I haven't verified this yet, so I don't know if this is right, but somebody on a Facebook group that I was looking at just said, like, you can put an essay into chat GPT and say, did you write this? And you'll actually get an accurate answer. I don't know if that's true or not. That would be great if it were true, if chat GPT could just tell you, yeah, yes, that was me. But even if it can't, so let me tell you what,

Think about math teachers. So math teachers in the last month have frequently been saying, oh, so you say that children now have access to a technology at home that allows them to solve problems that you set. My, my, my, that must be really distressing for you, right? Because of course, it's not just calculators, but

You know, kids have been Googling math problems for years now and finding answers online. And so math teachers have, of course, met this challenge and thought about ways of getting around this to make sure that children are actually learning math and they're not just Googling. So I imagine the same kind of thing is going to happen.

That's actually a good point. I didn't know that. So then you can just put, if they give you an essay, you can just check everybody by saying, did you write this chap GPT? And I'll say, yes, I did. Yeah. And again, I have not verified that. So I don't know if that's accurate or not. That would be so helpful though, right? Because that would change the game 100%. Because I had a book that came out a couple of months ago and I gave it to somebody who

they wanted to read my book and I'm like, I'm gonna quiz you on it as a joke, right? And so I'm like, hey, what was my book about? And they sent me like five really strong paragraphs on like what my book, and it was, they nailed it, right? I'm like, wow, this person really did write, you know, read my book.

But there were a couple things in there that I knew that was impossible. So I mean, like, there are, like, there are kinks in there. And I think, like, to your point, they'll probably figure out ways around it, navigate it so people can't cheat like they can. Because if I could pick it up, you know, that someone's doing that at this stage, it's very new still. Maybe we could just tell students.

ChatGPT. I just put your essay into ChatGPT and asked ChatGPT. Like even if ChatGPT can't do it, can't we just tell students that we can? I think we can. I think that that's enough of a scare, right? Tactic. I think that scare tactics work all the time.

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So I guess a big question I have for you, I guess like a great segue is like procrastination, right? Because when we don't want to do something, we procrastinate. Do you have any tips on this? How do we stop procrastinating? I think

The usual tips that you hear can be pretty good. I mean, so psychologists who look at procrastination agree that like you're, and this is a case where your intuition about what's going on is pretty accurate. It's you're making a decision.

And the decision, the choice is between something that seems pretty like it's going to be pretty unpleasant to do versus something that is more pleasant. There is one twist to this that a lot of people don't appreciate. This is a phenomenon called time discounting. And this is the idea that when you're contemplating getting a reward, if you're contemplating getting the reward in the future,

It has less rewarding oomph to it than it does if you're going to get it immediately. So the example I like to use is suppose your doctor has told you, you really need to be cut back on your sugar. Like your blood sugar is not great. So you're like, okay, I'm really going to try and do that. And you're in the grocery store and you've got your buggy and you go by the ice cream aisle and you see your favorite type of ice cream. And you think, man, that would be really nice after supper tonight to have that ice cream.

Okay, so now you've got a choice. Listen to my doctor and don't buy the ice cream or buy the ice cream and have it after supper. Now compare that choice to this one. You're at home, you've just finished supper. Your significant other says, "Oh, this is so thoughtless of me. I got myself a bowl of ice cream. I didn't even ask you if you wanted one. Here, do you want this one?" Now you've got the same choice in front of you, ice cream versus listen to my doctor.

But our intuition is pretty obvious. It's a whole lot harder to turn down the ice cream when you're contemplating getting it seconds from now compared to resisting the ice cream that you're thinking about getting eight hours from now. So that's time discounting. And so when we think about procrastination, when my choice is, I've got this thing I'm supposed to do for work, I really don't feel like doing it, but the new Ted Lasso season just started. Should I watch Ted Lasso or not?

Now you see that like delaying Ted Lasso, now I'm contemplating, like the thing you would say, which is true enough, it's like, Dan, do your work. You can watch Ted Lasso when you're done, like an hour and a half from now. But Ted Lasso an hour and a half from now is not the same as Ted Lasso immediately, has less rewarding oomph to it. So a lot of the strategies in dealing with procrastination

are supposed to make the negative thing seem less negative. So one way it seems negative is that it can seem overwhelming. This is a common reason people procrastinate. I won't make any headway anyway, right? And so the common advice is,

break it down into more digestible chunks. I think that's very good advice. Another thing you can do that you hear less often is to try and reframe your choice. So instead of thinking, "Do I want to do this work now or do I want to watch Ted Lasso?" You could think, "Well, do I want to watch Ted Lasso now and probably not enjoy it as much because I know I've got this thing hanging over my head?"

Or do I want to knock this thing off so that I can forget about it and then I'm free and I can do whatever I want? So that doesn't work for everybody in every situation, but you can try it sometimes and see if that reframing, you know, sort of emphasizing that now you're choosing not to have the task be done. You're denying yourself the pleasurable feeling of having finished that task. See if that makes a difference for you.

I like that. I mean, the reframing is a good one. Tell me another. Yeah, I think, I mean, for all of these things and throughout the book, I do this, like for every problem that you face, I think it's good to have like four or five different strategies. You're not going to use all of them, but the obviously, but the idea is like some of them work for you for some tasks and not other tasks.

or like there's one that really speaks to you or whatever it is, right? So it's good to have a lot. Another very common one, and you hear this a lot in fitness actually, it's been studied in fitness is just start and it won't be as bad as you think it's gonna be. So the original,

Studies on this were actually in fitness when they talked with people about why they didn't exercise. People like, oh, God, you're sweaty and you're sore and you're out of breath and it feels terrible. And so what they had them do, researchers had people do is rate one to 10, like how pleasant or unpleasant do you anticipate? Here, you're going to do this. You're going to be on the treadmill for 10 minutes at this speed. Like, how do you think you'll feel at the end of the 10 minutes? And people made a prediction and then they had them do it.

and they actually rated. And very consistently, people were like, I don't feel great, but I don't feel as bad as I thought I was going to feel. So that's common advice for procrastination also. It's like, I really don't want to do it. Then once you start, you're like, this really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

One other thing I'll invite your listeners to think about that, again, this is not true for everybody, but if it's true of you, it's probably true of you in a lot of circumstances. Sometimes people procrastinate as a way of self-handicapping. So imagine one of my students, for example, they'll do laundry. The phenomenon of productive procrastination is very familiar to all of us, right? It's like, well, I don't have to do the terrible work I don't want to do, but I can still feel good about myself because I'm making cookies and I'm doing laundry, right?

Suddenly my bathroom is like, it's intolerable how dirty my bathroom is. Let's clean that. So one of the, and one of the added features of this is that you're doing productive procrastination as a way of self-handicapping so that you're worried about

you know what, I think even if I work really, really hard and try and study for this test, I'm not going to do very well anyway. And that's kind of threatening to me. I would feel stupid if I studied really hard and still got a bad grade. So instead, all of this is sort of unconscious, right? Or barely conscious. So instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make it so I really can't study and

And, you know, I'm really rushed at the end. And then like, if I get a bad grade, well, then it's quite understandable because I was just so busy. I didn't really have time to study. So if that rings true to you, I mean, then that's a, that's sort of another conversation. If you're doing that sort of self-handicapping. How do you, how do you stop doing it? If you're someone who does that? I think you need to, you know, it depends on what the task is, but I think a lot of it is sort of self,

with the fact that sometimes we work really hard on things and they don't work out. And, you know, and that's okay. Like, you know, and especially if it's,

you know you're nervous about it because like, you know, you're nervous about doing your taxes and you're procrastinating like crazy. And you look back and it's because, well, my taxes are always a nightmare and I've made mistakes and the IRS has like corrected me and come after me. Then I would say, yeah, of course you're nervous about it. Like this is consistently a horrible experience for you.

But like, don't discount the possibility that especially with like taking a little more seriously, maybe getting some help with it. Like it probably won't be really easy the first time you do it, but like you're going to improve if you stick with it and, and, you know, get some resources to help you through it. You are going to improve. And so there's, you know, but like the path you're on now is not a path of improvement. Yeah. It's a path of despair. Yeah.

That's true. That's true. What about, you know, because like,

Like you were saying, sometimes when we don't think we're going to do well anyway, we tend to subconsciously self-sabotage that possibility of that. So we end up not doing it because we don't think we're going to do well anyway. How do we build more self-confidence with learning? Because some of us just think we're stupid and therefore we just are like, I'm stupid in school, I can't do it. Or I'm stupid as a learner, I'm not going to do it.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to recognize that, I mean, there are few pieces that go into your self-image as a learner. And people tend to focus on just one of those, which is the feedback that they've gotten in the past. Mm-hmm.

in the form of grades, maybe in the form of something a teacher has said to you. You know, I've made a habit of asking people about like, did you have a favorite teacher when you're growing up? And I've heard a lot of stories that people have told about teachers. And I think

It's surprising, but in a way, maybe not surprising, how many people have a story about one offhand remark that they heard from a teacher that really stuck with them. And sometimes more than one. And, you know, sometimes it's positive. Sometimes it's really negative. And, you know, you can just tell, like they know the exact story.

phrasing, right? It's like a flashbulb memory that has stuck with them. And it's so unfortunate because it was almost from the phrasing you can tell like this was not intended to be like, let me tell you what I think of you. It was just something that offhanded. It was offhanded. Exactly. Yeah. And it's true. By the way, that's so true because I I

I have one comment that a teacher said to me that stuck with me forever. I write about that also. I tell people about that one stupid comment like what 35 years, 30 years later, you know what I mean? It's crazy. Yeah. Do you want to tell us now? Yeah. I mean, I would say that she said to me as my resource teacher, she's like, you know, Jennifer is just not a good student. Don't expect much from her. She's not going to go to college. She's not that type of student. She said it to my mom.

And I remember like, I think that like, I don't remember if I overheard her say that or my mom told me that part. I think I like kind of don't remember, but I kind of feel like it propelled me, right? Because it kind of like, I'll show her type of attitude where I like surpassed

everything that she could have imagined, right? But sometimes you need, I use that fuel as fire, I suppose, but, or I use that as a fuel to go through. But, which is funny, I didn't realize that that happens to a lot of other kids, that it happens a lot of times.

It happens like, well, you know, if you think about it, start asking people about like, you know, comments that they remember that a teacher made, because when I've done that, I almost always find something. And I'll also mention, like, I think it's amazing and so great that that was your response.

was like, okay, yeah, let's see about that, right? Because I think most people, they're not able to sort of find that inner strength and do that. Most people say like, oh gosh, like maybe that is really who I am.

Well, we started off. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. No, I don't know. I was just going to finish by saying at the beginning, I was like, well, that's because of what you said. It made me think I was really bad in school. So therefore, I had very much a lot of insecurity around learning in school. And so that's

But I was fortunate enough that I had, I built out other strengths outside of school, like my other type of, you know, smarts. So it was okay. And that's how I got the confidence. But yes, to your point, I can, that's, thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. So, but I wanted to add like that this is just one source of our self-image as a learner. It's the one that we're by far the most aware of is the feedback we've gotten, but other things really contribute to your self-image as a learner. And it's worth sort of becoming more aware of that and

And considering it, it's like seeing how you feel about it and whether you want to sort of reconsider some of it. So one other source of ourself as a learner is family values. How your family thought about learning new things, how your family thought about schooling. This is a, you know, to an extent we don't appreciate, we absorb these sort of attitudes from mostly from our parents.

I mean, you certainly become aware of the fact that different families have different values, usually around five or six when you start visiting friends' homes and you realize like, oh, the rules are different. Like they really care about being polite at that house. That's weird, right?

But it's like those kids, right? I mean, everyone's had that experience where like, why is Robert's mother such a freak about finishing your plate? Like that's not important at my house at all. And she acts like that's in the Bible or something, right?

This is how parents communicate to their kids things that are important to them. And we absorb messages about learning and about whether learning and school and grades are all the same thing or whether there's different types of learning. There's learning that happens outside of school that's

that's important too and that some people are not don't succeed very much in school but they're really good at other types of learning outside of school right these are all beliefs that you absorb early on from your family another thing that contributes to sense of self as a learner is who you compare yourself to

So I tell the story about one of our graduate students who was legitimately worried he was going to fail out of the program because of statistics. And he thought, I'm just not hacking statistics at all. It turned out he was one of the best in the class, but his husband was in the data science program. So his husband was like in the 99th percentile or something, and he was in like the 75th. He was very good.

But he was comparing himself to the wrong person. So that's something you also want to think about. And then the last thing that contributes to your sense of self as a learner is who you're hanging out with. And that may be different than who you compare yourself to.

So if you are around people who make it easy to be a learner and make it easy to be self-confident as a learner, that's very different than if you're not. If you're around people who take learning seriously, then when you want to do something that

where you're taking learning seriously, they make that easy to do. They understand it, they get it. And it doesn't mean like if you've got friends who are not interested in learning, don't see themselves, it doesn't mean they're bad friends. It's just, and they may be supportive, but as we all know, it's like, it's a little different when you know they get it. Like, you know, you're feeling unconfident about something and your friends are encouraging you,

but if they don't know anything about it at all, it's like they're being sweet, but like, you know, I can't help but discount it a little bit, right? Because they don't really know what I'm going through. And so who your peer group is, who you surround yourself with, that can also have a real impact on your sense of self as a learner.

That's great. I mean, that's true, actually. I agree. But how do we overcome then the anxiety that we have when we think we're not good at it, when we don't feel good at it for all the things we've talked about? How could we overcome having that anxiety when we have to take a test or we have to learn something? You have all these self-calming techniques that you mentioned. Can we talk about some of them?

Sure. Yeah. And I mean, this is, I think, again, there's sort of two parts to what you said. One is sort of the anxiety of starting. Like, you just feel like I've never been good at this. Like, am I really going to be able to tackle this new skill or whatever it is? And there, I think a big part of it is.

You know, getting outside of that comparison and, you know, getting outside of that feeling you had in school when the comparisons were so explicit and so obvious. And you knew you were not very good at this, right? I mean, people who are not good at reading, it's like, yes, I know, this is the bluebird group, not the slow kids group. But who's kidding who? Like, we're all reading a different book than the redbirds, right? You know?

- Exactly, exactly. - Kids know at a very early age, but you're not in school anymore and you just need to sit with and be okay with, maybe I'm not very good at this, but that's all right. I don't need to be amazing at it. Like that's not my goal. My goal is to be okay at it. - But how about for kids? Let's talk about kids. 'Cause a lot of people who are listening, I imagine will have kids. - Will have, yeah, will be parents. - Who have, yeah, who are parents.

and may have kids who have anxiety around this stuff and therefore perpetuates all of it. They get worse marks, worse grades, and it becomes like a vicious cycle. What would you tell parents to help them with their kids?

I would try and think first about where this anxiety is coming from. If it's coming from the school and attitudes that are coming from teachers, then you need to have a conversation with the teachers. If this is essentially a value that you don't really share that your child's being exposed to, then yeah, you need to have a conversation with them. I would also wonder whether it's coming from you.

And I would sort of interrogate yourself a little bit. Is this really what I want? If your attitude is like, well, that's just what school is and yeah, you're stressed or whatever, a lot of times parents will feel that way because that was their experience. And I would think carefully about whether

your child is experiencing it the same way you did. Kids, you know, kids do respond to, they're more reactive or less reactive to anxiety. And so it could be that what was just fine for you, legitimately just fine for you, if unpleasant, is more than unpleasant for your child. And they're really struggling for that reason. So that's the first thing I would think about. If they're having clinical levels of anxiety, then, you know, you need to see a professional.

clinical defined as interfering, you know, like your anxiety is bad enough that it interferes with things that you want to do in your life and you just can't get them done. Now for everyday test anxiety, yeah, there are lots of things that kids can do. And this is the kind of thing that usually doesn't come online until like middle school at the earliest. I mean, if kids are getting anxious about tests in elementary school, that's really, I almost said a bad word, messed up.

Kids in elementary school should not be feeling test anxiety. And again, I would want to talk with what's happening in the school if that's the way they're feeling. That's interesting. That's interesting. My kid gets 100 on every test. And like, I mean, it doesn't even...

I can't even understand how. I never got 100 on any test. So when he gets like 97, he freaked out. And he's in grade four. I'm like, can you calm down? It's self-induced because I'm not giving. I'm talking about the effort, not the other stuff. But I think that sometimes it can just be the pressure, like you said, maybe around the school. That's actually a good point for parents.

Yeah, I would definitely have a conversation if my fourth grader were feeling that kind of pressure. I would say like, I don't know where this is. It's self-induced though, I think. I think he's very competitive. Maybe that's why. But anyway. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, I'd be thinking about...

channeling that elsewhere? 100%. This is not a podcast about my kid either, but I was just saying he's very competitive in everything, sports, whatever. I wasn't even bringing this up because of him, but I think that when I speak to a lot of different parents and given my audience, I would think that this would be something that people would be dealing with. For their kids or for themselves, if there's any type of

tips about self calming techniques would be great. Sure. Yeah. So self calming, the kinds of things you've heard for self calming can be really effective. So before or even during a test, prayer, meditation, simple breathing exercises, all of those are a good idea.

Talk is a good idea also. So when you have, if you have spiraling thoughts during an exam, like, you know, you have a couple of problems in a row that you're not sure about. And then that leads to, oh my God, I'm going to fail this exam. Oh my God, if I fail the exam, I'll probably fail the course. Oh my God, I'll never get into college. My mother will be so disappointed and angry. So spiraling thoughts like that, that after the fact, you know, don't make any sense. One thing that can help is the sort of,

Self-talk can be really effective. So focusing on, first of all, how likely is this to happen? So, you know, if you miss two, are you really likely to fail the exam or do you always think you're going to fail the exam and then actually things turn out fine? And then also sort of thinking through the consequences. Okay, the worst happens. You're right. You know what? You failed the exam. Now what happens? Like, are you really on this life course now?

that can't be changed. There's no bouncing back from this spelling quiz on your fourth grade. No, no, no. But it's so true. That's what I say. I'm like, calm down. Like, he's like, mom, I got, I got 14 out of 15. I'm like, amazing. He's like, yeah. And he's like, what do you mean? I missed one. I'm like, oh my God. You know, he's like, I'm not going to get into a good middle school. That's what he says to me.

Oh, Lord. You know what? That's going to be fine. Maybe the worst happens and you don't get into a good middle school. It's going to be fine. It's going to be okay. Let me finish this thought because there's a little bit more to the self-calming talk. Yes, please. When you're trying to be rational, you can't do this during an exam because you're too anxious, you're too frazzled, and you're feeling the time pressure. So what you want to do is do it a couple of days before the exam.

Or whatever it is that's making you anxious. Because even though you can't think when you're anxious, memory works pretty well when you're anxious. So in the middle of that anxiety attack, you can say, you know what, I went through all this a couple of days ago, and I remember concluding this line of thinking doesn't make any sense.

And if you really believed it a couple of days ago, then that memory may very well help. And you'll say like, yeah, this is not a good mental path.

I like that one. I never heard that before, how memory can help that. Yeah. So that's great. Well, I really liked your book. So I thank you for being on this podcast. It was really, really... What I loved about it actually is that it actually had a lot of very useful, practical things people could do. And you can put it down, you can stop reading it, you can start reading it again for another part.

I love that type of book, right? So you don't feel this like obligation, right? That it has to be all read in one time.

I tried very hard to make it so the chapters are independent and you can just work on whatever it is you think you want most to work on. And that makes it so much easier. So you don't procrastinate or you don't think, I'll read this book some other time. Like if you have like it's, and I also like books that are actually very helpful that are actionable. Right. So that's why I really wanted to have you on this podcast. And I, and I really appreciate you being on and where else can people find you, Daniel, find your book?

So there's my book. So I am on my, my website's a disaster. I do have danielwillingham.com. I haven't updated it in forever because like I suck. I'm on social media. I'm actually on TikTok. I'm on Daniel underscore Willingham on TikTok and on Facebook and Twitter. I'm DT Willingham.

Well, and then they can find the book anywhere, right? Like they could buy it on Amazon or wherever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wherever fine and other books are sold, you will find my book. Exactly. It's called, okay, the guys that put the book is called outsmart your brain. It's a really good read. And I really suggest you guys grabbing a copy. So thank you. Thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you so much. It was fun. That was great. Thank you.