Speed Secrets: Pushing Past a Plateau

There’s always more.

Like everyone, I’ve had my fair share of disappointments and frustrations in my life. The ones that matter most to me revolve around two things: driving and learning. Mostly, they’re the same thing.

What I love most about driving is learning. And what I love learning the most is driving. So, when I’m not learning or driving, or driving and learning, I can feel disappointed and frustrated.

Over the course of fifty-odd years of driving, it’s only natural that there would be times when the learning would seem to stop. No, I’m not talking about getting to an age where it’s physically impossible to learn, because by the very definition of learning, there are ways to manage the aging process as it applies to driving.

For example, if an age-related injury left me without the full use of my right hand and arm (as it did last year before having two artificial disks installed in my neck), I could learn how to adapt in the same way that I’ve had to change my driving style and technique to deal with a car that understeered like a non-steerable wagon.

Age also has little to nothing to do with mental limits. There was a time when the old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” was generally accepted as being accurate. But neuroscience research over the past couple of decades has introduced us to a new phrase: neuro-plasticity. Basically, it says that the brain is plastic, malleable, and forever adaptable, forever able to learn new tricks. So, if you think your mind is not able to continue to learn well into old age… well, it’s time to open that mind up and accept what science has proven: you can.

What I’m really talking about here is when there appears to be little to no improvement, a strong indicator of a lack of learning.

But is a plateau — something that all learners have experienced at some point in their lives — really a lack of learning? Or is it a step in the process, a natural and much needed mental “rest and regroup before another burst of learning”? It’s the latter.

I wrote about the learning process in the Inner Speed Secrets book that Ronn Langford and I co-authored many years ago, referring to the much-talked-about “learning curve” that doesn’t really exist. When learning anything, we follow “learning steps.” And what does each of these steps have in common? Plateaus.

“Learning curve” in red; “Learning steps” in green.

Learning plateaus are as natural to us as breathing is.

What matters most — and what has disappointed and frustrated me at times — is how long is spent on the plateau. Hey, if that flat top on the next step lasted only a few seconds, I don’t think anyone would mind! It’s when they last longer than we think they should that we become disappointed and frustrated.

To get better at pushing past the frustrations, we need to start by understanding what causes learning plateaus?

1. Trying too hard to force your way past or through it.

2. Believing that you’re stuck where you are, possibly even putting limitations on what you believe you’re capable of.

3. Unrealistic expectations.

4. Focusing on results rather than on the process or performance that leads to the results.

5. Fear – of bodily harm, embarrassment, failure, success, letting others down

6. Not knowing what to improve, or how to; focusing on the wrong things.

7. The forming of neural pathways that create the mental programming to do something at a new or better way — the development or refinement of specific skills.