Humility Is Human
By Les Mottosky
Learn. Forget. Fail. Repeat. What's more discouraging than re-learning a lesson you thought you learned? Especially an important one?
Is there a reason we repeat learnings? And do we need to shame ourselves when it happens?
Children don't. Toddlers ask “why?” 300 times a day, get the answer, forget it, ask again tomorrow. Later in life, they fall off the bike, cry for 30 seconds and hop back on without judging themselves. Kids just update the software and move on. The beating ourselves up is 100 % adult invention, but the lesson itself doesn’t require the self-degradation upgrade.
Internal scorning like "I'm 38, I should know better" or "This is even more proof that I can't be fixed" aren't just lies, they obscure the point that we're progressing.
Can we prevent the need to repeat a lesson and become more efficient in our accumulation of important life knowledge?
Probably not.
That isn't what you wanted to hear, but it can bring some peace once you understand why. Big lessons likely have to be re-learned because true learning isn’t just intellectual; it’s emotional and embodied. The first time we usually “learn” a lesson on one level only:
Level 1 – Head (you understand the concept)
Level 2 – Heart (you feel the cost)
Level 3 – Body / Habit (it rewires your automatic reactions)
Most of us stop at Level 1 (“Yeah, I know I shouldn’t stay in toxic relationships / chase money over health / let ego drive decisions…”).
But life is relentless; it will continue to present the lesson until we check-off all three levels.
That's why:
- You can intellectually know “Don’t date the same red flags” at 25, but you only feel the pain deeply enough to change at 35.
- You can read about hubris a hundred times, but only internalize humility after a costly collapse.
- You can swear “I’ll never overwork again” after one burnout, but the nervous system only believes it after the second or third.
This repeat isn’t failure. It’s a necessary step in a graduated integration of the lesson. Each revisit of the assignment is the tuition we pay to achieve Level 3 mastery of it.
And here's the get-out-of-jail-free card the next time we question how we got here again: if we haven't relearned a lesson, we probably didn't learn it deeply in the first place. The scar tissue from the repeat is what finally makes the lesson stick.
Learn. Forget. Fail. Repeat. isn't a problem. It's human.
So as long as we're alive, we'll be learning and re-learning.
It's only a problem if we personalize it and beat ourselves up.
Re-learning isn’t repeating a mistake. It’s completing the lesson.
TAGS: #Humility Is Human #Curiosity Is Our Nature #Wisdom In Leadership #Radical Reframe #Adaptation As Innovation
Les Mottosky
Adaptation Strategist // I help organizations turn creativity into their competitive advantage by aligning leadership, culture and strategy to unlock adaptive innovations. It's not easy. But it's simple.
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