We mentioned that, when engaging in new learnings, it is common to encounter inhibitors. To transcend them, we need first to identify them, then try to manage and master them.
The most common inhibitors encountered when learning to ski may be:
Arrogance is the typical attitude seen in those who think they know everything and consider they have nothing to learn. The arrogant skier does not ask for instructions to avoid recognizing a need, exhibiting an attitude of self-sufficiency and superiority. He believes he knows everything and that no one can teach him, therefore, it is impossible for him to access learning. He is imprisoned in the utopia that he does not need to learn, i.e., he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know. He believes that the way he skis is all that exists, and so he falls into the easy way of closing off other possibilities. Since he considers himself better, he closes in on himself and does not recognize areas in which he can improve. On the opposite side of arrogance is humility, which is necessary for the recognition of missing domains because it makes it possible to express and accept ignorance, moments of blindness, and room for improvement.
Laziness is another learning inhibitor since it hinders the decision to practice what has been learned and prevents access to new skills. The typical lazy skier is the one who always has an excuse to take a lesson. Ordinary laziness is refusing to make any effort to learn. Another type of laziness manifests itself by giving up before any attempt. Laziness also consists of not undertaking what we know is important, squandering time on trivial activities. If unwilling to exercise because it consumes too much energy, we will not achieve the desired goals, preferring to be incompetent. The discipline of good planning combats laziness and consolidates what has been learned.
Procrastination lies in delaying the practice of what has been learned in a lesson and is, together with laziness, a frequent obstacle. It is a behavior based on avoidance, postponing practice due to, generally, a perceived reduced value. It is delaying rather than confronting that which worries, annoys, or that we believe we are likely to fail. In this case, we prefer to avoid risks and stay in our comfort zone, delaying or postponing practicing what we have learned because we do not perceive the importance for our progress. The probability of this situation appearing is inversely associated with motivation: the higher our motivation, the more procrastination will decrease and, vice versa, the less motivated we are, the greater the possibility of procrastination appearing. The roots of procrastination may lie in perfectionism, fear of failure or success, over-imagination, and complexity bias in that we tend to choose complex solutions to simple ones.
Impatience is to pretend to learn instantly. The ambition for immediate results generates the tendency to abandon learning. It translates into trying to learn everything or aspiring to apply what has been learned quickly. If we seek quick rewards, we may not recognize long-term goals. At being impatient, we do not realize that the rush to quickly achieve a result leads to not really learning how to attain it, so we will not be able to apply the same process in future learning. The tendency to suffer from impatience for immediate results may be an addiction that we bring from our daily lives. We should recognize these moments of extreme anxiety and be patient to gradually employ the new skills.
Confusion, or the lack of understanding our goals, can cause the trust placed in the instructor/coach to fade away, causing to stop attending lessons or training sessions. The tendency to always want to understand everything at all times avoiding confusion is remedied by accepting that we go from a ‘not knowing’ stage to arrive at a ‘knowing how to do’ and that during this process there will be moments of confusion.
Our thoughts influence our learning process. If these are adverse about what may happen, exaggerated comments about the possibility of falling, getting injured, or colliding with others, then it will actually happen. Generally, these types of thoughts generate negative internal dialogues. The recreational skier or athlete who has a tendency to think negatively causes to himself harmful expectations, feelings of inadequacy and apprehension about the outcome of his performance. Thoughts should be directed towards those aspects that depend on us, for example, the actions and tactics that we will use in the immediate future. It is detrimental to think about the mistakes made, the difficulty of the downhill or the slalom course because they interfere with the effectiveness of our motor behavior.
An unfamiliar context such as a snowy mountain, sometimes intimidating, may tend to make it difficult to generate expectations of success due to the absence of the feeling of being in control of the situation, but facing it with positive approach may facilitate learning.
Distractions enable the dispersion of our concentration. It is very easy to get distracted when skiing due to multiple stimuli. External distractions can be terrain configuration, slope and traffic conditions, or even our own speed. Internal distractions could be negative thoughts and dialogues, the distraction caused by a mistake, or a momentary loss of control.
Resistance to relearning due to the belief that if a certain technique has worked so far, there is no need to change it. Although the greatest barrier to learning is unlearning habits with which we have skied for so long, it is always possible to replace them with more efficient ones.
Skepticism arises at times when our own competence is questioned. On these occasions, if we take them in a healthy way, they serve to open ourselves to new learnings, leaving behind beliefs about what we think we know how to do.
Negative judgments, through destructive internal dialogues, is a very common inhibitor in which we have the belief that we cannot learn because of how we are and act, that is, our own negative opinions limit our learning possibilities. But these negative judgments are just that: opinions and interpretations that do not necessarily reflect reality since they are not fixed and can be modified.
The constant anxiety of understanding prevents us from leaving our comfort zone, making it necessary to be clear about everything, since any moment of doubt or confusion generates uncertainty and discomfort but we need to understand that these moments are essential to go through our discovery process.
Not assigning priority to learning is an inhibitor disguised with the excuse of not having time, considering that what is proposed to learn does not correspond due to the kind of skiers we are, pretending to be victims of the vortex of our daily skiing, or letting ourselves be carried away by the Id, that is to say, by immediate pleasure instead of listening to our conscious Self. We make excuses about the rhythm of our skiing holiday and that the short time available does not allow us to dedicate ourselves to learning. Assigning priorities helps us to organize the time that we wrongly perceive as wasted.
