Stop Agreeing with Yourself: Why Learning Hurts and That's Perfect!

Welcome fellow warriors. Today I want to bring to the table what is probably the most important character trait you want to have in your personality as a warrior - and that is a genuine, deep-seated love of learning.

It took me a very long time to understand the profound importance of this quality, and lately I’ve come to appreciate it even more deeply. When I look back at my younger years, starting in my teen years and continuing well into my late thirties, I absolutely hated learning new things. It felt like such a drag, such a burden. If I had to learn something new - and I’m an artist, a musician, a singer - if I had to learn some guitar technique or some other skill, it would be so difficult! Everything I’ve ever achieved has come through sheer effort and struggle.

I am talented in certain areas of my life, just as you are talented in specific areas of yours. My natural talents have always leaned toward anything involving self-defense, martial arts, and physical fighting skills. I also have a gift for singing and musical expression - I’m very musically minded. But here’s the crucial truth I’ve discovered: even within those natural talents, every single inch of progress I’ve made has been paid for in blood, sweat, and tears. Nothing has come easily at all!

This brings me to what I call the three P’s of learning, which form the essential foundation of a warrior’s life flow: Practice, Patience, and Perseverance.

These three pillars are absolutely non-negotiable. You better get on board with these because without them, you will have a hellish time on this earth. You will give up. You will walk away from the warrior’s journey simply because you won’t have the stamina or the sustained power to carry on. Life throws a million different challenges at us that we must navigate, and it’s entirely up to us to navigate them successfully.

Now, falling in love with the process of learning is one thing - it’s easy enough to fall in love with the idea of learning. We all love to say things like “oh yes, I love to evolve and grow and become more spiritual” and “I love to learn.” But talk is cheap. We need to prove it in our real lives, in our daily existence. That proof requires engaging your discipline muscles. Your practice requires perseverance. You’ll have to sustain and sustain and sustain that practice, often for extended periods with little to show for it. Many times, results don’t come until suddenly - boom - they arrive. But getting to that breakthrough point is a freaking hard journey!

It’s the same for children learning to walk as it is for an eighty-year-old wanting to learn Chinese or French or some other challenging skill. The process is painstaking, it’s demanding, and it requires everything you’ve got.

So, how do we truly fall in love with learning? The way to do that is to start engaging your gratitude muscles. Pay your respects and express gratitude toward whatever it is you’re learning. Always keep your eyes on the prize - which means focusing on what you’re going to become and what you’re going to gain once you’ve mastered whatever it is you’re learning.

Let me give you a powerful example. Learning to be more humble means becoming an expert hunter of your own self-importance. This is one of the toughest learnings you will ever undergo, and I kid you not. Chances are you have no idea how tough & long this journey truly is! You may discover this difficulty as time goes on, if you actively engage in becoming and attaining the skill-set of becoming an expert hunter of your own self-importance.

You must genuinely reach a point where you feel excited to learn something new. Let me share a personal example. I’ve always loved bass guitar - I love bass lines, and any song I hear, the first thing I notice is the groove and whether the bass line is ‘happening’ or not. I’ve always wanted to play bass as a hobby. Now, I’m a fairly accomplished guitar player, so switching over to bass is accessible, but the actual art of playing good bass is a painstaking process. I’ve been learning it, and I am getting somewhere, but only after months of frustration. And that frustration will happen to you too - you’ll want to give up, and you’ll ask yourself why you should even bother. That’s when you must keep your eyes on the prize and engage your practice, perseverance, and patience.

You must learn to become the kind of person who jumps headfirst into learning whatever comes your way. Because trust me, the opposite side of that is a calcification of your soul, of your spirit, of your body, of your heart. That path will eventually make you a zombie full of regrets. That is the dead end. The other way - the way of passionate, committed learning - this way is aliveness. You will always be engaged with life. Life will feel juicy to you, even though it’ll be a huge, frustrating struggle. And that’s perfectly fine. That’s the paradox of life, and that’s simply the way it’s designed and encoded.

So here’s my question for you: what are you learning nowadays? What is that one thing you can commit yourself to? The world is your oyster - take your pick, whatever you like to do, and start. Begin with the conscious intent that you’re going to use this topic or interest to become the kind of person who falls in love with the process of learning itself. With that aim, with that powerful intent, you allow yourself to forge your character using the tools of this world, and you’ll automatically be walking the path with heart. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

Walk in freedom,

Anaam

Warrior loves to learn