Staying With the Climb

Last week I had the opportunity to do some hiking in the mountains. It was a beautiful day and the weather was just about perfect, not too hot, not too cool. The first 6 km were quite flat and I was feeling confident in my hiking abilities. It wasn’t until we started the climb up to a cave we were there to explore that my legs and lungs started to burn. My confidence in my ability plummeted. 

At first, my brain started to tell me that I was not going to be able to make it. But since I was with friends and a youth group I was leading, I didn’t really have the option to quit. As I continued to climb, I actually noticed something fascinating, the hike actually started to become more manageable the longer I went on. I am not going to lie and say it was easy but once I got into a rhythm, the burning sensation faded and I felt like I got into a groove. 

As I have been thinking about this experience, I have been thinking about how often we might abandon a task once it starts to  feel challenging without ever reaching the point of breaking through the wall of frustration to feel that sense of rhythm. The hardest part of a challenge may be staying with it long enough for adaptation to begin.

A challenge that many of us face is that when we struggle, we tend to interpret the struggle as a sign of inadequacy. We may tell ourselves, “I am not good at this.” or “This is too hard”. We mistake the feeling of difficulty as proof that something is wrong with us. The reality, however, is that often struggle at the beginning of a task is actually a normal part of beginning.

When I was on that mountain, I had no choice but to continue. It was in that interval between frustration and adaptation that, given the choice I may have opted out. This interval, however, is the space that gives people the time to experiment with responses, adjust, learn to tolerate uncertainty, develop new strategies and to learn that they are sometimes more capable than they think. Sometimes persistence is less about willpower and more about whether there are easy escape routes available.

There is nothing inherently wrong with using a tool to help us understand something or begin a difficult task. Sometimes support is exactly what allows us to keep moving. The concern is what happens when assistance becomes an automatic response to the first feeling of difficulty. Digital technology makes leaving difficult or frustrating experiences almost frictionless. If I am struggling to understand a concept, I can type a prompt into my web browser and I can get an immediate response. Boredom can be replaced by entertainment and frustration can be interrupted by scrolling or switching tasks.

On the mountain, I could not immediately escape the climb. I had to remain in the discomfort long enough for my body to adjust. My breathing settled, my legs found a rhythm, and the task that had initially felt impossible became manageable.

Many of the challenges we face in learning work the same way. The first few minutes of reading a difficult article may feel confusing. The beginning of a writing project may feel directionless. A complex problem may initially make us feel incapable. But those early feelings are simply the sensations that accompany the beginning of effort rather than an indication of our actual ability.

Positive support helps people to remain engaged with a task, problematic support allows for escape and avoidance. How do we determine which supports are helpful and which are harmful? It may be useful to ask ourselves, “Is this tool helping me continue the climb, or is it carrying me around it?”

Assistance that extends effort includes clarifying a confusing explanation, providing a hint, breaking tasks into manageable bits, giving feedback, or removing unnecessary barriers. Assistance that eliminates effort produces a final answer immediately, solves a full problem before a learner attempts it, generates ideas before a person has explored their own and provides relief whenever frustration appears. 

What happens when we stay with a challenge? 

Sustained engagement with a manageable challenge can have many benefits. When our initial stress or arousal begins to settle, it may become easier to direct our attention toward the task rather than toward the discomfort it is creating. As we remain with confusion and actively work to resolve it, we begin to reorganize our thinking, identify patterns, and connect new information with what we already know. Successfully navigating these moments can make similar tasks feel less threatening and can strengthen our sense of self-efficacy.

Not every struggle is beneficial, nor will every task suddenly become easy. Confusion that remains unsolved can become discouraging and challenges that overwhelm our available resources may interfere with learning. However, when the difficulty is manageable and we have enough support to work through it, what actually may change is our ability to deal with the challenge.

This is especially important for children and young people. They are still learning what learning feels like. If they learn that frustration and confusion are signs of failure or that these should be avoided, then this will likely impact the types of experiences they seek out.

Helping children learn that discomfort is often temporary and how to regulate the impulse to escape or to persist with immediate reward will allow them to build the structure to support future learning. The more that they are able to persist through challenging situations, the more confident they will be in their ability to succeed in face of frustration. 

We don’t need to abandon children in frustration to let them sink or swim on their own. But neither do we need to remove them from every frustration before they have had a chance to respond to it. 

Before we turn to our digital devices we could ask ourselves: 

• Have I made a genuine attempt?

• Have I stayed long enough to move beyond initial discomfort?

• Do I just need a hint, or do I want the task removed?

• Will this tool strengthen my engagement or remove it?

• What part of this challenge is helping me to grow?

Even a small delay, a few minutes of focused attention before seeking help can help to build capacity. 

As I sat outside the cave near the top of the mountain and ate my lunch gazing down into the valley, I was so happy that I continued up the mountain. Not only did I get to enjoy an amazing vista, but I also learned a valuable lesson about myself. My first reaction to difficulty was not an accurate measure of what I was capable of.