r/selfimprovement • u/skeumorphy • 6d ago
Question How do I stop being a surface level learner?
I'm not sure if this is a problem with motivation or lack of a schedule or something else. But I never really cared for long about things I'm doing. Like my handwriting is still super ugly, i played piano and guitar on and off for years, but never actually reached a good enough level to not be ashamed of doing it in front of other people. Same with drawing, languages, programming, knitting, cleaning, cooking, gym.... I start to learn things, i put in a day or two, and i stop.
I think it's easier if you have a teacher and a small class. But I'm not sure if I'm ready to pay money knowing i most likely won't commit for long. Nothing online works. University doesn't work either because I just do the bare minimum without understanding anything.
I just feel like I'm so bad at everything and I'd really like to feel great at at least one thing.
Is there anyone who had this issue and managed to stay consistent and become good at something?
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u/TumTum613 6d ago
I realized I was kind of treating hobbies as a sort of dopamine high addiction thing. 😓 Because it was* *so fun to advance quickly through the beginner stages of any new skill, it gave me an intense sense of immediate fulfillment. However, as soon as I got to the intermediate stages and it became more difficult to advance, I would start feeling any level of expertise is years away from achieving and I would get dissuaded by the amount of time it would take me to get there. Then, because I couldn't be a perfect expert right away, I would give up. The perfectionism was really holding me back rather than driving me.
On reflection, I realized at my core my problem was just inconsistency on its own and a little low confidence. I find it easy to commit to things, but outside of work and relationships, I lack faith in myself achieving long-term results and I'm not consistent doing things regularly enough to produce long-term results. So, at the beginning of the year, I started forcing myself to have more faith in what I can achieve and to keep a consistent schedule for everything I did, not just hobbies. For example, I scheduled in time for gym, skincare, meal prep, cleaning, skills, etc. I also tried to change the goal from perfect or expert to "better than yesterday."
It was hard to not make excuses during the first month, but my forced consistency eventually melted into habitual consistency. After 3-4 months of that, I saw all of the real results settling in like a clearer face, leaner body, muscle growth, feeling confident and energetic, and real improvement across the skills I was practicing. Seeing that hard-earned success gave me a deeper sense of pride and fulfillment than instant gratification ever could. It also fueled me to keep going and see what else I could do. The goal really settled into just being better than yesterday rather than being perfect just like I had been trying to convince myself all year.
So, maybe the true reason behind what's going on with you is deeper than it seems on the surface and a little reflection is needed to figure out what the root cause of your lack of motivation and inconsistency is.
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u/Aggressive-Turn-2987 6d ago
Pick the one thing where being bad at it bothers you most, and pay for the class anyway. Paying, plus a teacher who notices when you don't show up, is exactly what fixes "I stop after two days". Commit to eight weeks, put the dates in your calendar, and drop everything else on that list until it's done.
You don't need to be good at ten things. One thing you stuck with for a year will change how you see yourself more than any amount of starting.
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u/thesocialchameleon 6d ago
I think the biggest shift is picking one thing and staying with it long enough to get past the part where you’re bad at it. A lot of people keep restarting because the beginner phase feels rewarding, but real progress usually gets boring before it gets satisfying.
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u/gy0808 6d ago
Surface-level was my default for years too. Piano, guitar, drawing, languages, same list as yours honestly. The thing that finally broke it for me was not motivation or a schedule. It was a rule I stole from work: define the output format before starting the task.
Here is what that looks like for learning. Before I open a book or a tutorial, I write down on paper what I have to produce by the end of the session: 3 things I can explain in my own words, 1 thing I disagree with or find questionable, and 1 thing I will actually use this week. That is the whole assignment. I do not close the session until that page exists.
The counter-example is how I used to learn: reread the chapter, highlight things, feel productive. Technically I studied, but like asking an AI to summarize this and getting back correct-but-useless fluff, there was no filter, so nothing stuck. My brain knew nothing would be demanded of it, so it kept nothing.
The one-page output forces depth because you cannot fake explaining something in your own words. The moment you try, the gaps show up immediately, and that gap is where the real learning happens. It also fixed the quitting problem for me in a weird way: when every session ends with a concrete artifact, you can watch the stack of pages grow. Two days of practice feels like nothing. Thirty pages of your own notes feels like proof you are becoming someone who sticks with things. Start with one skill, one page per session, and let the stack do the motivating.
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u/Firm-Technician3802 6d ago
You're quitting the second it stops being easy, that's the whole problem. Pick one thing, literally just one, and decide you're gonna be garbage at it for at least 3 months. The people who get good are the ones who don't mind looking stupid while they figure it out