Some people stay motivated when learning something new because they are naturally disciplined, patient and methodical.
That sounds lovely.
I would like to meet those people someday.
For me, motivation usually comes from a slightly different place. I tend to be competitive with myself. If I decide I’m going to learn something, I want to figure it out. I want to set a goal. I want to put a timeline on it. And, if I’m being honest, I usually want to learn it faster than other people think I can.
That doesn’t mean I think I’m smarter than everyone else. I don’t. But I do believe I’m smart enough to be closer to the front of the line than the back of it.
That belief has pushed me through a lot of learning curves.
It has also caused me to rush ahead too quickly at times. I have been known to skip steps, assume I understand something before I really do, and then have to go back and fill in the gaps I created by being impatient. That is not always the best system.
But it is my system.
When I got my first job out of college, I worked for the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen, Texas. It was a newspaper in the Rio Grande Valley, and the paper had just purchased a new editing and layout program called Dewar. At the time, it was a big deal. This was not just learning where a few buttons were. This was learning a system that changed the way the newsroom and production process worked.
My dad was a newspaper publisher in the same chain, so he knew what kind of challenge I was stepping into. He also seemed to think I might get frustrated and quit if I did not figure it out quickly enough.
So he gave me a little fatherly advice.
“It takes people three months to learn that software,” he told me. “So don’t give up and quit if you don’t get it right away. Give it three months.”
I’m sure he meant it as encouragement.
I heard it as a challenge.
He might as well have waved a red cape in front of a bull. Yes, I know bulls are color blind, so technically it could have been any color cape. But red sounds better, so we are sticking with red.
The moment he told me it took people three months to learn Dewar, I decided I was going to learn it in one.
And I did.
I learned the system well enough in a month that I could do what I needed to do. In fact, some of the employees who had been there for years still had not really learned it yet. They were not especially thrilled that the new guy had given our boss a reason to speed up everyone else’s learning curve.
But that experience taught me something about myself.
I stay motivated when I have a target.
I need a challenge. I need a reason to push. I need something that makes me say, “All right, let’s see if I can do this.” The goal does not always have to come from someone else. In fact, it usually works better when it comes from me. I am not trying to beat other people as much as I am trying to beat the version of myself that might have quit too early.
That is what keeps me moving when learning something new.
I want to know that I can do it.
I want to prove to myself that I can figure it out.
I want to get better.
And, yes, somewhere in there is the stubborn little voice that says, “Three months? Let’s make it one.”
That is not always the healthiest motivation in the world, but it has carried me a long way. It has helped me learn new jobs, new technology, new teaching methods, new writing forms, new software and any number of other things I might have avoided if I had waited until I felt completely ready.
The trick is learning how to use that competitive streak without letting it turn into recklessness. There is nothing wrong with wanting to move quickly, but sometimes the steps are there for a reason. Sometimes slowing down is not quitting. Sometimes it is how you make sure the thing you are learning actually sticks.
That is the part I still have to remember.
But even then, I would rather be someone who has to slow himself down than someone who never starts. I would rather charge into the learning process and have to clean up a few mistakes than stand outside the door waiting for confidence to arrive.
Because confidence usually does not arrive first.
Effort does.
Progress does.
Stubbornness does.
Then, somewhere along the way, motivation shows up and acts like it was leading the parade the whole time.
So how do I stay motivated when learning something new?
I give myself a goal. I put a timeline on it. I challenge myself to move forward. I accept that I may stumble, rush, backtrack and occasionally make things harder than they need to be.
But I keep going.
Because once I decide I am going to figure something out, that red cape starts waving.
And I have never been very good at ignoring it.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt
