The Learning Curve: Why Growth Feels So Hard (and What to Do About It)

We all love the idea of growth — getting faster, stronger, smarter, or more skilled. But the reality of it? Growth is uncomfortable. It’s messy. It can feel like you’re going backwards before you’re going forwards.

Whether you’re an athlete learning a new skill, a student moving up a year level, or someone taking a leap in life, the truth is: learning hurts before it helps. That discomfort doesn’t mean you’re failing; it means your brain is doing its job.

Let’s unpack what’s really happening when growth feels hard, and how to navigate it with confidence (and a little self-compassion).

Why Growth Feels So Hard

The “learning curve” isn’t just a saying; it’s a real psychological and neurological experience. When you’re learning something new, your brain is literally rewiring itself.

At first, you rely on conscious effort, thinking hard, focusing on every detail, and making mistakes. This is called the cognitive stage of learning (Fitts & Posner, 1967). It’s clunky, effortful, and exhausting. Over time, as you repeat and refine, your brain starts creating shortcuts and stronger neural connections that make the skill automatic.

That awkward, frustrating stage in the middle is your brain growing. Neuroscience tells us that synaptic plasticity, the process of strengthening connections between neurons, is highest when we’re challenged (Draganski et al., 2004). In simple terms, when you’re struggling, your brain is firing and wiring at its strongest.

So next time you feel clumsy or out of your depth, remember: that’s your brain building the very circuits that will make you better.

Reframing Struggle: From “I Can’t” to “I’m Learning”

When we’re in the thick of the learning curve, it’s easy to slip into self-doubt: “I’m not good at this,” “I should be better by now,” or “Maybe I’m just not cut out for it.”

But what if we reframed that struggle?

Psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset shows that people who see ability as something that can develop through effort, feedback, and persistence perform better and handle setbacks more effectively (Dweck, 2006).

Instead of viewing mistakes as evidence of failure, they view them as information and feedback about what to try next.

You don’t need to love the struggle. You just need to understand it’s part of the deal. Every elite athlete, artist, or high performer has spent hours sitting in that uncomfortable middle zone between knowing what to do and being able to do it well.

That’s where growth lives.

The Neuroscience of Learning New Skills

When you take on a new challenge, like mastering a new drill or learning a complex play, your brain recruits the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for focus, planning, and problem-solving (Dayan & Cohen, 2011). This is mentally taxing and can feel draining.

As you repeat and refine, the control shifts toward the basal ganglia and motor cortex, which store automatic movements and habits (Krakauer & Shadmehr, 2006). That’s when it starts to feel easier.

But here’s the catch: the process requires errors. Learning scientists call this “desirable difficulty” (Bjork & Bjork, 2011), the sweet spot where tasks are challenging enough to stretch you but not so hard that they crush you.

In sport, this might look like:

• Struggling to nail a new technical movement

• Feeling slower when integrating feedback

• Making mistakes in drills that used to feel easy

All of that means your brain is adapting — the pain of progress in real time.

Emotional Regulation: Managing Frustration and Self-Doubt

The emotional side of learning is just as important as the skill side. When frustration spikes, your body activates the stress response: heart rate increases, breathing quickens, and your focus narrows. That’s great for survival, but not so great for absorbing new information.

To keep learning effectively, you need to calm the body so the brain can stay online. Try these tools when frustration hits:

1. Pause + Breathe Take a slow breath in through your nose for four counts, out for six. Repeat a few times. This lowers heart rate and brings your thinking brain back online (Porges, 2011).

2. Name It to Tame It Label your emotion: “I’m feeling frustrated,” “I’m anxious about getting it wrong.” Naming the emotion activates the prefrontal cortex and reduces amygdala reactivity (Lieberman et al., 2007).

3. Shift the Story Instead of “I’m bad at this,” try “I’m still learning this.” Language shapes mindset, and mindset shapes performance.

Building “Stretch Zones” (Not Burnout Zones)

In psychology, we talk about the comfort zone, stretch zone, and panic zone. Growth happens in the stretch zone, where challenge meets support.

If you stay too safe, you don’t grow. If you push too hard, too fast, you risk burnout or injury. The goal is to find the right amount of discomfort — enough to stretch you without snapping you.

You can build this zone intentionally:

• Set realistic micro-goals: Focus on one improvement at a time.

• Reflect often: After a session, ask “What worked? What did I learn?”

• Rest deliberately: Downtime isn’t laziness; it’s consolidation. Sleep and rest help your brain cement new learning (Walker & Stickgold, 2006).

Takeaway: Growth Is Meant to Feel Hard

When you hit the wall in training, study, or performance, it’s not a sign to quit; it’s a sign you’re exactly where growth happens.

The best performers aren’t the ones who avoid discomfort. They’re the ones who recognise it, regulate through it, and keep showing up.

So next time you’re in that messy middle — not yet good, not totally lost — take a breath. You’re not broken. You’re building.

References (APA 7th Edition)

• Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Psychology and the Real World: Essays Illustrating Fundamental Contributions to Society, 56–64.

• Dayan, E., & Cohen, L. G. (2011). Neuroplasticity subserving motor skill learning. Neuron, 72(3), 443–454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2011.10.008

• Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Busch, V., Schuierer, G., Bogdahn, U., & May, A. (2004). Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature, 427(6972), 311–312. https://doi.org/10.1038/427311a

• Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.

• Fitts, P. M., & Posner, M. I. (1967). Human performance. Brooks/Cole.

• Krakauer, J. W., & Shadmehr, R. (2006). Consolidation of motor memory. Trends in Neurosciences, 29(1), 58–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2005.10.003

• Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x

• Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W.W. Norton.

• Walker, M. P., & Stickgold, R. (2006). Sleep, memory, and plasticity. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 139–166. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070307