Issue 121 | April 8, 2026
 
Lesson learned… again.
It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.
 
I'm pacing in the green room, minutes from walking out on stage to deliver my brand-new keynote, repeating those same five words.
 
You'd think that after years — years! — of keynote speaking, the pre-show nerves would get easier. But they haven't.  Especially when I'm working with new material. So I was pacing, jittery, and trying to scroll through Spotify for the most distracting Taylor Swift song — when I caught myself wondering: Am I cut out for this?
 
Me! Y'all, I love speaking. And I have worked so hard to build a career in speaking. But the nerves were making me doubt it all.
 
Long story short, I made it to the stage. The keynote went awesome. And once again, I faced a lesson that I've learned many times before: Being scared of something doesn't mean I'm not “cut out” for it.
 
Apparently, it was time for me to learn that lesson… again.
 
Life will keep giving you the same lesson until you decide to learn it, so take good notes.
- Janice Bryant Howroyd
 
It's hard not to get frustrated. After all this time, I'm still going to jump from nervous to “I can't cut it”? Haven't I learned my lesson by now?
 
But the big lessons — the ones that poke at our long-held beliefs and drag us from our comfort zones — don't file away so easily. They have to come back around. Again. Same lesson, different day.
 
And that's okay.
 
Just because a lesson keeps showing up doesn't mean you're failing it. It doesn't mean it's not clicking. (And it definitely doesn't mean you're not cut out for it.) Honestly, it's not you at all! It's the lesson.
 
Maybe the lesson that keeps returning isn’t one you failed but just one that really matters.
 
We want learning to be linear: encounter the hard thing, figure it out, move on changed. One and done. But the biggest lessons — about courage, about trust, about what we're capable of — just need more of us. More time. More repetition. More of us showing up anyway.
 
So I'll keep pacing in the green room. I'll keep turning up the volume on "All Too Well." (10-minute version, obviously. 🔁 IYKYK!) And, sure, maybe I'll keep weathering the same doubts.
 
But I'll also keep walking out on that stage, shaky hands and all.
 
So instead of being frustrated because it's a hard lesson to learn again… I can just be glad that I keep showing up for it.
Dr. Sarah Glova, Co-Editor of Pause, Sometimes a Slow Learner

 
Next week, I'll be diving into the deeper, research-backed side of this idea — in my new Substack, The Science of Getting There.
 
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Real learning takes time.
- Meg Urry

 
A mantra for the friction.
It won’t always be like this.
It won’t always be like this.
It won’t always be like this.
 
I repeat this to myself all the time.
 
I say it in good times to remind myself to appreciate those special moments before they slip away. I say it in hard times to remember that it won’t last forever. And I say it when I am doing something new.
 
Although I know this lesson intellectually — it won't always be like this, life is change, nothing stays the same forever, blah, blah, blah — it took having my two children to really let that lesson sink in. 
 
Parenting is all about navigating in and out of seasons of change — some joyous and some heartbreaking. The process of becoming what is next is so temporary and fleeting. And it is easy to see and track in my growing children, but often harder to see in myself.
 
Each time I start something new, take on a big project, or venture outside of my cozy comfort zone, I get to relearn and remember that it won’t always be like this. 
It won’t always be like this.
 
Because no matter how much I love learning (Sign me up for a new certificate program! Let’s try a new tool! I’m sure I can figure out how to...), the process of learning is hard. And it is easy to get frustrated and stalled when faced with the inherent friction of learning.
 
But then I tell myself.
It won’t always be like this.
Because it won’t.
 
And I know that I’ll have more opportunities to learn (and relearn) that lesson!
Dr. Sarah Egan Warren, Co-Editor of Pause, Habitual Learner
 
That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.
- Doris Lessing

 
Research says…
We tend to think of learning as gradual — a slow, steady accumulation, like water filling a glass. But a 2023 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests something more interesting is actually happening. Researchers found that when people learn through repetition, progress doesn't build evenly over time. Instead, individuals tend to plateau — and then suddenly click. Learning onset was abrupt, not gradual. And almost every time, that click was preceded by something important: awareness. People had to consciously recognize the pattern before the knowledge could really take hold.
 
In other words, before the lesson finally lands, you might feel stuck. But noticing the stuck is a good sign. And don't be surprised if the lesson lands abruptly soon after.
 
Source: Musfeld, P., et al. “Repetition Learning Is Neither a Continuous nor an Implicit Process.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 120, no. 16, April 2023.
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There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

 
 
Where are you being asked to learn a lesson more than once — and how are you showing up for it? 

Great job!
Way to take three minutes for a pause. You rock!

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