How To Avoid The Dreaded Learning Curve (Of Anything New!)

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. The learning curve sucks!

When?

Pretty much any time you have to learn something new.

And unfortunately that keeps us from doing important things. You know the drill…

You hear about a tool that could help you be more productive, efficient or organized. You know it could save you time, money or energy. You know it could get you better results faster.

You think, “yeah, I know, I know. I need to try Slack or Drive or Evernote or that list app everyone keeps telling me about. But I don’t want to have to deal with learning how to use it.”

Been there. Done that. And all I can tell you is that every time I embrace that new technology, tool or idea – I kick myself for not doing it earlier. 

Inevitably I realize that “they” were right. It did make my life easier in some way.

Tracked my results better

Cut out multiple steps

Gave me information in a more useful way

Always something that improved my life and I’m left thinking: “why did I wait so long!”

(Case In Point: Facebook Ads, Slack, QuickBooks….I could go on and on).

But like all things in life, there’s a wrong way and a right way.

First – the wrong way.

You finally decide to adopt a new tool or technology that is apparently “life changing,” you jump in head first with no real plan or strategy, spend countless hours and days on trying to figure it all out, get soooo frustrated you (almost) throw your laptop under a bus, instead you incessantly curse the world, get pissed at your very being for wasting so much time, go back to your old way of doing things and swear you’ll never try anything new again.

Does this unfortunate scenario sound familiar?

That’s no way to do business.

So now, lets focus on the right way.

Here are three steps to make your learning curve less painful, less dreadful and less stressful.

STEP #1: DO YOUR RESEARCH

Hold up. Don’t do anything until you spend a few minutes with your best friend, Google. Read reviews (from real people, not only the tech reporters). Read articles. Read through the product information.

Through this research you should now have a bunch of good questions to send to customer service. And even more importantly, you’ll have the basis for a text or email to send to your friends and colleagues.

Something really basic like this:

“Hey, I’m looking for a good solution for xx and I’ve heard a lot about xx. If you’ve used it, please shoot me back a quick message about your experience. The good, the bad and the ugly. Many thanks!”

With these efforts you’ll have a good sense of the commitment you’ll need in terms of time, money and resources, to implement your tool. This is really important because if you’re not realistic about those factors and don’t plan accordingly,…well, just read the above unfortunate scenario again. It ain’t a pretty picture.

Step #2: Invest In The Help You Need

Now that you’re armed with the right information and know that this tool will help you, you need to have an action plan to make it happen. Sometimes you can watch a couple YouTube videos for guidance and be done with it. (Like setting up Google Calendar).

Other times it’s in your best interest to hire an expert to set it up, walk you through it and customize it to your needs. (Like setting up Infusionsoft).

Either way, you need support. Whether it’s through training vids or hiring help, there’s no point in trying to figure it out yourself when resources are readily available.

Before moving on, I want to reiterate the importance of making an investment in an expert. What might seem like a substantial cost upfront can dwarf the cost of your time, energy and stress in the future.

Remember, the reason you’re transitioning to or adopting this new tool or service is to make your life easier. And that’s exactly what you continue to do as you let go of responsibilities and outsource what you don’t need to be doing. Your genius and strengths can be better served elsewhere.

Step #3: Take Action With A Good Attitude

Finally, you need to take action and make the transition happen. But the key is, you gotta do it with a smile. 🙂

Seriously. You can’t bring a bad attitude into this phase because you’re still holding onto bad learning curve memories. 

Go into this change knowing it’s in the best interest of you and your business and that it will massively improve your outcome. Keeping a positive attitude while keeping the end goal in mind, will make the learning less curvy as you hit some bumps along the way.

In other words, even though you might experience an annoying period of confusion and frustration, it will be less so when you remember what you’re going to get as an end result. So turn that frown upside down, before you get started.  

Bottom line, don’t put off learning something new when you KNOW it will help you do your job better, save money, get hours back in your day or give you more brain space.

Like Nike says, Just. Do. It.

Well…Just. Do. It. With. A. Plan. In. Place.  

Here’s where I stop typing and your lovely self gets to chime in with,

Your Weekly Challenge

• What is one tool, technology, service or resource you’ve been putting off in fear of the dreaded learning curve? (Duh..duh…duuuuuuh)
• And more importantly, what are you gonna do about it?

Join me in the conversation below and I’ll be right there with ya.

My goal is to inspire and motivate you to do everything you can to make your biz and life easier and more profitable. Getting the right tools in place is essential in making that happen. I can’t wait to here what you’re committing to!

Here’s to getting more of the right things done!

Xo,
Mridu