I spent the last 7 days re-learning calculus and this is what I learned more than the math itself

After many years of liberal arts education and working in marketing, my mathematical skills were getting a little too rusty, which is not very helpful in my new journey in the STEM field. So I decided to dedicate a small part of my vacation to re-learning calculus.

Surprisingly, my key takeaway from this little mission was more than just the understanding of the mathematical of change itself. I figured out how I can make myself decently good at something I dislike.

For the longest time, I had always thought of myself as a person who lies on the artsy side of the spectrum. It gave me great reasons to devote my time to reading, writing, and other creative work. Since I had a self-perception that I am better at these types of tasks, any failures and obstacles I face, I find ways to combat them easily. All of this was a positive feedback loop that accelerated my creativity skills and my love for them.

But this mentality was a double edge sword. I also used it as a shitty excuse not to care all that much about anything that had to do with logic. When dealing with this type of task, I failed to find ways to battle obstacles by thinking that I wasn’t good enough at this type of stuff and that was why I didn’t do well or have a hard time learning such concepts. When I thought, that I lack the ability to excel at such skills, I blocked myself to the opportunity of seeing what went wrong. This is a negative feedback loop that consistently lowers my self-esteem when developing logical skills.

That said, I dread learning math. But I knew that in order to do well in the tech and research industries, I needed to row up my sleeves and face my fear. I began googling how I can learn math without dying of boredom. (actually typed in those exact words) I didn't find many techniques that were truly helpful. But I eventually came across a podcast hosted by one of my favorite content creators, Ali Abdaal, that reminded me of something that was under my nose the whole time.

I needed to separate my identity from the results of my tasks. I have to start viewing the fact that I didn’t perform well in math was due to my insufficient effort and weak learning approach — not because I wasn’t good at it. Once I start seeing the matter this way, I was able to identify my weaknesses and how can better my learning processes objectively. This thinking turned something that was impossible to possible.

It doesn’t mean that simply changing my perspective would dramatically increase my performance. I still struggle badly and have a really difficult time developing these skills. But instead of quickly giving up, because “I’m not a mathy person,” I identify what went wrong and improve those specific aspects.

I failed and I tried and I failed and I tried……again and again, and again.

As I (very) slowly got better, I gain more confidence in myself. Now, learning concepts that I used to find difficult is gradually getting easier. I scored a 90% tile in one of those math online practice test!

What I learned in these past seven days didn’t exactly make me fall in love with calculus, but I sure impress myself of what I can do when I just look at things a little differently.