How long does it take to be open to new information?
I went to college and got a degree in psychology. During my studies, I learned that it takes people, on average, 10 times of being exposed to something before they learn it. This information has been pivotal for me to understand why, when I told someone something, like an employee at work, they didn’t remember what I had said and they would do the thing again. And then I would tell them a second time and they still wouldn’t get it. It would frustrate me that people didn’t learn from what I told them one, two and three times. Until I understood that it takes people, on average, ten times to hear something and be able to incorporate it. It
made me more compassionate. And then one day I realized that this applied to me as well. That I didn’t learn new things that easily either. That when an employer or teacher would tell me something, I didn’t remember it either.
This information has helped me to treat others, and myself, with more compassion, and to understand that going over things multiple times is the way people learn. That telling someone something one time and then berating them for not remembering is not the way people learn.
And it’s not the way I learn, either.
