The Habits of Great Learners

In my writing class, my teacher asked the students to read Elder Eyring's talk called "A Child of God". He listed five habits that great learners have or should have, which were welcome correction, keep commitments, work hard, help other people, and expect resistance and overcome it. While reading the talk,  two that really stood out to me were welcoming correction and expecting resistance and overcoming it.

Welcoming correction for me is really hard when it comes to English and Writing classes. Not that I'm cocky and think I'm always right, but I'm not comfortable letting people read my work because I feel like I am not at the writing level I need to be at as a college student. I just want to keep my writing to myself because it's embarrassing for me to have someone read my works, but honestly what I never realized until I read this was that the more I allow people to read and edit my own papers, the more I will improve in my writing and learn from the feedback I receive. 

Expecting resistance and overcoming it is also a huge ordeal for me and I think that is one of the main reasons why I am major-less right now. One thing that Elder Eyring said really affected me and helped me realize what I need to change. He said, "Some learning has been easy for you. But more often your enemy has been discouragement.  You may try to avoid that by choosing to learn only what is easy for you, looking for the path of least resistance.  But the great learner expects difficulty as part of learning and is determined to work through it." I felt like he had me cornered and was looking me straight in the eyes as I read that part because he had found my weakness and that was what I needed to hear. I need to branch out and not be afraid to take the higher level classes in majors. It's time to grasp the fact I will have hard classes in ANY major I choose and find that determination in me to get through it.

I'm very glad we were assigned to read this talk because it was very inspiring and I hope to better apply these qualities of great learners to my life.