Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Repeat to Learn

Years ago, a client recounted a story she’d heard about a marketing campaign for a well known shampoo. In an attempt to sell more shampoo, the marketing team came up with the slogan “Lather, Rinse, Repeat” to convince people, essentially, to wash their hair twice every time they washed it, thus, using twice as much shampoo as they really needed to.

While repetition might be unnecessary when it comes to washing hair, it’s an essential part of our learning process. Most of the lessons we learn from early childhood on are mastered because we repeat them until they become part of our thought process. For some things, like learning the alphabet, songs, or other mnemonic devices have been developed to trigger our memories to engage and retain.

There was even a scene in, if memory serves, “Akita and the Bee” where music was used to help remember how to spell words. Musicians might recall memorizing “every good boy deserves fudge” and “face” or some variation when learning to read music. Essentially, it’s about finding the patterns.

Learn Your Own Way

When learning a new line dance, beginners are given every step, while intermediate and advanced dancers might be given patterns like “sailor step”, “weave”, “Dorothy/Wizard”, “Coaster step” and many more. Learning becomes easier when, instead of needing to learn each step, you simply have to remember an 8-count pattern. Thus, a 32-count dance becomes 4 patterns, and a 64-count becomes 8. Consider how much easier it is to memorize 4 pieces rather than 32!

Hopefully, part of the learning process you were taught from early childhood wasn’t just memorizing someone else’s patterns, but learning to find your own. Let’s face it. We don’t all learn the same way, so why would one person’s pattern recognition work for everyone. The mere fact some people think in pictures or patterns, others in mathematical equations, and not just the words we’re initially taught should give you pause. Add in the ones who, like me, are non-linear thinkers and you might begin to realize how someone else’s pattern recognition causes us frustration.

We don’t want or need the “lather, rinse, repeat” cycle which, in fact, clutters up our thinking process with what to us are extraneous steps. We know rinse follows lather without having to include it in our conscious process. In fact, in my experience, not only does what we learn evolve over time, but how we learn as well.

Finding Your Learning Fit

At first, we follow what we’re told, even when it’s a poor fit. That poor fit is what drives us to figure out what will work for our unique, non-cookie cutter brains. With limited experience, we might find something that works for now; a kind of coping mechanism for learning. As our knowledge and study skills become more sophisticated, we might find methods which take fuller advantage of our unique abilities, and derive methods which further simplify our own process.

We might also discover we need to employ different methods depending on what we’re trying to learn. But one thing rarely disappears, and that’s the need for repetition. It’s the repetition that puts it in our muscle memory so we no longer need to think through the steps in order to remember how something is done. Using the line dance example, after enough repetition, be it actually dancing the steps, or running through it in your head (one of my methods), as soon as the dance is called, or the music comes on, my body automatically responds. In fact, if I try to think through the steps once it’s committed to muscle memory, I’ll invariable mess myself up. Trusting the process and the results of that process are an integral part of solidifying what I’ve learned through repetition.

I’ve also learned (and this may only work for me) once I get to the point where I can walk through the dance in my head without hesitation, I’m more likely to be able to dance it…also without hesitation. As we all learn differently, this isn’t going to work for everyone. Some of us can read and follow a step sheet while others need to have someone teach us the steps while we get up and follow them. Having learned and forgotten hundreds of dances in my 30+ years of line dancing, I tend to pick things up more easily. As a result, I prefer things which are more challenging with less common patterns and unusual arrangements of the common ones. If I can learn a dance while sitting on a bar stool, I guarantee you I won’t be getting up to dance it very often…if at all.

Challenging or Simple: It’s Up to You

The point of my last sentence is to emphasize the fact that not only do we each learn things in our own way, but that some of us prefer simpler things, while others want to challenge our brains to remember, and successfully execute the ones we have to put extra effort into learning in the first place. It doesn’t mean you’re more or less intelligent. It simply means you learn in different sized chunks. Just because you prefer the smaller ones doesn’t mean we don’t reach the same point eventually.

So whether or not you need your instructions down to the level of “Lather, Rinse, Repeat”, jump right to the end, or somewhere in between, own your learning style, and allow it to evolve with the amount of information you’ve entered into that amazing database called your brain. The only thing I’d advise against is to think you’ve learned enough, and to stop learning.

Grateful for My Own Learning Style

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for new and different opportunities to learn.
2. I’m grateful for learning my brain hates getting bogged down in extraneous details.
3. I’m grateful for continuing to evolve and grow my learning style.
4. I’m grateful for attracting other non-linear thinkers, many of whom share my propensity towards and ADD brain.
5. I’m grateful for writing inspiration, even when, like this post, I had to sit on it overnight in order to complete it.

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful. In her spare time, she’s also an accountant with extensive experience in Government Contracting.