Relearning: Why Knowing Better Is Not Enough

“I understand it now,” the learner said.
“That’s wonderful,” the facilitator replied.
“So why do I keep doing the old thing?”
The facilitator smiled. “Because understanding something new and being able to live it are not the same thing.”
The learner paused. “Then what comes next?”
“Practice.”

That may be one of the most important, and frustrating, truths about human change. We can understand something before we are able to consistently live it. We can know that a different response would be healthier and still find ourselves returning to the familiar one. We can recognize that an assumption is inaccurate and still feel its emotional pull. We can decide that we want to behave differently and then, under pressure, discover that the old response appears almost automatically. This does not necessarily mean that learning has failed. It may mean that relearning has only begun.

In our previous article, we explored unlearning: the process of recognizing and loosening patterns, assumptions, and ways of responding that may once have served a purpose but no longer serve us in the same way. Yet unlearning creates an important question: What happens next? If I no longer want to respond in the old way, how will I respond instead? If I question an assumption I have carried for years, what will replace it? If I recognize that a familiar strategy is no longer effective, how do I develop another one?

This is where relearning begins. Relearning is not simply replacing one piece of information with another. It is the deliberate process of practicing a new way of thinking, responding, relating, or behaving until what initially feels unfamiliar becomes increasingly available to us. That, in turn, takes time.

Consider a leader who has learned over many years that being responsible means personally making sure everything gets done. That approach may have helped the person succeed. Eventually, however, the same leader begins to recognize the cost. Others wait for direction instead of taking initiative; delegation feels difficult; and the leader becomes exhausted.

Intellectually, the solution may seem obvious: delegate. However, knowing that delegation is important does not automatically make delegation comfortable. The leader delegates a meaningful task. An hour later, anxiety appears. Should I check on it? What if something goes wrong? Maybe I should just do it myself. The old response is ready. This is the moment when relearning actually happens.

The learning deepens when the familiar impulse appears, and the leader practices something different. Perhaps the leader pauses, tolerates the discomfort, and allows another person to solve the problem differently. Perhaps the outcome is imperfect, or perhaps nothing catastrophic happens.

That experience matters. The nervous system has now encountered new evidence: I can loosen control and remain responsible. One experience will rarely be enough. The old pattern has history behind it, and the new one needs history too. So, the leader practices again and again.

This is why repetition occupies such an important place in the SWEET approach to learning. Research on learning and memory has repeatedly demonstrated the importance of retrieval, spacing, feedback, and repeated practice for durable learning (Cepeda et al., 2006; Karpicke & Roediger, 2008). Research on neuroplasticity similarly reminds us that the brain remains capable of changing in response to experience (Pascual-Leone et al., 2005).

Yet human beings do not relearn only cognitively. We relearn experientially. A person may intellectually understand that disagreement does not necessarily mean rejection. However, deeper relearning may occur when that person disagrees with someone important, remains present through the discomfort, and discovers that the relationship survives.

A clinician may understand that silence can be useful. Relearning occurs when the clinician resists the urge to immediately fill a difficult pause and discovers that the person sitting across from them uses that space to say something important.

A person who learned that mistakes must be avoided may intellectually embrace experimentation. Relearning deepens when they make a mistake, examine it without self-condemnation, learn from it, and continue forward.

These moments become new evidence. The mind may say, “I understand.” Experience says, “Now I know differently.”

At the SWEET Institute, we often describe movement from the intellectual to the experiential. The intellectual level is essential. We need concepts, evidence, frameworks, language, and understanding. But we do not stop there. We ask: What does this look like when you live it?

A communication technique becomes something practiced during the next difficult conversation. A principle of emotional regulation becomes something tested when frustration rises. A concept about empathy becomes something embodied when another person disappoints us. A framework for critical thinking becomes something used when we encounter information that confirms what we already believe. The classroom becomes life, and life provides feedback.

In other words, relearning is not the replacement of one rigid formula with another. It is an iterative process of practice, observation, reflection, refinement, and further practice.

This is where the SWEET Formula becomes especially powerful. What happened? Who was involved? Why might it have unfolded that way? How did I respond? When did the old pattern appear? Where did I have an opportunity to choose differently? Then what? That final question moves us forward: What will I try next time?

This is guided discovery applied to our own development. Transformation rarely follows a straight line. Under stress, fatigue, fear, uncertainty, or emotional activation, familiar patterns can reappear. The important question is not whether the old response ever returns. The important question is: What happens when you notice it?

Can you recognize it sooner? Can you become curious rather than judgmental? Can you recover more quickly? Can you practice the new response again? That too is progress.

Relearning therefore requires something beyond discipline. It requires patience. We are asking ourselves to develop familiarity with something that was once unfamiliar. And familiarity is built through experience.

Eventually, something remarkable can happen. The response that once required enormous effort begins to become easier. The leader pauses before taking over. The clinician becomes comfortable with silence. The person who once avoided disagreement finds words. The learner who once feared mistakes becomes curious about what the mistake can teach.

What once required deliberate effort begins to become part of how the person naturally responds. This is the movement from knowing to doing, from doing to becoming. That, in turn, is where education becomes transformation.

One-Line Summary

Unlearning loosens the old pattern. Relearning gives us something new to practice until a different way of being becomes possible.

SWEET CALL TO ACTION

Think of one thing you already know you want to do differently.  Then stop asking yourself whether you understand it. Ask a more demanding question: Where will I practice it?

Identify one real conversation, one decision, one relationship, or one moment this week in which the old response is likely to appear. When it does, notice it, pause, and practice something different.

It may feel awkward. Practice anyway. It may not work perfectly. Learn from it. Then practice again. For, knowing better matters. But knowing better was never the destination. Living differently is.

If you are looking for education designed to help you move from understanding to practice, from practice to integration, and from integration to transformation, the SWEET Institute offers multiple pathways for continued learning through seminars, certificate programs, self-study, books and bibliotherapy, community learning, supervision, coaching, and other learning experiences.

Because education should not end when you can explain the concept. It should continue until the concept begins to change the way you live.

Scientific References

• Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380.
• Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968.
• Kolb, D. A. (2015). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (2nd ed.). Pearson Education.
• Mezirow, J. (Ed.). (2000). Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. Jossey-Bass.
• Pascual-Leone, A., Amedi, A., Fregni, F., & Merabet, L. B. (2005). The plastic human brain cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 28, 377–401.
• Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.