Free your mind and the rest will follow
Continuous learning is a necessity for personal and professional growth.
It is the single most important thing for expanding our minds, boosting self-confidence, creating new opportunities, and achieving happiness.
The Supervillains of Learning
Have you ever read something only to forget half of what you read an hour later? ✋
Don't feel bad. Apparently, it's normal.
According to Jim Kwik, author of New York Times Bestseller Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life, humans forget approximately 50 percent of what they learn within an hour, and an average of 70 percent within 24 hours.
While overload, distraction, and forgetfulness are nothing new, the rise of social media has amplified these negative forces greatly.
Lucky for us, there's a simple method for learning and remembering anything quickly despite the learning supervillains of our time.
Say "hi" to the FASTER Method.
F is for Forget
1. Forget what you know.
Approach everything with a beginner's mind.
When learning something new, we tend to ASSuME we understand more than we do about the topic.
This hinders our ability to absorb new information.
2. Forget what's not urgent.
Our brains do not multitask.
It's impossible to learn something new if our attention isn't fully focused on the task at hand.
3. Forget your limitations.
Silence the pre-conceived notions you believe about yourself and keep an open mind about what you can accomplish.
You're not "bad at math". You're not a "slow learner".
Your capabilities are not fixed. You can learn anything.
A is for Act
Learning is not a passive experience.
The human brain learns best by creation, not consumption.
Become active in your learning. Take handwritten notes, highlight key ideas, record voice notes, discuss the topic with others, etc.
The more active you are, the better, faster, and more you will learn.
S is for State
Your psychology and physiology influence your learning.
When you take control of your state of mind and body, you can shift your experience of learning from boredom (remember 5th period after lunch?) to excitement, curiosity, and fun.
Before you sit down to learn, take a 15-minute walk, complete a few sets of push-ups, or simply inhale and exhale deeply for a few minutes.
All learning is state-dependent. Choose states of joy, fascination, and curiosity.
T is for Teach
Learn with the intention of teaching the information to someone else.
This cuts your learning curve dramatically because it forces you to learn the topic with the intention of mastering it well enough to explain it to someone else.
When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Once on your own and again when you're teaching someone else.
E is for Enter
As in "Enter it in your calendar!"
Schedule your learning time and enter it in your calendar just like you would enter any important meeting or appointment.
Out of sight out of mind. "Brain Workout" should be an entry on your calendar every day of the week.
R is for Review
Reviewing what you already learned is a great way to retain information.
Before you begin a new learning session, take five minutes to actively review what you learned in the previous session.
Your brain gives greater value to the reviewed material and primes your mind for what you're about to learn next.
In Closing
If knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower.
And since our capacity to learn is limitless, we simply need to adopt the right mindset, motivations, and methods to learn anything quickly, so we can unlock our best lives.
As always, stay aware, stay educated, but most importantly stay cool.
Talk soon,
Old Man Winter
