Hakiri

So you read or hear about a concept you are not familiar with and you rush to learn more but out of frustration you give up pretty quickly and forget the the whole thing all together or you grow some negative emotions or even worse, fear. Most people will do exactly this.

Things are not as complicated as they seem but it takes time to adjust your brain to the right type of thinking that is required to understand the subject or to learn the craft you are interested in. I’ve experimented with several brain tunning process on myself and found one of them working so I thought that it might be useful to share it here with you. Keep in mind that none of this is based on any substantial research. I am only giving away what I’ve found working for myself and what I’ve read online.

The general concept is to let the idea/craft/whatever sink in deep into your brain and to gradually expand without rushing into anything. Let me explain. Let’s say that you want to learn how to do something which is pretty challenging for yourself. So you basically start with getting familiarized with the core concepts by taking small dozes of information or by just practicing a little bit of the craft. There is no need to rush. Take 10-20 minutes every day to refresh your mind regarding the subject. Take your time to enjoy the process of learning. The more you live with the idea the more it becomes part of your life. Soon or later (definitely sooner than you think) you will totally embrace the idea and from that point on learning more will be quite painless and enjoying experience and you wont feel frustrated at all.

My explanation why this works on me, and again this is based on my vague understandings of how the brain works, is that it takes time to for my brain to make long lasting connections between the new concept/idea and what I already know about. With the time these connections will get stronger and that is important. I guess this also has to do something with becoming confident about the subject.

Nothing is impossible.

The best way to learn is by teaching. It seams that when we teach others we actually learn because teaching is way of transmitting information in the most optimal way and in order to do that, our brains engage with the task to simplify the information and to find the most important bits that are necessary to unfold the rest of it that follows, as such, we learn.

As an experiment, do the following: Pick a topic you know nothing about and study it for a short period of time. Make sure that you pick something that is pretty hard for you to comprehend at first. Now, try to teach your wife/colleges/kids of what you have learned. There is a good chance that by the time you finish your first lesson, you will have a better idea of the topic than you had before.

Is it coincidence that most of the best minds of the past century were also teachers and they were constantly involved with public speaking engagements, seminars, etc? I think not! Of course, most of them were related to the world of academia that also contributed to developing their intellect.

Although teaching is a way of learning, not everybody is good at teaching. This is another skill of its own.