One of the best advice I’ve received for mastering a skill was to start young, and the second best time was right now. Time is an ingredient that’s required for mastery. Effort might shorten the time it takes for you to get really good but it’ll still take a few years.
If you start late, the catch-up aspect is something nobody told me would suck. It feels like you’re not making any progress compared to those around you. It takes so much longer to compound and there are so many more variables that get in your way as you start things from an older age.
The good thing is wisdom and we can use that to “accelerate” our learning, but we have to start now. Do it for your future self so that can benefit from it.
Focus on learning
The biggest change happened 6 years ago when I decided to start listening to Ted Talks during my walks. I’ve always been a keen person on walking for health benefits, but my preferred method was to listen to music.
One day, I had the idea of listening to some educational videos so I could learn something as I got my exercise. It was a short 10-minute video Ted Talk about how the brain changes as you learn things. I found it fascinating that I’ve now learned something in such a short time.
I didn’t watch longer videos because I knew anything over 10 minutes would make me lose interest. I kept doing it every day when I walked, and then I tried a 20-minute video. The focus and interest didn’t wane.
I started to pick up on reading at night because I thought if I learned twice a day, it’d be more beneficial. I read 10 pages a night. Again, I knew my capacity was limited. But soon, it became 20-30 pages.
Fast forward 6 years later, I always regret not starting as a child. What if instead of 6 years of learning, I got 10 or even 20 years? I’d probably be way smarter and know probably twice or three times as much.
All of the regret of not starting early still bothers me, but the thought of not starting 6 years ago would’ve killed me.
The worst thing you could do is to not start at all.
Start and iterate
Once you’ve begun, the first step is to make it easy for yourself to continue. For me, that was just starting with the shortest and most interesting videos I could find. I knew if it wasn’t interesting, there’d be no chance I would finish it.
The second was to continuously find ways to make learning enjoyable. I experimented with podcasts, short articles, lectures, seminars, and joining discussion groups. You’ll have to find what works for you. If you have more free time, it’s worth going in person to different groups and seeing how other people think. If you like listening to lectures, perhaps go that route.
The idea is to iterate until you find something that works for you. In the beginning, it’s easier to copy others just to get the ball rolling.
That’s precisely how it was when I worked as a waiter. The first three months were just to copy the mannerisms and vocabulary of the trainer until I got comfortable. Which yields average results in terms of tips and customer satisfaction. It wasn’t until I threw in my own flair of humor and personality that the job not only got fun, but it made the experience more meaningful for both myself and the customer.
I believe you should copy until you get the fundamentals or basics down. Many people skip this step and forget about the “why”. As a waiter, you’re there to provide service—meaning getting their order right and making sure they don’t feel abandoned. We had another trainee who felt he was too good for the basics and went straight to putting his own flair on things. Things went well until he forgot that he was there to give people what they wanted and not just make friends with everyone. He once spent 30 minutes on a customer cracking jokes with them and completely ignoring another table. This led to another waiter having to cover his table during rush hour. Needless to say, he didn’t last very long.
I believe you should have fun, but remember what you’re there for.
I caught myself doing that when my educational videos slowly turned into opinion-based political news/entertainment segments. I got nothing out of those videos and had to understand not all “fun” videos are worthwhile.
Always remember why you’re doing things even as you make your iterations. If it doesn’t satisfy your goals, eliminate the iteration.
Can you teach it?
The biggest problem I had was bringing up the information from memory and using it at the right time. I realized watching all these videos expanded my knowledge but when it came time to use it, I struggled. Information is great but only useful if it can be brought up at a moment’s notice.
Breakthrough came when a friend suggested I teach it so it becomes easier to remember. If I were to teach it, I’d have to focus and understand concepts to explain it to someone. I couldn’t use specific jargon, it would have to be clear and understandable. If I couldn’t do this then it was obvious that I didn’t understand the information or concepts.
I found that the more I taught, the more the concepts would be engrained and easier to recall. Anytime I would run into trouble, I could simply think about the time I taught my friend this and the information would rise to the surface.
If you could teach it to a third grader, then you’ve succeeded. If not, it’s time to go back to the drawing board because you haven’t fully understood the concepts.
I believe it’s important to go through this step because if not, you’re just regurgitating what the author says. This method does not allow you to fully comprehend and understand the concepts.
Simply repeating information is easy to do but it’s also the laziest form of learning.
You’re also taking the person’s word for it without checking if it’s accurate or misleading. Regardless of who says it, we must always have the sense to doubt and test if it’s accurate. By stress testing it, you also get to see how things work and why they work that way. In a way, it’s like walking in the person’s shoes. The insight you get is worth way more than just accepting whatever they say as gospel.
Find your own path
Once you’ve copied enough, it’s time to find what works for you. Maybe you can try to explain in your own words what a concept means to you. Break it down into analogies and metaphors that you understand best. For example, if you are trying to teach a child how to jump higher, you can say be like a bunny rabbit and get as high as you can. You probably wouldn’t say make sure you load the hips and get into triple extension from ankle to hip. It’ll depend on the situation and person.
You can take it a step further and start to find things that you disagree with and argue for both sides. This will teach you to see things from different perspectives instead of falling into different biases.
You’ll chase truth instead of convenience. As you learn new things, you’ll need to siphon what’s good and what’s crap. Even if your current method is decent, continue to look for better ways.
My method used to be passively listening to Ted talks for knowledge, but now it has become both an active and passive flow. Constantly testing what I know and trying to see if it’ll hold.
As better methods come, don’t hold on to your beliefs. Allow it to be dispensable so you can always substitute it for something that suits you more.
That’s ultimately the major benefit of starting early or now—later down the line, you get to go through so many iterations that you will find something that uniquely works for you.
You can’t find that unless you put in the work. Go through it long enough and you’ll understand that one method will work for others but not you. It’ll give you results but at a cost. Your job is to find a good balance.
Start now and keep an open mind. Who cares if you look foolish, everyone does in the beginning. You’ll thank yourself perhaps 6 years down the line.
*Check out my last article on productive arguments*
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