Today I am talking about effective learning and growth.
When people are learning and growing, it makes them more valuable. More valuable to themselves in the form of self-confidence and self-worth and upgraded intra-personal skills. It makes them more valuable to their families, improves interpersonal skills and their relationships. And certainly, makes them more valuable in business, because when you are growing as an individual, and as a manager or a leader in an organization, it brings other people along that growth pattern with you – AND – helps the organization to grow!
So, here are my 5 tips on learning effectively.
- Know how you learn. Are you primarily – visual, auditory, kinesthetic. Do you learn better in a classroom, or by watching someone else? Do you learn with someone guiding you, and just going after it, taking action. These methods are all valuable. To be effective at teaching others, you must know what your areas of strength are and be an effective student first. You cannot teach what you don’t know, and it’s certainly more difficult to teach in a method that you are not good at.
- Learn completely, versus learning everything you can as quickly as possible. Spaced reputation is a learning technique that means you study your subject matter and then take a break. You have to have time in between. There are many experts that state it takes 26 spaced repetitions to learn a skill. So for example: Learning a new sales process will take a new salesperson repeating the skill, 26 days or times in a row. There is that time gap, break and sleep in between. But, if practiced daily that is how over time you repeat the result that you want. You’ve heard the saying, “Nothing worth doing comes quickly and easily.” Knowledge and growth are valuable… so it’s going to take time to be effective and certainly to become an expert.
- Teach yourself to ignore other people’s agendas and approval. If you are more worried about what other people think than what is the right thing for you right now, you may as well stop reading. Other people want to push their opinions and agendas on you to keep you at a similar level to what they are at. If you are growing and they are not, then they may realize it is a problem with themselves. They will openly share their agenda or disproval with you to try and keep you in an area that is comfortable for them. This may not be what is right for you!
- Learn from mistakes. Your mistakes, other people’s mistakes. All mistakes have value and you can learn from them. The key is that when you make a mistake, acknowledge that it is a mistake – and DON’T REPEAT it! If you continue to repeat a mistake or to do something incorrectly, it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a choice. Study your mistakes, embrace them, and make certain that you perform the skill differently in the future if you want a different result.
- Know that your brain changes over time. Scientific studies on the brain show that the human brain is constantly changing. New pathways are constantly created or recreated. As your brain changes, so does your mindset. Many things will change throughout your life, even the ways you learn and communicate. As you grow you can likely see the changes and upgrades you have made in your own life. You think differently in your 40’s versus in your teens. You think differently and learn as a single person, versus married. As a couple versus parents, your brain and yourself are constantly being recreated. Let it happen, embrace the constant of change for yourself.
As always, thank you for watching, reading or listening! Tune in each Wednesday and Sunday for new episodes of “The FRONT.”
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