“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere”

— A Chinese Proverb

Introduction

Learning starts at birth. At age 5, you begin acquiring knowledge and information at formal institutions and, this spans until age 18 when you finish high school. Some continue that journey until 22 when they finish college. But sadly, most people stop touching books and content which contains valuable information right after they finish formal education. Success depends on how much you know, how well you implement what you know and, your willingness to improve your internal library.

The Importance Of Learning And Its Impact On Success

When we talk about learning, most people instantly think about high school algebra. I don’t blame them for somewhat resenting the term “learning” but, it would be a fallacy to assume learning is solely restricted to scholarly institutions. You can learn anything anywhere anytime and in any situation, which is great (unless you’re being mugged in an ally way because you decided to ask for directions, but inevitably learn that not everyone is nice). Learning heightens your perspective on a topic, it makes you much more open-minded, it fuels creativity, and it drives improvement.

Learning is to man what food is to the stomach. Learning grows our minds and enables us to do more.

Successful people constantly learn, they understand that learning increases the likelihood of staying ahead of the game and creating more original work. Learning will make you more of a proactive individual and, it will build your self-confidence. All key factors to success.

The Best Learning Styles

Different people prefer to learn in different ways. You’ll need to find a learning style that is optimal for your individual preference. The three learning styles you can try are:

Visual Learning

Visual learning is the taking in of information using your eyes. Using items such as books, smart devices, pictures, etc.

With books

If you prefer the good old fashioned book, then there is a technique that can be used to properly understand and mentally store information.

#1 Acquire 2 books, 1 should be the book containing the information you want to learn and the other should be a notebook.

#2 Read the information book until the end.

#3 Review what you have learned in the notebook (write down key points)

#4 Recite what you have learned either to yourself or to a friend.

#5 If you forget anything, refer to your notebook (because the info is summarized)

Smart devices

If you’re a gen Z like me, then you most probably prefer using a smart device. With this, your options are limitless.

#1 You can save YouTube videos in categorized folders. That way when you need to refer to some information just open up YouTube and select your desired subject.

#2 You can bookmark various websites in an organized numbering sequence.

#3 Subscribe to various blogs and podcasts which are relevant to what you want to learn.

And the list goes on and on.

Auditory Learning

Auditory learning is the taking in of new information using sounds. Items such as audiobooks, radio stations, lectures, etc.

With Audiobooks

#1 You can use the same method as with normal books. It works just as well.

#2 You can listen to the book every night before bed. This will quite literally burn the knowledge into your mind.

Radio stations

Assuming you still listen to the radio, there is a nice way of remembering what you’ve learned.

#1 First, find a relevant radio station.

#2 Find the specific segment which you’re interested in.

#3 Then record what you want and listen when you get the chance.

Learning Through Kinesthetics

This is how you understand information using your body (contact learning/practical learning)

You have to do it, for you to understand it. For instance, if you need to become a better public speaker then you’ll have to speak to a group of people or if you want to become an excellent programmer you’ll have to write code everyday.

You can do more research on learning techniques which will compliment your learning style, once you find it.

Implement What You Learn

Now that you have amassed an army of learned brain cells. You’ll need to put them on the front lines. Use your newly found knowledge to improve various aspects of your career, personal life, and social life. I’ve come across a ton of people who have said things like “Self-improvement is a scam” or “it’s useless to learn because stuff doesn’t happen”. Then I think to myself, how do you expect what you’ve learned to manifest into reality if you don’t apply it? But it’s typical human behavior which should be eradicated. 

Learn From Both The Winners And Losers

Learning only from the winners has become so commonplace. People only want to see the good side of the story. They think doing so will allow them to persevere and achieve the same glory as all the winners in the world, but this is yet another fallacy.

The survivor ship bias or The survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. It’s important to find people who haven’t made it and ask them where they think they went wrong; this is learning from others’ mistakes and it’s as important as learning itself

Have Intelligible Conversations

Have conversations that revolve around your field of expertise and or what you have learned. Find someone who has an interest in the topic or a radically open-minded individual/group of people. You can also search for people online who share the same interest as you and proceed to chat it up. Doing so will allow you to reinforce your knowledge and you will gain new insight on the topic.

Teach

Teaching is a great way to reinforce your knowledge. It’s a great way to gauge your level of knowledge and also a nice way to increase your self-confidence (unless you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about)

So where can you teach?

You can either open a YouTube channel, write a blog, preach on social media, start a webinar or grab the nearest kid and shove knowledge into them. Teaching is fun and if you do it right, you’ll become a master at your subject/topic of choice.

End

Thanks for reading! I know for a fact you got something interesting from this. Having said that, I trust that you’ll revisit next, when we take a look at “Confidence is important for success”

If you enjoyed this be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments, like and share. It will mean the world to me.