I became a Fast Learner at Everything by Applying These Simple Techniques
From failing the basic MS Word course to mastering 30 skills in 6 months
In the summer of 2019, I had this craze to learn something cool — something that could give my resume an edge. I wanted to learn to code so badly.
So I started taking classes at a tech company nearby. The first week went awesome. I met good people with mutual understanding, and I had high-quality lecture sessions.
After about 3 weeks of lectures, and presentations, it was time for the first test of the semester. I was looking all worked out that morning. Probably because I had spent all night reading course materials and practicing all that I’ve been thought for the past 3 weeks.
Long story short, the test was all done and the results were in. I felt so happy and confident after the test because I knew I put in all my efforts into making sure that I get a good grade. But, as they say, “only the results will determine how hard you prepared.” I kept my fingers crossed.
As I anxiously searched my name, my smile slowly tightened up, heart rate spiked. It was an E in all subjects (including basic MS Word usage).
“How was I able to fail all subjects, including basic MS Word usage?” Different questions clouded my mind.
Head down in sadness, I went home and took a long nap. I was embarrassed among my peers about failing a simple test which 90% of the class passed. The results of the test weakened me mentally, emotionally, and physically — I was afraid to try again. Depression gradually set in.
After reading The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything … Fast by Josh Kaufman. I began to reconsider. Through Kaufman’s book, I was convinced:
- That I could get over my fear
- My self-doubt needs some sprinkle of confidence
- Constant worrying doesn’t solve anything
- Embarrassments are nothing if you want to learn
- If you want to learn, do it in your 20s
In a movie I watched: The Matrix, I was fascinated with the ability that Neo and his friends possessed to learn new skills in a matter of seconds. With the unbelievable upsurge in levels of technology today, the rapid learning displayed in the movie is becoming much more of a reality than you can ever imagine.
Luckily, I have well developed myself over the years, by studying and learning a lot more about various techniques that are well proven to work for learning new skills. Therefore I have successfully applied them into areas of my life. To name a few, Website development, Advanced Software engineering, Video editing (took me 3 hours), freelance writing, and running a Startup.
Why do we need to learn faster?
We are constantly learning new things, from the moment we entered this world all through to the moment we leave. All aspects of life entail learning, from your first day on the job, first time driving, that new activity, or even grilling a barbecue. Learning is a process that continues throughout life.
Learning new things is a huge and inevitable step in life, we should always be ready to grow in all spheres of life. Meanwhile, we can well agree that learning new things take time, right? For most of us, time is something we don’t have on our hands — the everyday cycle sucks out all the time.
The ability to learn and grasp new things under limited time is what an individual must possess.
As humans, we constantly involve ourselves in various works of life. Our time is limited, which makes it very important to spend most of your time on getting the most value. But we have to grow, and the only way we can grow is by expanding our knowledge, therefore learning new skills. The speed of learning is an important factor.
As Anthony Robbins describes, swift learning is a skill, one can easily develop and can be continuously improved:
One skill you want to master in this day and age we live in, if you want to have an extraordinary life, is the ability to learn rapidly.
In this present day dispensation, there is more and easy access to numerous knowledge and information than ever before. The internet is the place to get all your mind’s bothering questions answered with a single click.
Getting smarter has never been easier, but to attain smartness the ability to learn faster is very paramount.
Let us hear what the experts have to say
Mastering new skills is not optional in today’s business environment. “In a fast-moving, competitive world, being able to learn new skills is one of the keys to success.
It’s not enough to be smart — you need to always be getting smarter,” says Heidi Grant Halvorson, a motivational psychologist and author of the Havard Business Review Single Nine Things Successful People Do Differently.
“The night before a biochemistry class, I read the last year’s lecture notes. I look at the pictures in the book. Now, I’ve got a general concept. Sure…There’s a couple of details to fill in and a few things to memorize. But that’s no big deal. I’ve got the big picture, and that’s all I need.
Bring it on professor, I’m ready.
That’s right.
The next day, I’m a goalie sitting in the front row.
“Nothing gets past me.”
My ability to comprehend a biochemistry lecture just went from 30% to 95%.
I went on to score 780 out of a possible 800 on the medical school boards exam in biochemistry. Given that the 99th percentile began around 690, this was one of the highest scores in the USA, perhaps the highest.”
― Peter Rogers MD
Joseph Weintraub, a professor of management and organizational behavior at Babson College and co-author of the book, The Coaching Manager: Developing Top Talent in Business, agrees:
We need to constantly look for opportunities to stretch ourselves in ways that may not always feel comfortable at first. Continual improvement is necessary to get ahead.
The effectiveness of speed learning goes a long way in our daily activities. Whether you’re working towards a new job, need something to do during your spare time, or probably beef up your resume.
Find the right purpose for learning
When we have a passion for learning something, it’s much easy to pour out all our energy to make sure we attain that thing. Leading to faster retention of the information we learn.
By having that drive to accomplish your target you are less likely to be distracted therefore focus becomes your hidden backbone.
“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.” — Jim Rohn
Focus on one thing until you get success! Of course, bad days will come, discouragements will cloud your mind, thoughts of quitting will fill rain on you.
Having that unique passion will constantly remind you why you started, therefore, keeping you going through those challenging times until you complete it.
Michael Jordan’s story always cheers me up, when he got rejected by his coach and cut from his high school basketball team, he didn’t wake up every morning to shoot thousands of free throws so that he could make next year’s basketball team. His goal was to become the best player in the world.
Passion + efforts = Great impact.
Understand your learning formation
Another great strategy for improving your learning efficiency is to recognize your learning habits and styles.
Everyone is unique, the way we do things, differ from the next person. However, our learning style also follows different patterns. Here is what I mean — what worked for ‘Billy’ might backfire for ‘James.’ — It’s just the weird beauty of life.
When I was in code camp, there was this guy who never took notes, who never asked questions but always scored 100% in examinations — I always thought he had some kind of weird powers or something; now trying to imitate this guy might sure lead you to failure. But how did he do it? The truth is he had well mastered how his brain works, reaction rate, and levels of concentration.
When learning something new, you don’t need to start envying and comparing yourself to other people. Ditch the way the other person does things. Self-discovery is very important. Find out what works for you, what you’re comfortable with, and what makes you unique.
Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences describes eight different types of intelligence that can help reveal your strengths.
Some learn best with the use of graphics or flashcards, some learn best through attentive listening, while some learn best via demonstrations and hands-on experience.
Heidi Grant Halvorson says you can figure out your ideal learning style by looking back. “Reflect on some of your past learning experiences, and make a list of good ones and another list of bad ones”
She further says,
What did good effective experiences have in common? How about the bad ones? Identifying common strands can help you determine the learning environment that works best for you.
Go old school note-taking
With the unimaginable rise in technology, there are now countless devices to take notes, ranging from laptops, tablets, even watches — all these are meant to make our lives easier.
Though taking your notes using a laptop might seem accurate to the eyes, it doesn’t to the brain. To speed up the learning process ditch the laptop and take your notes the old school way — pen and paper.
Well, as for me I prefer to stick with my pen and paper, because of the numerous benefits I enjoyed.
An experiment tested both groups of note-takers (pen and laptop users) exactly half an hour after the lecture, which left them without the opportunity to review.
The psychological scientists decided to explore this concept further and conducted a second experiment in which these students would be given a week to review for the exam.
Even after a week of review, the students who took notes in longhand were found to do significantly better than the other students in the experiment, including the fleet typists — those who transcribed the lectures.
Overall, it seems those who type their notes may potentially be at risk for “mindless processing.” The old-fashioned note-taking method of pen and paper boosts memory and the ability to understand concepts and facts.
Although taking notes with the hands is slow and burdensome compared to the laptop, the act of writing supports easy readability and comprehension.
Practice what you’ve learned
“The best way of learning about anything is by doing.” — Richard Branson
One of the easiest ways to learn and practice (in real-time) a new skill effectively is teaching it to others. It might be incredibly scary to teach something you’ve not perfected to other people — experts or beginners. But it is a sure way to derive improvement.
My second time learning coding, I begged my 7-year-old sister for her to sit down and let me teach her what I learned during the day’s class. Even though she didn’t understand any of the things I was saying, I learned a lot from hearing myself saying it over and over again.
Why does this method work so well?
When we learn with the mindset that we are going to teach it to others, we are left with the only option of simplifying it and breaking it down into bits to aid easy explanation and understanding.
Do you remember your seventh-grade presentation on Costa Rica? By teaching to the rest of the class, your teacher hoped you would gain even more from the assignment, forcing us to look at the topic critically to help us understand it better.
As research shows, it turns out that people retain:
- 5% of what they learn when they’ve learned from a lecture.
- 10% of what they learn when they’ve learned from reading.
- 20% of what they learn from audio-visual.
- 30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration
- 50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion.
- 75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned.
- 90% of what they learn when they teach someone else/use immediately.
When you’re teaching somebody something new, make use of slides, flashcards, audio narrations while breaking all down into small chunks of information.
Be Patient
After all the hard work, patience is paramount in making sure that you learn that skill swiftly.
Failing a series of subjects on coding undoubtedly made me feel discouraged and bad about myself, although patience kept me going and played a huge role in making sure that I mastered it.
Every good thing takes time, even though you want to learn that skill on time; throwing in the towel will only end you up achieving nothing.
“It’s not going to happen overnight. It usually takes six months or more to develop a new skill,” says Weintraub. And it may take longer for others to see and appreciate it. “People around you will only notice 10% of every 100% change you make,” he says.
Takeaways
Learning a new skill or developing a new habit might take some time but focus, practice, and determination will always hasten the process. Let’s go over the core principles:
Find the right purpose for learning — picture yourself at the destination you want to be and use that as a stepping stone for greatness. Keep your goal in your mind as often as possible.
Go old school note-taking — while learning something new you must take notes at every means possible, and try as much as possible to use a pen and paper for effective comprehension
Teach what you’ve learned — when learning new things you must spread the word about it while it is still fresh in your memory because people retain a higher percentage of what they teach.
Understand your learning mechanism — your uniqueness cannot be compared to anyone else. Learning at your own pace, and being comfortable will increase your ability to understand and retain knowledge faster.
Be patient — all though we might fall, flop at certain simple areas, maybe fail at achieving your goals. But bear in mind that every good thing takes
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