Foster a growth mindset. One thing that might be keeping you back from learning new things is the belief that you can’t learn new things. But neuroscience and psychology have shown this to be false. Our brains remain plastic and malleable well into old age, and it’s possible to create new connections among neurons and learn new things even if you’re 80 years old.
To become an effective lifelong learner you need to adopt a mindset that is in line with how our brains really work. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck discovered that people have one of two “mindsets” – fixed or growth. Individuals with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence and talents are innate and fixed. They don’t think they can improve with work and effort. Folks with a growth mindset believe that they can improve themselves through work and practice.
You want to foster a growth mindset. How do you do that? Here are a few things Dweck suggests:
- Reading research that shows growth and improvement is possible
- Developing your resiliency
- Trying new things
- Reading about and extracting lessons from others with a growth mindset
Change your idea of learning. Learning doesn’t have to be in a formal classroom setting. In fact, most of the useful stuff you know was probably picked up informally from family, friends, and good old trial and error. To become a lifelong learner, ditch the idea that you need to sign up for a class to actually learn something. Learning opportunities are all around you. Remember that learning isn’t confined to what’s found in books – acquiring practical skill sets is a big part of it too.
Establish goals. What do you want to learn? When do you want to learn it by? Every year, set goals for yourself on skills and knowledge you want to acquire. I usually set three big learning goals for myself every year. For example, this year my goals are to 1) learn how to create compelling videos for AoM, 2) learn how to handle a handgun in defensive situations, and 3) learn how to hunt and field dress a deer.
Besides those three big goals, I always have the daily goal of learning something new every day whether through reading or by talking to other people. To ensure that we have something else to talk about at dinnertime (besides the blog!), Kate and I play a game called “What did you learn today?” (Actually, we say, “Got any stories for me?” It’s our shorthand for, “Have you read or heard anything interesting today?”) Every day we both try to learn something new to share with each other over dinner.
Find your sources. Once you establish your learning goals, it’s time to gather your sources. Do a quick Google search to see what information is available online. After that, head to the library — I always seem to find better and more in-depth insights in books as opposed to web articles. If it’s a skill that will require special instruction, start creating a list of places or individuals that could offer that instruction.
Ask questions. Effective learning requires active participation. You can’t just passively consume information. While you’re reading and talking to experts, ask questions. Don’t worry about looking or sounding like an idiot. Swallow your pride.
Find a group. While many of your learning goals can be pursued alone, sometimes it helps to have a group of people to learn along with you. Your fellow learners can provide insights and resources that you never would have thought about. Moreover, in a group setting you’ll often get constructive feedback you otherwise wouldn’t get alone. As an added bonus, it’s just more fun to learn with others.
To find a group of folks to learn with, start with the people you know. Maybe you have some friends that want to learn the same thing as you. Start weekly discussions or practice sessions with them.
Practice, practice, practice. Don’t just read or listen your way to knowledge. Try to find a way to put that knowledge to work. If you’re learning about art, visit a museum and try to identify which paintings belong to the Romantic period. If you’re learning about wilderness survival, get out into the wild every month and put those bushcraft skills to use. If you’re learning how to code, code.
Teach what you’re learning.
Teach what you’re learning. One of my all-time favorite books is Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the skills Covey teaches in the book is that to truly learn something you need to teach it. According to Covey, when we teach, we become truly motivated to learn the material because we want to ensure proper instruction. Teaching also forces us to look at a concept with a beginner’s mind, which can provide the clarity and insight that we were lacking. Moreover, simply talking aloud to somebody can help you solidify ideas through the “production effect.”
As you learn new things, teach it to others. Blogging is a great way to teach what you’re learning. Many of the skills I’ve acquired in the past five years have come from deciding to write a post about a topic.
Test yourself. It’s important to get feedback while you’re learning, and testing is the best way to do it. As a self-learner, you’re likely not going to face formal tests, so you’ll need to create your own. How you test yourself will depend on the skill or knowledge set you’re trying to acquire. If you’re learning marksmanship, your test could be the U.S. Army’s rifle marksmanship scorecard; if you’re learning Spanish, your test could be to visit the local Mexican grocery store and talk to the cashier only in Spanish.
Gain mastery in one skill. Don’t be a “hyphen.” These are folks who flit around from one skill or discipline to the next without ever gaining competency or mastery in a specific domain. They only work on creating the horizontal stroke of the T. These folks typically don’t accomplish much in life, and Tim Brown describes them as people with empty experiences. If you want to make a dent in the world, you have to become an expert with deep knowledge in a specific area. If you’ve spent most of your adult life jumping from one interest to the next without fully immersing yourself in it, make the commitment today to focus your time and energy into creating the vertical stroke of your T by beginning your path to mastery.
Remain curious. While you’re focusing most of your time and energy in one skill or discipline, don’t lose your curiosity about related and unrelated disciplines. Make it a habit to go out of your way to talk and work with people outside of your particular department or industry. For example, if you work in product development at a company, go have lunch with somebody in customer support. You might be surprised by the insights you’ll gain from talking to them. When you meet people outside your area of expertise, ask lots of questions.
Read broadly. One of the best ways to create the horizontal stroke of your T is to read as broadly as you can. Read books and magazines from areas outside of your expertise or even your interests. If you’re a computer engineer, spend some time reading about art; if you’re a lawyer, read up on the latest developments in science and medicine. You get the idea.
Actively dabble. As we discussed in our post about becoming a life-long learner, to truly learn, you need to take action. Make it a goal to set aside a certain amount of time each week to dabble in skills outside of your area of expertise. If your expertise is in the ethereal world of the mind, spend some time this weekend working with your hands on an easy DIY project. If you spend all day working with your hands, spend an hour or two writing each week.
Increase empathy. According to Tim Brown, empathy is an important characteristic to foster if you want to become a T-shaped person. “It’s important because it allows people to imagine the problem from another perspective — to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Second, they tend to get very enthusiastic about other people’s disciplines, to the point that they may actually start to practice them,” says Brown. Viewing a problem from the perspective of another discipline allows you to better see how to apply your own expertise to come up with a solution. It makes collaboration across disciplines much more fruitful.
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