About learning by ourselves
In this article I want to talk about few principles about learning new skills. Those are the basic things which helped me to learn Japanese, programming, guitar, all by myself. We don’t need the permission to learn new things in our times, everything is at our fingertips. Still, being able to learn anything anytime doesn’t mean it’s easy to do so.
Why is it hard
People tend to think that motivation is the only thing you need when learning something new. However, we are not robots, and our motivation graph is chaotic. When you try to learn new things, there will periods in which you will feel disappointed about yourself. It is at that moment that you realise that it is not like you planned it will be. You worked so hard but you feel like you know nothing, and you start comparing yourself with others who seem smarter than you. You think it’s maybe not for you. Welcome in the dip.
How to beat the dip?
First, accept that this is totally normal to feel disappointed and that your skills are plateauing. Then, those are the things that helped me to keep progressing:
1. Practice short times, frequently
I believe that practicing something without rest for a long time is not productive. Our brains are like muscles and need period of rest to be at their maximal. Practice every days for short periods is they key to build a habit and make sustainable progress.
2. Don’t be afraid to review the basics
Your knowledges should look like a beautiful tower. If the foundations are not strong, you will have hard time to build a big one. When you feel this is the case, don’t hesitate to stop and come back to it.
Also, be curious about everything. Be like a child asking “why?” all the time to reinforce your foundations.
Elon Musk uses semantic trees as a metaphor to talk about it:
“One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
3. Learn the same thing from multiple places
Every piece of knowledge you will find in books or on the Internet were written by someone, who is trying hard to share with you what is in their head. We all have a different mental model of the world, and sharing knowledge is like building a bridge between two different worlds.
Some are good at sharing their ideas, some are not.
Some don’t explains everything, and some explains too much.
Therefore, you should not focus only on one source, but absorb as much as possible from all of these people, and make you own mental model from it.
You will have a more objective vision about the subject.
4. Practice
It’s well known, the most of your learning is done by practicing. It is the moment your brain has to connect all of the knowledges you accumulated to actually interact with the real world. A bit like an orchestra in which all the instruments have to play together to make music.
Practicing will take you out of your confort zone, and expose your weaknesses. Your ego won’t like it, but you have to accept it and people will be happy to help you. That’s also what will keep you motivated, feeling that you still made progress and that you should keep going.
5. Be nice with yourself
We are just humans, and you will also certainly not follow the same pace every time. You know what? It’s okay. Call it a cheat day and take time to do something else, even if it is just watching cat videos on Youtube. I believe procrastination is a great tool for creativity.
You may also fail an exam, or a job interview, thinking that all of the time you invested was wasted and that it’s not for you. All I want to say is, do not let other people decide if your time was worth it, or if you are made for something. Exams should not be the goal, getting the job also. You know you made progress, and had fun doing it. Time and commitment will take care of the rest.
