To begin from the beginning, I first learned about learning from a TED talk I watched in my early teenage years. In there, Josh Kaufman talks about the first twenty hours of learning anything new, about how these hours are tough but also of the essence. In the due course of his talk spanning around nineteen minutes, the speaker opened up a new realm of being for me. A whole volume of wisdom in itself that stays with me till date. It was to know that I could learn anything.
What is learning?
In simple terms, learning refers to the development of an understanding, and is often synonymously used in the context of ‘gaining knowledge’. It is to try and ‘make sense’ of something. It is also that which helps us evolve and adapt to a variety of ever-changing circumstances in life.
Learning styles: It refers to how an individual gathers, sifts, and organizes data in order to learn. We learn differently. There are three key means of learning;
- Visual (Spatial learning)
- Auditory (Aural learning)
- Kinesthetic (Tactile learning)
These primarily employ our sense of sight, hearing, and touch. The aforementioned senses along with social interaction, psychomotor abilities, and cognitive functions like thinking, logical reasoning, etc co-exist and coordinate to facilitate the process of learning.
Brain Rewiring
Learning physically changes the brain. Brain development and learning share a reciprocal relationship. Every time we learn something new our brain forms new connections and makes existing pathways stronger or weaker. This is also referred to as neuroplasticity. Learning and plasticity are directly proportional. Neurons that fire together, wire together; making new habits possible. We’re wired to adapt.
Learning a new skill: Learn a new foreign language, learn to draw, or learn to play a musical instrument! Does that sound familiar? All of us have seen such ads making their way onto our screens. It’s the new black. Let’s try to understand the two key processes that make this worthwhile:-
- Novel situations and experiences give a rush of the reward chemical dopamine. It is the feel-good neurotransmitter that affects our emotions and mood.
- Breaking a pattern or routine can help pull us out of the default network mode or autopilot that most of us run on. It calls for one to live in the present moment.
Learning a new skill –
- Enables a quick on one’s feet approach
- Delays the onset of dementia
- Changes brain chemistry
- Increases learning speed
- Improves working memory, planning, and organization skills.
The recent lockdown brought with it the learn-a-new-skill movement. However, the cause seems lost. Taking up something new just to tick-it-off of your list, or to flex on social media, will not help. I implore you to enjoy the process and to learn from it.
Wellness and Narratives
Learning helps one grow as a person and gives them a sense of fulfillment. Individuals who continue learning in various forms after formal education report greater stress-coping abilities and higher life-satisfaction. Controlled amounts of work and routine have shown to help people dealing with depression and anxiety, giving them flow or an ‘in the zone’ feeling.
Learning is an efficient self-esteem booster making people realize that they can learn, bringing a sense of self-worth and honor. Identifying as a learner makes you antifragile i.e every time you fail you rise up stronger, experienced, and learned. It reinforces resilience as the ancient Japanese saying goes ‘Nana korobi, ya oki’ that translates to ‘Fall down seven times, stand up eight.’ As a learner, you seek the unchartered territory and grow. Do be sincere, above all, to yourself. Do not make learning an excuse to underperform.
Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. Learning adds to your skillset exponentially. Learning feeds on and to curiosity. It drives one to explore, investigate, and ask why. It stimulates creativity by calling on to explore new approaches. Learning allows you to do things you previously couldn’t. To me, it brought a tremendous shift in perspective towards life because now I knew I could learn to do things that I was told I couldn’t. It is what transitions a failure to a work-in-progress. Nobody’s perfect, love. We all err, shying away from mistakes will keep one stuck and limited. I will work and improve is better self-talk than saying ‘I’m hopeless’. Learning gives you a fighting chance, and in the end, it’s all one needs.
Take some time to pause and reflect on your learning. Ask yourself this often, ‘What did I learn from this?’, ‘Did I do something new?’, or ‘How did that make me feel?’. Introspection helps us understand how something serves us or vice versa.
P.S. Don’t beat yourself up over finding meaning in everything. I get that we feel off sometimes and that’s okay, especially because we’re only learning.
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Show comments Hide comments[…] 2. Learning to learn – Often, a setback requires us to do things differently or even cultivate new skills. While the obvious solution to this is beginning to learn the new skill, often we stop ourselves. There are multiple ‘enemies’ or ‘obstacles’ that come in the way of learning. One that I have experienced and heard other young people talk about is “What will people think about me?” In fact, Psychologist Carol Dweck’s experiments have shown that a concern about how we will appear to others inhibits our openness to learn new or unfamiliar skills/tasks. […]