Focus is key for learning. If you are not paying full attention to what you are trying to learn, it’ll make learning more difficult and slower. So, while you may believe you are a slow learner, you are most likely just a distracted learner.Once you improve your focus, you’ll be surprised by how much faster you can internalize new knowledge and skills.

Why You're Not A Quick Learner: Lack of Focus 

<ul><li>People with a fixed mindset—the belief that we are born with attributes that cannot be changed—tend to think in terms of “you either have it or you don’t,” which in turn can create a mental block that hinders their progress.</li><li>But people with a growth mindset—the belief that we can develop and improve our abilities through passion and perseverance —are motivated to stretch their capabilities and work harder to improve.</li></ul> If you believe learning myths like “you either have it or you don’t” or “old dogs can’t learn new tricks,” you will create a negative placebo effect that can make your learning s<warningtag>lower or worse, make you want to quit.</warningtag>

Mindset and Beliefs Have a Strong Influence on Becoming a Quick Learner

<ul><li>Whenever we want to pick up a new skill or learn a new subject, we assume that the learning process will go smoothly. But the reality is that learning is sometimes frustrating, stressful, and slow.</li><li>When we do not meet our unrealistic expectations of how fast we should be learning, we blame ourselves. We think we are slow learners, that we don’t have any talent, or that we are not as smart.</li><li>Our expectations about the learning process and our learning speed are, to a large extent, what makes us feel like slow learners—even if we aren’t.</li></ul>

Why You're Not A Quick Learner: Unrealistic Expectations 

The person who’s already a good surfer and skater has a foundation in board sports to transfer into snowboarding, which will make him learn the new skill faster.In an oversimplified way, our mind works as a scaffold—everything we have already built serves as a base to build on top of. Here’s where comparing ourselves to others can be misleading. We don’t know their background or what they’ve learned in the past.

Previous Learning Affects Learning Speed

You may think you are not a quick learner, but most likely, you just need to learn how to use your brain more effectively.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

problemsolving

Problem Solving

4 Reasons Why You May Be a Slow Learner

Reasons Why You're Not a Quick Learner

Anxiety is a roadmap that points us to a real or imagined threat, pain from the past or something in the present that needs our attention. While anxiety can be debilitating and must be managed, we need it. If we disable or mute our anxiety indicators, we won't know where the problem is.

We need anxiety

Thoughts can help shape behaviour and therefore reality. But motivation is mostly a physiological issue, not a mind issue. The "fight, flight, or freeze" response is activated by a physiological mechanism inside the nervous system. When you are stuck in fight or flight, such as panic or racing thoughts, you are not able to think your way out. Turning the amygdala response off is the key to motivation. The amygdala is your panic button in the brain. If your brain is perceiving a threat, it will shut down your system (procrastination) or put it in hyperarousal (motivation).

You can't think your way out of stuck

"Mental" health has very little to do with our minds. A nervous system stuck in a fight, flight, or freeze response will show the exact symptoms as clinical depression or pathological anxiety. The nervous system is not an illness or disorder. It is doing exactly what it is designed to do. When a brain is stuck in fight, flight, or freeze it is misattuning to safety and danger in the environment. If we see mental health as an actual physical process, then we have a greater chance of finding our way to tools that can get ourselves unstuck.

Mental health is a physical process

The actions that destroy our plans and relationships are a suboptimal effort at self-protection. What we call “self-sabotage” often happens because if you achieve a goal, things will need to change. All change involves some degree of loss. Any change to our status quo can trigger a threat response as change requires risk.

Self-sabotage is a misnomer


Not all behaviour is acceptable, but all behaviour is functional. Behaviour modification without understanding behaviour will almost always make us inert. You don't need to make giant behavioural transformations to get unstuck-getting unstuck requires tiny micro-shifts, and those shifts compound rapidly. Once you're in motion, your cognitive work suddenly becomes powerful.

All behavior is functional

A psychotherapist insists, “‘Mental’ health has very little to do with our minds.”


Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

mentalhealth

Mental Health

There’s no such thing as self-sabotage. A psychotherapist debunks the most common concepts that keep us stuck

The Fishing Line Technique is a productivity method with the main goal to help you hold your train of thought for as long as possible until you get to something concrete.
The basic principle of the Fishing Line Technique is based on the importance of not being disturbed whilst in the process of trying to come up with new ideas, or any creative process in general.

Fishing Line Technique

If you’ve ever been fishing you know that it’s all about finding the right spot, casting your fishing rod and then starting the big wait.
You sit there, patiently waiting and observing your rod, until you see that something got its first nibble and that there is finally some tension on the line: a fish is on the hook! From now on it’s all about maintaining that tension while carefully and slowly reeling in the line to bring the catch to the shore.

Importance Of The Fishing Line Technique

When you try to come up with new ideas, you first need to spend some proper time pondering over the problem. And once you’re onto something, it’s like when you got some tension on that fishing line! Now it’s all about holding this tension for as long as needed to transform that first glimpse of an idea into something more concrete – which in our fishing example equals bringing the fish to the shore.If at that very moment, when the idea is finally materializing, you get distracted by something, your tension on the line is lost and the idea might be gone forever.

The Idea Generation Process

Whenever you’re trying to come up with a new idea, trying to work out a solution to something or doing any creative work in general, make sure beforehand that nothing will disturb you.This means basically doing three main things:<ul><li>Allocate proper time for thinking and doing some deep work, and let others know that you won’t be available during this time.</li><li>Retreat to a space where you can be undisturbed for as long as needed and tune out any potential distraction with background sounds.</li><li>Make sure every possible notification is turned off.</li></ul>

Fishing Line Technique In Practice

The fishing line technique has the main goal to help you hold your train of thought for as long as possible until you get to something concrete.

productivity

Productivity

philosophy

Philosophy

creativity

Creativity

The Fishing Line Technique - Noisli

Our thinking about business is shaped by a number of delusions - ones that distort our understanding of company performance, that make it difficult to know why one company succeeds and another fails. These errors of thinking pervade much that we read about business, whether in leading magazines or scholarly journals or management bestsellers. They cloud our ability to think clearly and critically about the nature of success in business.

Business Delusions

This is our tendency to make inferences about specific traits on the basis of a general impression.In the business world, it refers to the tendency to look at a company’s overall performance and make attributions about its culture, leadership, values, and more. In fact, many things we commonly claim drive company performance are simply attributions based on prior performance.For example, if a company is profitable, people conclude that the leadership and processes must be competent.

The Halo Effect

Just because two sets of things are correlated does not mean that one causes the other to happen. Sometimes one might cause the other to happen. But we won't know which of them is the trigger. Maybe, another separate thing might be influencing both of them to happen. It is also possible that there is no relationship at all.Does employee satisfaction lead to high performance? The evidence suggests it’s mainly the other way around—company success has a stronger impact on employee satisfaction.

The Delusion of Correlation and Causality

Success cannot be usually attributed to one factor.Many studies show that a particular factor—strong company culture or customer focus or great leadership—leads to improved performance. But since many of these factors are highly correlated, the effect of each one is usually less than suggested.

The Delusion of Single Explanations

If we pick a number of successful companies and search for what they have in common, we’ll never isolate the reasons for their success, because we have no way of comparing them with less successful companies.By looking only at companies that perform well, we can never hope to show what makes them different from companies that perform less well.

The Delusion of Connecting the Winning Dots

If your data sources are corrupted by the halo effect, it doesn't matter how much data you have gathered, or how sophisticated your methodology was.Data quality and quantity are equally important when it comes to research. If one takes a wrong assumption and backs it up with some numbers, the conclusion cannot be taken seriously.

The Delusion of Rigorous Research 

Almost all high-performing companies regress over time. The promise of a blueprint for lasting success is attractive but not realistic.Success is transitory, and many companies that have outperformed in the past, won't do so in the future. A company cannot be successful forever on the basis of a few traits. Many external and internal factors affect a company and the company has to continually work towards achieving short-term and long-term success.

The Delusion of Lasting Success 

Company performance is relative, not absolute. A company can improve and fall further behind its rivals at the same time.A company’s performance should be measured relative to other similar companies’ performance as it is a competitive environment. Measuring the company in isolation in absolute terms is not of much use.

The Delusion of Absolute Performance 

It may be true that successful companies often pursued a highly focused strategy, but that doesn’t mean highly focused strategies often lead to success.Some companies have a focused strategy and some change their strategy based on competition, market, and internal factors. Some are successful and some are not due to internal and external factors..But this is not dependent on the type of strategy alone. For example, Intel decided to move to processors from memory chips and was successful. The Intel leadership was praised for this visionary move. But if the processors had not been successful, the leadership would have been criticized.

The Delusion of the Wrong End of the Stick

The study of corporate performance is not a science like physics. We wrongly believe that there are certain rules or a formula for success and if a company follows the rules or the steps of the formula, it will see all its goals being achieved. But in the real world, success is not because of a few controllable factors. There are many variables that determine the success or failure of the organization.Performance doesn’t obey immutable laws of nature and can’t be predicted with the accuracy of science—despite our desire for certainty and order.

Delusion of Organisational Physics

Controversial and iconoclastic, a veteran corporate manager and business school professor exposes the dangerous myths, fantasies, and delusions that pervade much of the business world today.

business

Business

books

Books

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Self-talk can boost our confidence and help us to reach our goals. For example, "I will start going to the gym" or " I will complete this coding course."
However, research suggests that when considering our goals, asking ourselves a question (Will I?") is more powerful than giving ourselves an order ("I will"). This is known as the Willpower Paradox.

Counterproductive self-talk

Without realising, our goals often originate from an outside source, such as societal pressure or a promotion at work. This works well in the short term, but only if the external rewards feel satisfying.  In contrast, asking ourselves a question is more effective than giving ourselves an order because it leads to intrinsic motivation. We are motivated to reach a goal in and for itself.

Using intrinsic motivation

People using interrogative self-talk seem to perform better than those who use declarative self-talk. That’s the Willpower Paradox.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

timemanagement

Time Management

The willpower paradox: when self-talk becomes counterproductive

Published in 1979, Advice to a Young Scientist is a practical and philosophical guide to curious people engaged in exploratory activities.
The author, Peter Medawar, was a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, and a lively, witty writer. The book had several key insights for young explorers so that they don’t get lost in their journey.

Advice For Young Scientists

For real progress, a novice must be willing to give up their best ideas when they are revealed as groundless. 
One should learn how to take no for an answer and understand that failure is part of their exploration.

Young Scientists: Taking No For An Answer

It is always better to go for important problems instead of dull, useless problems no one cares about. 
Conventional advice tells us to follow our passion, but it is better to go for gold, tackling the crucial issues. Once we are in the process, it will become something we are passionate about.

Young Scientists: Choose What Is Important

While starting a new endeavour, the logical course of action is to accumulate maximum information. This is not feasible according to the author, as time is limited and one cannot go on learning new techniques before beginning the research work.
A better course of action is to start and learn whatever is necessary, letting the urgency of your work guide your learning.

Young Scientists: Start Early

Extensive reading also becomes counterproductive when there is no implementation of knowledge. 
Getting results is important if one needs to build confidence and see the visible manifestation of one’s hard work.

Young Scientists: Don’t Just Keep Reading

Effective scientific collaboration is about creating an environment that develops and expands upon the ideas of the various collaborators. The joint idea is not a mediocre ‘design by committee’ but something greater than the sum of its parts.
One has to put aside the ego and become self-aware, not hankering for credit. Being generous towards giving away ideas is for the greater good of society.

Young Scientists: Effective Collaboration

If a young scientist suspects that their endeavour might lead to something bad for mankind, one should not start it. It is also in the best interests of society to stay righteous.
We ourselves are the easiest to fool, being most susceptible to self-deception, and then moving towards deceiving other people. It is best to be respectful and stay away from criticizing or habitually disbelieving others.

Young Scientists: Moral Dilemmas

The best environment to be creative is a quiet and stable life. A scientist does not need anxiety, privacy invasion, distress or emotional harassment. E
nsure that the environment is safe, where one can share anything with others and can have open discussions.

Young Scientists: A Creative Environment

In Advice to a Young Scientist, Nobel Prize-winning biologist Peter Medawar shares practical advice for people planning to embark on a career in the sciences—and curious people in general. Here, we summarize some of Medawar’s key insights.

communication

Communication

Advice for Young Scientists—and Curious People in General

“The world is a university and everyone in it is a teacher. Make sure when you wake up in the morning, you go to school.”

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.”

“You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.”

“There is divine beauty in learning…. To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps.”

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.”

“Learning life’s lessons is not about making your life perfect, but about seeing life as it was meant to be.”

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.”

“Shall I tell you a secret of a true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that, I learn from him.”

“If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject.”

“Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.”

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence.”

“Knowledge is a weapon. I intend to be formidably armed.”

“Our job is obvious: We need to get out of the way, shine a light, and empower a new generation to teach itself and to go further and faster than any generation ever has.”

More than a decade of structured education gives us a blueprint to build a pretty good life. You've probably learned so many valuable things along the way to get where you're at today. But are you still learning?

education

Learning & Education

Quotes to Inspire You to Never Stop Learning

“In a changing world, you have to be willing and able to change your mind. Otherwise, your expertise can fail, your opinions get out of date, and your ideas fall flat.”

<ul>
<li>One barrier is what psychologists call “cognitive entrenchment,” which is when you have so much knowledge in an area that you start to take for granted assumptions that need to be questioned.</li>
<li>A second barrier is motivation: "I don’t want to rethink; I’m comfortable with the way I’ve always done things. It makes me feel and look stupid if I admit that I was wrong."</li>
<li>The third reason is social. We don’t form beliefs in a vacuum. We generally end up with opinions that are influenced by and pretty much similar to the people in our social circles. So, there’s a risk that if I let go of some of my views, I might be excluded from my tribe, and I don’t want to take that risk.</li>
</ul>

Question our thinking: Why we find it difficult

Thinking like a scientist does not mean you need to own a telescope or a microscope, but that you favor humility over pride and curiosity over conviction: You know what you don’t know, and you’re eager to discover new things. You don’t let your ideas become your identity. You look for reasons why you might be wrong, not just reasons why you must be right. 
You listen to ideas that make you think hard, not just the ones that make you feel good. And you surround yourself with people who can challenge your process, not just the ones who agree with your conclusion.

A scientific mindset

If you don’t get good at rethinking, then you end up being wrong more often. I think it’s one of the great paradoxes of life: The quicker you are to recognize when you’re wrong, the less wrong you become.

The whole point of rethinking is to change your mind in the face of better logic or stronger evidence—not to just roll the dice and say, I’m going to pick a random new opinion today.

Thinking again

An attitude of wisdom as acting on the best information you have while doubting what you know. And for that you need humility.
But people misunderstand what humility is. Confident humility is being able to say, “I don’t know and I might be wrong,” or “I haven’t figured it out yet,” which is essentially believing in yourself but doubting your current knowledge or skills.

Wisdom and humility

This means that when you form an opinion, you make a list of conditions that would change your mind. 
That keeps you honest, because once you get attached to an opinion, it’s really hard to let go. But if you identify factors that would change your mind up front, you keep yourself flexible.

Being a “super-forecaster"

“In some ways, the joy of being wrong is the freedom to keep learning.. If you can embrace the joy of being wrong, then you get to anchor your identity more in being someone who’s eager to discover new things, than someone who already knows everything.”

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant explains the importance of questioning our knowledge and opinions in the face of new evidence.

Why Thinking Like a Scientist Is Good for You

Have an end goal in mind when you're learning. 
<ul>
<li>What do you want to do with this information?</li>
<li>How is it going to improve your life?</li>
</ul>
Even if you just want to do it for fun, find a project you can't do without learning the skill.

Have a reason to study

Set some time aside to see what courses are available. Take advantage of any free lessons, watch the introductions to their classes and see if the instructor will be a good fit for your skill level and speed.

Find the right instructor

Watching online tutorial videos can become addictive. Keep in mind that you are trying to learn something, not get distracted.
How long you would be able to study depends on the density of the subject and the level of your knowledge about the subject.

Don’t binge

Find out the ideal time you can dedicate to learning, and also resting. Don't try to push yourself and to fill your mind with too much information in one session. Try to learn over multiple days to let the information sink in.

Time matters

Watch the lesson through once. Then watch it again while following along. You can also follow along from the start.Take notes. Write down important steps, tips and tricks.

Follow along and take notes

Once you've learned a new skill, try it out for yourself. You will make mistakes. When you do, review your notes and keep going.
You'll learn the most from your own early errors.

Practice on your own

Once you've learned something, review it regularly to make sure you don't forget it.It is not necessary to actively watch a lesson you've already seen. However, it can be useful to have one on in the background so you can tune in and out as needed.

Revise in the background

There's a lot wrong with the internet, but one of the best things about it is how easy it is to learn new skills. It's actually one of the big reasons I have this job: I taught myself photography and photo editing, and I got my break writing about it.

How to learn new skills online

As a mainstream understanding, we know of doodling as "absentminded scribbling". There are many different types of doodling such as: 
<ul>
<li>Infodoodles - which are used to explore and educate new ideas</li>
<li>Meditative Doodling - a practice of purposeful pen strokes that lead into quiet and reflective spaces</li>
<li>Zentangle Method - where beautiful and structured patterns are used.</li>
</ul>

Different Types Of Doodling

The benefits of doodling are: 
<ol>
<li>Feelings of relaxation</li>
<li>Mood regulation</li>
<li>Better memory recall</li>
<li>Increase in creativity and authenticity</li>
<li>Deepening of learning in a multimodal manner.</li>
</ol>

Benefits Of Doodling

There is a time and place for everything, and this includes doodling. 
<ul>
<li>Doodling in class or during a meeting is not helpful because doodling only improves memory recall if it is structured and combined with note-taking. </li>
<li>Unstructured doodling can be considered as being distracted and therefore only weakening your recall.</li>
</ul>

4 Reasons Why You May Be a Slow Learner

There’s no such thing as self-sabotage. A psychotherapist debunks the most common concepts that keep us stuck

The Fishing Line Technique - Noisli

The Halo Effect

The willpower paradox: when self-talk becomes counterproductive

Gael V.