You're gonna spends thousands and thousands of hours learning over the course of your life. And what's crazy is that despite all that time in the classroom, you might be learning slowest way possible! Not because your teachers didn't have good intentions, but because they did not know how to teach you to optimize that learning experience.
There are ways, principles, that you can apply to everything, from martial arts to business, that is going to help you lap your competition. So right now think about something in your life in which you want to progress and simply apply this 5 tips and watch yourself learning it fast.
Tip #1 - Measure a smaller unit of success
Let's explain it with two salesmen. The first salesman wants to measure whether he's successful in calls or not. Good thing to measure. But the second one is going smaller. He measures little milestones. First milestone: is person staying on the phone for more than 10 seconds. The second milestone did I finish my entire 30-second pitch. Thirds milestone did they ask me a buying question within first 2 minutes. And so on, all the way through the close. The point here is that a guy with smaller milestones is going to do better because he can diagnose where he's going wrong. The first guy only knows is things are generally going well or not. He got no data and no analytics.
Tip #2 - Pick only one thing at the time
Pick something which is best for you and applies it until it becomes an unthinking habit. Best improvements are made when you go very specifically through things. Let's say you want to play to learn to play basketball. The first week go only for shooting, the second week you can dribble and the third week you may want to learn to play defense. If you try to do all that at once it's gonna be too much and you'll probably fail. So focus on one thing, make it a habit, and then move along.
Tip #3 - Shorter periods of study every day are way better than long, sporadic learning sessions
Learning comes from repetition. Some can say that they did 8 hours straight of study and do fine on their exams. Yes, but how much did they remember 5 days after? If you are trying to improve a skill then you are trying to rewire your brain and create new neural pathways. Let's say you are playing a piano. If you sit down for 5 hours and play, play, play, play and then you come back a week later you are NOT gonna have it. But if you sit down for half of hour every day for a week you are going to review what you did in the much shorter time span. That's going to help you learn faster.
Tip #4 - When starting, test many different methods; when growing stick with one
When you are starting, let's say improving your comedy, go to a bunch of different clubs. Find the one that works for you. Once you find the on that is making you grow the fastest, that you like the most, double down on that.
Tip #5 - Debrief to avoid repeating the same mistake
If you ask someone what's wrong you can avoid making that one mistake all over again and make it only once. Don't be afraid of asking for second opinions when you don't know what are you doing wrong.
