The most successful people are always learning. Learners have a mindset that prioritizes personal growth and knowledge over outcomes. To these people, the lessons gained on the journey is just as important as the destination. Therefore, if we want to achieve success, we must learn faster. Fortunately, learning itself is a skill, and you its something you can get better at.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
― Henry Ford
Learning How to Learn Faster
So how do we grow as learners? Here are 3 Principles to Learn Faster that we can use on our path to transformation. These can save you years of time and frustration, and we will break each down in detail in this post
1. Focus
2. Learning Modality
3. Learning Methodology
Focus on One or Two Areas at a Time
Growing quickly is largely about prioritization. For instance, you may feel like you’re deficient in many of the 8 Pillars of Life right now. Maybe your finances, physical health, relationships, and emotional health are all not where you’d like them to be. However, if you try to tackle all of these head-on at once, it will be very difficult to gain traction. For one thing, you only have so much time and energy, and developing new habits takes a lot of both. For another thing, your beliefs and perspectives probably need to change in each of these areas, and shifting a paradigm can be overwhelming if you don’t have anything familiar to hold onto.
In other words, in order to learn faster, we need to choose one or two areas to focus on at a time. We must accept our limitations, determine the area where we most need to grow, and turn our attention away from the others for the time being. If you’re really driven like me, this can be extremely difficult. However, I promise you that achieving momentum in one area is so much better than fighting uphill for every inch in three or four. Commit to focus, and you will go farther in less time.
Find Your Learning Modality
Your learning modality is your learning style. It’s the way you most naturally capture and apply new information. For instance, visual learners gain understanding through images. In order to grasp a concept, they need to see it in action or draw it in a picture. In contrast, auditory learners need to verbally process something to get it, or they need to hear somebody articulate it well. Auditory learners are also typically musical and remember songs and lines of dialogue very well. Meanwhile, kinesthetic learners prefer to engage their bodies and interact physically in order to pursue mastery more effectively. They like to use their hands and feet.
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
― Albert Einstein
It’s very important that you discover which of these styles is yours in order to learn faster. Once you know how you learn, you can creatively find ways to apply new information more efficiently. When you engage your learning modality, growth can become pleasant and even fun!
Use Your Preferred Learning Methodology
Learning methodology is the context or environment in which you gain understanding the best. It’s about who or what you’re learning from. There are four main types of learning methodologies:
- Self-learning
- Coaching
- Tutoring
- Apprenticeship
Self-learning means that you do best when you can go off on your own and practice something without anyone looking over your shoulder. Coaching is mostly self-learning, but with someone checking your work and giving detailed feedback on its strengths and weaknesses. Tutoring involves more one-on-one interaction than coaching and is great for accelerating highly specific skills. Apprenticeship is studying under a master – a combination of the other three. This final methodology is often best for mastering a specific role or overall lifestyle. Each of these methodologies can help you learn faster. The right fit depends on what you’re trying to learn and how you personally work.
Remember: Success and Growth are One and the Same
Success isn’t just about the outcomes we achieve. It’s about the person we become. Those who spend their whole lives chasing material results like money or even physical health usually end up miserable and filled with regret. That’s why it’s so important that we change our definition of success to transformation.
This is why I started the Journey Principles Institute. I wanted to create an organization that helped people grow in character and capability so that they can reach their full potential in every area of life. Here we’re dedicated to lifelong learning, and we want to give away what we know to you so that you can achieve your dreams at an accelerated rate.
Right now we’re making our entire library of E books available to you for free. These are resources designed to help you learn faster, grow in self awareness and build the right inner circle, just for starters.