How To Get New Skills

We tend to think about gaining new skills similar we think almost winning the lottery:

"Gee, information technology'd certain be squeamish…"

"…Think of all I could exercise with those new skills and abilities!"

"…But the odds of achieving this are and so small… mmm, gonna pass."

Merely while the lottery is a revenue enhancement on people who are overly optimistic, you don't demand luck, youth, or even a high IQ to gain that new skill you've been thinking almost. All you need is a little elbow grease and the right learning techniques.

Whether you desire to learn a new subject, proceeds a new skill, or just enhance the ones you already have, these 10 techniques will requite you the framework you need to achieve mastery.

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1. Ditch Your Learning Way

Ditch Your Learning Style

Are you a visual learner? Or is your learning style kinesthetic or auditory? I'll tell you a secret: you're none of these.

As much as we'd like to believe that nosotros acquire ameliorate in a certain style, the truth is, these have footling impact on our ability to learn.

In an intriguing talk at TEDxUWLaCrosse, Dr. Tesia Marshik shares a startling fact: 40 years of inquiry on learning styles has plant that matching teaching styles to learning styles makes no divergence at all. In her own experiments, Dr. Marshik found that students learned the same style, regardless of the way fabric was presented to them.

Some other study was a piddling more than blunt in its judgments:

The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within instruction and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our stance, striking and disturbing.

Yet the myth of learning styles persists, as a quick Google search will show you lot. So, what's actually the best way to learn? Information technology depends on what you're trying to larn in the first place.

For case, if you're trying to learn a new language, don't merely read the textbook. Scout TV shows, mind to music, and converse with a native speaker through a language exchange app.

In an age where everything is available at the click of a push, there are many ways to learn. The fundamental is to interact with the information. Using multiple sources will assist you with this. Don't stick to books alone—gather relevant videos, podcasts, movies, and blogs likewise!

2. Go far More Meaningful for Yourself

1 primary reason why "learning styles" don't work is that we acquire things in terms of meaning. Finding significant in our learning is the primal.

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A 1973 study by Hunt and Simon illustrates this well. In the starting time part of the exam, apprentice and proficient chess players were shown a chessboard organization from a game in progress and asked to recall the position of the pieces. While amateurs players could barely recall any of positions, the experts were able to recall most of them. The experts see the strategy, the meaning behind why the pieces are where they are.

In the second part, experts and amateurs were shown boards with the chess pieces arranged at random and asked to remember them. Both groups performed about equally. This time, the experts couldn't find whatever existent connection or meaning in the way the pieces are bundled.

The same goes for learning. Nosotros all learned various facts and figures in schoolhouse but how many of those do we actually remember? But the information that was meaningful to u.s.a., that nosotros've been able to connect to our own life and experiences.

If you endeavor to force yourself to just memorize random facts, yous're likely to forget them. Remember all those times y'all tried to memorize formulae without understanding their relevance? In society to make your learning stick, it's important to make existent life connections and see how it fits in the larger scheme of things.

The next time you have a finance form, instead of memorizing a formula, endeavour to empathize what relevance it has in exercise and how you can use it to your advantage. You'll find you lot're able to grasp the concepts much more chop-chop.

3. Acquire past Doing

Learn by Doing

Humans are natural learners—and we learn best when we perform the tasks nosotros're trying to learn. No matter how good your grades were at college, most of your learning takes place once you enter the workplace and outset applying what y'all've learned.

Let's say you're trying to learn SEO. Don't invest all your fourth dimension in learning the jargon and theory—dive in every bit soon equally y'all can to master the skill through trial and mistake. Outset a weblog. Write a few posts. Find out for yourself what works and what doesn't. The more you practice information technology, the more you acquire.

Amend yet, build new habits to enforce your new skills. Offset small and reward yourself to start edifice a design of behavior that volition reinforce what you're learning.

4. Study the Greats, and Then Do

Aspiring writers hear over and over that the best way to write better is to read a lot of books, peculiarly the classics. Why? Because they'll larn a lot more by studying the writing styles of peachy writers, than they would by taking a course on writing.

Let'due south take this communication a step further. While studying the greats is essential, it is more of a passive exercise. In lodge to gain from it, you need to employ that learning to your own work equally well.

One way to exercise this is to mimic experts until yous eventually develop your own style and technique. Benjamin Franklin taught himself to write this way, as he shares in his autobiography:

I took some of the papers (from The Spectator magazine), and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and and so, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and every bit fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand.

On comparison his work with the originals, he found where he was lacking, and started turning the tales into poems and then dorsum again. This is how he learned to express himself better.

This form of learning can be practical to whatever skill, be it writing, speaking another language, or even sports. Compare your work with that of experts in your field and you volition notice areas that need improvement. And so, refer back to step 3 and continue practicing your skills. You will notice the deviation.

5. Teach What You Learn

One of the more than surprising ways you can larn a new skill is to teach it to someone else. Much research has been done on this phenomenon, but 1 study illustrates it specially well.

In the study, two sets of participants study the same passage, with dissimilar expectations. One group was expected to teach information technology later, the other one expected a test on information technology. At the end, both groups were eventually tested on the fabric. Judge which group did better? Yep—the 1 that expected to teach it.

Why is this such an effective mode to learn? Considering when nosotros learn with the intention to teach, we suspension the textile down into simple, understandable chunks for ourselves. It also forces united states to examine the topic more than critically and thoroughly, helping united states to understand it better.

You don't have to be an education major to use this trick. Try explaining what you're learning to friends or coworkers. If y'all're learning a new business concern software or skill, inquire your boss if you can make a presentation to your team almost information technology. Come across if you can field all their questions. Write regular web log posts or brand vlogs while you're learning. Come across if you're able to express what you larn in simple words. The results might surprise you lot.

vi. Spend More Time Practicing Things You lot Find Difficult

Practice

Practice in itself is neat, but if you're practicing things y'all know well, you're doing it wrong. In society to excel at any skill, yous need to push yourself out of your condolement zone and practice things you aren't good at. This is known every bit deliberate practice, and was popularized by Anders Ericsson.

Ericsson and his team studied skillful athletes, violinists, and memory champions and found that they spent a lot of time improving areas they were weak. Additionally, they consulted their teachers to observe out where exactly they were lacking.

Forth with spending more time on your weaknesses, Ericsson also emphasizes the importance of concentration while practicing. If you're practicing while your mind is all over the place, you're not getting much out of it.

And so the adjacent time you sit to practice a new skill, step out of your condolement zone and challenge yourself. Concentrate on whatever is most hard for you lot, and with time yous'll find you achieve a higher level of overall efficiency.

7. Take Frequent Breaks

The brain has two modes—focused and diffused. For learning to happen, both modes are as important.

While in focused mode, y'all're able to acquire the nitty-gritties of a problem. In diffused way, you're amend able to see the big picture and bring it all together. You lot might have noticed this happening in the shower, when y'all're not focusing on anything in particular, so you suddenly remember a fact that was eluding you, or the solution to a problem.

Information technology'due south important to let your brain relax for a while after a particularly intense session of study or do, to give it time to connect the dots.

1 good way to practice this is using the Pomodoro technique, which has you work on a project for 25 minutes, and and so give yourself a five infinitesimal break. Afterwards iv such sessions (that is, 100 minutes of work, with 15 minutes of break) you lot accept some other break for 15-30 minutes. This technique helps to keep your mind invigorated, and ensures you lot don't endure mental fatigue.

As important is learning how to procrastinate productively, so your brain has time to truly recharge itself.

8. Test Yourself

We all loved to hate tests in school, simply do you know just how constructive they are in helping you lot learn? Turns out testing is one of the best ways to heave learning—even if you're simply practicing on your own, and non taking a high-stakes exam.

Testing even beats out methods such as re-reading and reviewing notes when it comes to making sure your learning sticks. An examination of the report techniques of height students past Elevate Educational activity establish that while about students re-read notes before exams, tiptop students spend their fourth dimension solving problems and taking practice exams.

Why is testing so effective? Because it takes recall a step farther. Recall shows how much of the material you retrieve. Testing shows you lot how well yous can employ what you've learnt. Later all, that is the ultimate goal of learning, isn't information technology?

9. Find A Mentor

Mentorship is maybe the quickest fashion to take your skills to the side by side level. A mentor helps yous navigate your field by offering invaluable perspective and experience.

Initially, look to friends, family unit, and coworkers for an expert in the skill you're trying to learn. If you come up with no ane, start branching out your search to your larger customs and manufacture.

When reaching out to experts, describe what you have to offer, rather than what yous volition gain. For example, perhaps y'all could manage their social media accounts or help write their website content. Whatever services yous can offering, be sure to let them know.

Business coach Michael Hyatt offers good advice nearly the inquire:

Though a true mentor may exist difficult to observe, information technology's non impossible. If you accept one in heed, start past building the relationship—just like you lot would anyone else. Don't lead with "Volition you be my mentor?" (That's like asking someone to marry y'all on the first date.) Instead, go to know them. Look for opportunities to be generous. Start small and see where it goes.

The primal is starting—the worst a person tin exercise is say no, and so enquire!

10. Be Curious

Be Curious

Nothing stimulates learning quite like curiosity! So, every bit Ms. Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus famously said: "Enquire questions, make mistakes, and get messy!"

Instead of letting a textbook guide your learning, you take the pb. Seek answers from many sources. Don't merely memorize theories and techniques—question them at every pace. Call up virtually why they matter, why they're relevant. Tinker with the tools and knowledge available. Run into what you end upwards discovering! You may terminate up surprising even yourself.

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Reading image by Aaron Burden . Crafts epitome by Rawpixel . Piano practice image by Joao Silas . Lightbulb image past Riccardo Annandale . Library image by Priscilla Du Preez .

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