When we consider learning a new skill, we often concentrate on how difficult it will be to get good, never mind become a master. We need a different set of thinking skills to help us move forward.
"I could never do that."
How often do we hear that phrase, either from people we know or from ourselves, spoken by a tiny—though often loud and vociferous—inner voice? I’m willing to bet that we hear it every day, and more from ourselves than we care to admit. That inner voice telling us that something is outside the range of our ability is heard every minute in some cases. In fact it’s heard so often that we stop hearing it, even though the effects can be disastrous for our self-confidence and our ability to gain it. We get so used to this voice telling us that we are useless or have no ability that it becomes like background noise. We are so used to it that we don’t recognize it’s there until it gives us a headache. And a permanent headache at that…
The trouble is we can’t shut it off. Or can’t seem to…
Where does this problem come from, this constantly underestimating our abilities to do things? One of the problems is that we forget what it is like to be a child. Even when we have children of our own, and we watch them going through their own learning experiences—sometimes struggling to learn, but more often learning effortlessly—we somehow can’t, or don’t, see the great truth that this can teach us.
Small beginnings
Take reading, for instance. When a child learns to read, he begins by learning his ABC, or whatever script is used by his language. He learns the characters and that’s it. A thought such as: “It’s pointless learning these because I’ll never get good enough to read all those big, thick books I see on the library shelves.” And neither would his parents dream of putting a thick book in his hands and tell him that he should get on with learning to read and leave him to get on with it.
A child learns the letters, and then some simple words, and then he progresses to reading more complicated texts. And if you’ve ever watched a child go through the stages of reading comprehension, you’ll have very likely witnessed a pretty amazing thing. It isn’t that children can learn to read, that they can learn abstract symbols and recognize that they can communicate concepts and ideas of objects (though that is pretty amazing). The thing that is amazing is the increase in the rate of learning once the child reaches a certain point. Once he gets in his stride, there’s no stopping him.
What does this teach us? It teaches us that the early parts of any learning experience are always the most difficult, and that once we get over the initial hurdles the learning experience generally becomes easier. Once we have the basics in place, we can begin to make connections with all sorts of other information—and not always information within the same subject—and our growth can become exponential.
This is just common sense, and yet adults forget this, and usually don’t remember it, even when they see children manifesting this ability to tackle a learning experience without problem. This is the key to learning anything, and the child knows it instinctively, or to be more accurate there are many things that the child does not “know” or care about, and therefore just isn’t hampered by them.
Building blocks
When a child begins to play with building blocks, he doesn’t think of the house he will eventually be able to build. He concentrates on balancing on block on top of another, or sticking two Lego bricks together. Only when he has mastered these basics does he move on. Until that time, he doesn’t care about the great models he will build, the great books he will read. He cares only about learning what he can learn at that moment, and enjoying it at that. Paradoxically, the less the child cares about getting better, the better he gets.
The reason children can do this is because of their lack of thought—and more importantly their lack of worry. Here are three things to think about when you need to learn something new.
Children don’t think in terms of getting better
For a child, simply doing in that moment is all there is. You can do the same. Now is all there is, and when you use the “now” effectively, you’ll find that the “tomorrow”, the future, is much more likely to be as the “now” guided it to be.
Children don’t think in terms of aims
Children don’t think in terms of learning in order to do something bigger or more difficult.
For a child, the long journey ahead simply doesn’t exist. Adults often concentrate on thinking about the journey and how hard it is to reach the destination, instead of concentrating on now. Of course, we need to think of the destination and we need to think of improving ourselves. But to confuse the destination with the steps we take to reach it is a mistake.
Children aren’t bothered by learning the basics
A child can sometimes concentrate for hours on doing a simple thing, and by doing that will master the basics that will lead to the rapid learning later on. Adults get bored if they have to do the same thing for more than five minutes. Learn to not expect rapid progress at the beginning of an undertaking. Learn the basics and the learning will be mch easier later on.
So if you want to learn something—especially if you find yourself looking at the end result and feeling disheartened at the thought of ever being good enough—take some advice from a child. Start now. Enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about running. Learn to walk first. One day you’ll be running so fast you won’t even remember not being able to walk.
Most kids—at least those under the age of 15—have never read Friedrich Nietzsche, but they know instinctively what he meant when he said: “He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”
They know instinctively that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step… and they don’t even care how long the journey is.
What journey will you start today? Which “ABC” of which subject or skill will you begin today?
Happy learning! (Inspiration Insights)
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