The Simple Secret To Learning

Wouldn't it be great if there was a specific secret method that we could use for all our learning - one technique that we could apply and we'd be able to learn anything and everything with ease? It wouldn't be hard anymore; it wouldn't take forever; we could all be geniuses regardless of our talent and intelligence! We could fill our heads with all the knowledge in the world and it would be as easy as... tying your shoelaces!?

You once learned to tie your shoelaces. Can you remember how hard that was? Can you imagine now that you ever found it hard?

Everything you've ever done and everything you know, you've acquired through the process of learning. You've gathered information, facts, experiences, abilities, skills, behaviors, values, language, wisdom and knowledge of enormous scope and range - you began learning the moment you were born, you've been learning every moment you've lived and you will continue to learn every moment until you die.

Learning is a process you do, not something that is done to you. You can be "taught", but only what you retain is what you have learned. And you don't need to be taught in order to learn.

What we've learned plays a huge role in defining who we are, how we view ourselves, how we view the world and life. The decisions we make throughout life, are based on what we've learned about how we feel, in relation to the consequences (real or expected) of actions that affect us.

The whole of our life is a process of development - and survival - through learning.

Given the fact that we have been learning all our lives and we're learning everyday, then it's obvious that it is in our nature to learn - we can't help it, we can't stop it, and it happens pretty much automatically. Why then do we think we have a problem with learning? Well really we don't have a problem with learning in general - just with "having to learn", "having to learn something we don't want to learn", and "wanting to learn something that we don't want to put any effort into".

This type of learning is tiring, it puts a strain on our brain, it takes up our time and demands a lot of patience waiting for the required results. We attempt, without one scrap of motivation, to cram stuff into our heads that we know we'll never need, or be able to remember should we need it; or we start, and re-start, full of enthusiasm, and give up often - blaming ourselves for lack of talent, lack of intelligence or a waning memory. Better not to even bother trying to learn.

Learning can occur consciously or without conscious awareness, and in many different ways, including the following:

• Conditioning and Habituation: where we develop certain responses to stimuli,
• Observational: the imitation and repetition of observed behavior,
• Play: in which a specific activity can prepare us for similar activities as we grow to adulthood,
• Rote learning: whereby material is memorized so that it can be recalled exactly as it was read or heard,
• Informal learning: occurring through the experience of day-to-day situations - learning from life!
• Formal learning: via a teacher-student relationship,
• Nonformal learning: through the interaction with other people of similar interests, and exchanging viewpoints,
• Tangential learning: self education of a subject of personal interest.

Learning is also divided into three separate, but not mutually exclusive, domains:

• Cognitive: analyzing, problem-solving, discussing, calculating, recalling...
• Psychomotor: dancing, swimming, driving.....
• Affective: to like or love something (someone) - love, hate, fear, worship.....

More importantly than types of learning however, are the types of "learners".And we can divide learners into 3 styles:

1. Listening learners,
2. Seeing learners,
3. Touch/experience learners.

To understand the difference of each style, take a look at this example:

Using one of life's earliest lessons - "The Stove Can Burn You".

1. Listening learners heard their mother, believed the information, and never touched a stove.
2. Seeing learners watched their brother touch the stove, and never touched it.
3. Experience learners touched the stove; but only once!

(Source: World Wide Learn.com)

In reality, learning is neither easy nor hard. It is your personal experience of learning that makes it seem one or the other - and it depends on what is being learned, and who is doing the learning.

If you've struggled to learn to play the piano for 30 years, without success, then you obviously find learning the piano extremely hard. But if your child is playing Bach at 5 years old, then it can't really be hard can it? And why then does your child have so much trouble learning simple arithmetic when you can't remember it ever being so difficult?

This is of course absurdly obvious - different people have different capacities to learn different things. But you have to be careful to get your thinking right - and when you remember that learning as a concept isn't hard, then you can be more realistic in understanding the difficulty you may have in learning a specific subject. People are so good at clumping their failures together under the heading "I can't do that!" Well, this sort of thinking doesn't make learning any easier. Instead, you should be thinking "I can't do that yet, because I haven't learned how to yet...but I could learn!"

Have you ever heard yourself say "It's easy when you know how,"? This is the absolute truth, and it applies to all the things you can do now. But you had to learn those things too - some seemed easier to learn than others, but you learned them all, and now you find them easy. You may even have once thought that you could never learn some of the things you have learned - but you've proved the contrary. This is the same for all the things you find difficult to learn now. You can learn them, and when you have, they will seem easy.

I can tell you now, there is no one special technique that you can apply to all your learning, that will enable you to pour information into your brain instantly, or give you the talent to master an activity without practice... not yet anyway (who knows what the future will bring!)

But there is a simple mindset you can adopt that will alter the emotions you associate with the learning process - illustrated in the examples below:

• We read the newspaper and learn about the world... we are not trying to learn about the world, we are just reading the newspaper.

• We watch a documentary, and come away with a whole new batch of information and knowledge... we are not trying to learn or remember that information, we just watched a documentary.

• We discuss some subject with friends over a drink, and gain new insights and advice that we can utilize... no active learning process applied.

• We play around on the computer, just pushing buttons and seeing where they take us and what they do - and before long we're adept in digital data research.

• We write a hundred articles for Hubpages and become expert writers and speedy typists... without ever having tried to learn how to be a writer, or how to type.

Do you see what I'm getting at? The simple secret to learning is, simply...

                                    "Don't learn - just Do!"

*Distance yourself from the idea that you are trying to learn: read information as if you were reading a newspaper - passively and with curious interest.

*Stop trying to speed up the process: step by step, little by little, relaxed and without haste;

*Focus on what you are doing, and not on what you can't do: later you'll be ready to do that too;

*Expel all your expectations: they only lead to frustration when you don't measure up to them;

*Accept mistakes, faults, and frustrations with a smile, and look at the problem objectively;

If you can involve yourself in new activities that you want to learn, in the same comfortable, relaxed, recreational state you feel when you're doing something you already do well, you won't feel like you're are learning at all - but you will be learning, and improving and developing, without stress and without difficulty... and isn't that just how you would want it?

http://hubpages.com/hub/Essential-Guide-On-How-To-Learn-Any-Language

It doesn't matter which language you have chosen, getting the right mindset is your best preparation.

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