Learning To Learn

Have you ever felt like I'm dumb/stupid I can not understand this while you were trying to learn something?

Maybe you checked out different resources, tutorials, books, etc and you still feel like you can't learn. Well, I have been there. That has happened to me. Being self-taught has advantages and disadvantages but that's a topic for another time because learning to learn is a skill and not particular to tech so we are going to talk about that today. There are scientific researches about learning to learn but I'm not going to get into that instead I'm going to share my personal experience and perspective about it.

I said that I had been there. I felt like the problem is me and I thought that I needed to be a genius or have some specific skills to be able to understand this topic. Well, that wasn't the case. I found out that I don't have to be a genius or have some kind of superpower. Anybody can learn anything when the conditions and resources are suitable.

Let's think about it,

  • What if the resource/course is not suitable for us?
  • That teaching style is not appropriate for us?

These questions can go on. It can be the best resource out there and everyone could be learning from it but still, that doesn't make it suitable for us.

We live in 21. century and it's very easy to reach the information. But on the other hand easy to get lost too. We do not need to overthink what if this one is bad and the other one is better, just consider anything as experience and try the one you want. If you don't like it or don't do well move to the second one. You're eventually gonna reach where you want to be and learn whatever you want.

According to the dictionary, one of the definitions of learning is that the knowledge that you get from reading and studying or working. You might be thinking okay, that is kind of clear we get the knowledge from anywhere (tutorials, books, the whole internet, etc) but it doesn't sink in.

For me personally, I really had a hard time learning something in the past until I discovered how I can learn. I didn't even know this is a skill or there are researches about that. Real learning occurs when you associate that knowledge you gain with your real life. You don't have to use it directly at the moment. Using your imagination just thinking about a moment you'd use it is going to help you to deeply understand what you can do with this information.

One can learn easily from books but you might not like them at all, you may like video tutorials. One needs to learn the theory first to be able to do the practice.

For me, I like to check many different resources and read whatever I found in order to understand that topic. Some resources have more technical explanations and others are simply explaining in plain English. I also consider myself more a practical learner. Then I can learn the theory easily. There are people who will disagree and will tell you that you can not understand deeply without knowing the theory. Basically, everyone is different. Everyone's experience, imagination, learning is different. Gotta find suitable tools/resources for you and use them.

You have reached to a certain point in life, you learned a lot of skills. Even if you think you knew nothing what about talking, walking, going somewhere like the basic stuff? What that means is you have this skill too. Now, it is time to think deeper about it, understand and improve this skill. Then, there will be nothing you can not do or learn. You might be asking how? The answer is simple, try out different skills and do not scare to suck at something at the beginning.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Thanks for reading, Like, comment and share and watch out for more articles from me. Happy Learning!