Students need to learn something new all the time. They do that for their work, for studying, for personal growth, etc. But not everyone feels it easy to learn new things.
This article is called to help you learn how to learn.
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1. Love It
In the very beginning of your way, you need to understand that nothing will go well if you are going to hate the subject. A person who liked it will be a hundred steps further than you.
I can’t say how to love the subject you study because every person is different and every subject is special. You need to find your approaches that will fit you.
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2. Read About It
You need to choose the right literature to learn the subject well. Yes, people like to say that practice is the most important. But a good theory is a solid and reliable basement for your future knowledge.
Ask people who know the subject, go to specialized websites and forums, go to specialists to get advice. Choose right materials, and go build your own fundament.
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3. Try It
If you want to be a writer, you need to write. If you want to be a programmer, you need to code. If you want to become a businessman, you need to start your business.
Yes, you are going to do things badly or to fail doing them at all in the beginning. That’s fine. At first, quantity is important, not quality. The secret of happiness is not in the knowledge about being big, but in the knowledge about how to grow up. Start with small things and don’t stop.
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4. Find a Teacher
You can study everything on your own. We all know it is the online-education age when you can get multiple professions without leaving home. But believe, things will happen much faster if you find a good mentor.
Find a person who is cooler than you on the subject of learning. There are many people who are ready to share their experience for free (though paying them obviously makes it all more productive). Create a list of questions and ask a mentor about them several times a week. Let your teacher to give you homework tasks and to point our your mistakes.
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5. Study History, Study Reality
If you want to know how to become a really great writer/programmer/businessman/whoever else, you need to study history.
For instance, a programmer should learn through the machine language, find out how operating systems had been created, to read about old languages of programming, to study biographies of great programmers and developers.
A writer has to read great books of the past. Books which passed through time and haven’t lost their greatness. It is good to read famous criticists in order to see and understand things you missed in your writing.
A businessman should study biographies of Rockefeller, Carnegie, a story about how Apple, Google, Samsung and other successful companies were created. Concentrate on stories telling about the behavior of businessmen and companies during their crisis times.
Read about people and things that changed the world or improved it a bit. Note the most important facts and read your notes from time to time.
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6. Start from Simple Things
Before establishing his air company, Richard Branson used to breed parrots, to grow firs, to publish a magazine and to do many other things. He doubtfully could be able to launch his air company without having business experience. And now everyone knows him as the owner of a very good company.
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t start from Facebook. Bill Gates didn’t start from Windows, and Robert Jordan didn’t write his “Wheel of Time” at once. Almost all successful people start from simple projects.
Start from simple. Then you’ll be more confident about yourself in future.
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7. Study What You’d Done Already
After enough time passes, you should come back to your very first jobs. Read or look them through once more. Find mistakes, correct them. Try finding solutions which are better than your previous ones. Why not to learn from mistakes you had already made? Ask yourself a question: “How can I improve my job?”. But still, avoid getting lost in perfectionism.
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8. You are the Average of People in Your Environment
Try to pay attention to successful people and those they communicate or used to communicate with. You will notice that most of successful people are connected with people like them.
It is said, that if you add monthly payments of your five closest friends and then divide that number by 5, you’ll get the approximate amount of funds you get as an income. Do you understand the point? You need to grow up, and to choose the appropriate circle of connections. We don’t say about pride here, but try communicating with people who are smarter than you. You’ll have to compete and become better as a result.
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9. Practice Every Day
They recommend all newbie programmers to code at least 10 lines every day. You improve your knowledge when devoting much time to the subject.
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10. Find Your Tricky Plan
A student becomes a master as a result. IF he or she was brave enough to stay on the way. There comes a moment when a student becomes smarter than the teacher who helped him or her. That is the goal to study something itself: to overcome your mentors.