The Secret To Becoming A Better Student Of Life
Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. --Frank Herbert, Dune
I've been reading Dune, and this was an excerpt about Paul the main character, who is the Muad'Dib, who becomes the ruler of the universe.
School is not where your learning stops.
Most of our learning takes place in school, and we grow to hate the learning process for its association to institutional education.
As much as the curriculum promotes critical thinking, it takes more than facts and statistics to be well adverse in thinking. You would take account to your own personal experiences, the lessons and objective truths you took from that, something the academics strays away from.
I'm here to provide bullet points on how to be a better student.
- Trust yourself
- Take action and always self reflect
- Listen attentively
- Don't be so arrogant
- Be open minded
#1 Trust Yourself
Have the confidence to trust in your ability to learn. If this fundamental truth is murky with your own psyche, expect unnecessary hardship when it comes to your self-identity. To learn something, while thinking you are not a good learner, is not congruent with the identity. One of these facts must be wrong. Both cannot be in a superposition of being right or wrong.
Perhaps you do not need to be a good learner. But be a life-long learner. What matters is you learn from your mistakes. A mistake that has no lesson is a mistake in of itself.
Being a leaner predicates on the assumption that you are not good, yet. You are not at the level of proficiency. This should not discourage you. It should propel you to take more necessary action to become better. The drive to be better is what creates the forward momentum. A mix of discipline and motivation. Most of all: obsession.
Bad self-talk is your enemy. I'll hear it all the time in my high school career. People were afraid of giving their answers, thinking they look like fools in front of the class. They stopped themselves from learning. To have the opportunity to be criticised. The opportunity to look at another perspective.
Like the Dune quote from the start of the article,
Do you trust yourself? Do you have faith in yourself? You are your worst enemy when it comes to self-limiting beliefs. Or is it you do not give yourself permission to ask the stupid questions?
#2 Take Action And Always Self Reflect
Personal responsibility plays a large factor in your learning. Commit to action. Be self critical at times. But know anything you do, you are responsible for your own learning.
What could I have done to prepare myself? What can I learn from this? Can I be grateful in learning a lesson in this?
I'd imagine there are a lot of people who walk through life without this kind of self-reflection. They continue doing the same mistakes because they haven't yet paused to think.
Poor decision making comes from poor thinking processes.
Thinking is perhaps the sharpest tool we have in our belt for learning. Before being caught in action, think, reposition ourselves and continue.
I'll give you an example that I've been using for decision making, it's the OODA Loop. It was created by a Second World War American fighter pilot when he was in dog fights. With this technique, he won every encounter he had with the enemy.
- Observe
- Orient
- Decide
- Act
Identify the lay of the land. Your current position. Then, aim for something. Anything. Mentally decide to take the necessary action. Finally, do it.
The loop part comes from continuing this cycle of process. Expect mistakes in your judgement. The general direction of improvement is up. However, you must execute on action to repeat the cycle again. Planning and preparation is nothing if you do not commit to it. They both become forms of procrastination and 'fake action taking'.
#3 Listen Attentively
Be fully present when listening to another person's words. Be attentive to what details reveal themselves to you. The cracks of knowledge reveal themselves. Prompt and ask the right questions to get an oil field of information.
It's the art of learning how to be focussed.
Currently, there's a war for your attention. The social media apps are vying for your precious time and attention. The methods they have implemented destroy your ability to stay on task. The repetitive hits of dopamine weaken your brain receptors, making your more prone to being distracted.
Being able to focus will be one of the most valued skills in the modern age of social media. Listening is a skill to carry over to your social life. People feel appreciation when you listen to them with your full presence. It means you care about them.
In terms of learning, listening has to be a conscious act. You may be present in the room, but your mind is not. It is thinking of something else. Pondering. Wondering. The words of the other party become sounds rather than meaning. You miss nuggets of knowledge.
If someone is better than you at a skill you want to get good at: listen. To do so is be either ignorant or arrogant of the opportunity in front of you.
#4 Don't Be So Arrogant
Adopt the Student Mindset. You are no master. What makes you think you know better?
I can recall being such the arrogant student when first being taught private piano lessons. My piano teacher gave me music I thought was too simple. I didn't rebut; I can be arrogant, but I'm not rude. So, I continued with the lessons with the same feeling of inferiority. Still, I think it was best because there was so much of the piano I have not learnt yet. Then, I realised, I know no better than the teacher across from me, who has a literal doctorates in piano playing.
Who's to say I know?
You may reach a point of mastery, but there is still so much to learn in your craft. Surround yourself with like-minded peers who may have new ideas, techniques that improves your craft.
Thinking you are better than the people you could learn from is missed opportunity to learn. Your own ego is prioritised than your self-development.
#5 Be Open Minded
Ray Dalio in his book Principles mentions being open to new ideas. It stops you from being closed off and clinging onto ideas that might objectively be wrong.
Open mindedness is willing to listen to the other side. To view it from their angle. To consider why and how they think a such.
There are two outcomes from this: your own perspective is changed, or is reinforced. There is no harm in being open minded. If your view cannot be debated with, it is most likely wrong. You want to test your ideas with others to check the validity of its logic and argument.
An example I can provide is high school. If your teacher suggests doing an extra practice exam or apply a study technique, why not try it? Is it out of laziness, or unwillingness to change from your old ways that stops you from trying?
Why not try? If it does not work, at least you learnt and continue to find what does.
I Know Nothing
"I know I know nothing" --Socrates
That is all I truly know.
This truth is what will stop your ego from taking control of your own learnings. Do not dismiss someone from their opinions. Find something to learn from them. They might know something that you do not. And that addition of knowledge can make a difference in your perspective.
Adapt your knowledge.
The basis of learning is having self-esteem. The courage to be a student who is still learning. To make the mistakes. Ask the stupid questions. To listen.
Nevertheless, never stop learning.