Put an average joe next to someone of success, and you’ll find that
the latter had more knowledge to get to where they are today.
While there’s only so much time in the day to learn new skills, you
can accelerate how fast you learn something. Whether you want to learn a new language, real estate, or how to start a business, the person who can learn faster will always have the upper hand in life.
Here are 5 powerful steps to learn anything faster:
1. Method beats hours
When it comes to learning something new,
the method will always beat the number of hours you put into something.
This isn’t to say that the number of hours isn’t important, but you
should choose which method will give you the best results.
For example, let’s say two people were driving from Boston to New
York City. It doesn’t matter how skilled or committed the first driver
is. If he’s driving a beat up pickup truck, and the second driver has a
Ferrari, the first driver will lose.
Your method is the vehicle that will become the engine of where you
want to go. With anything you want to learn, there will be dozens of
available methods to follow, and “experts” to learn from. This means
that you want to spend a lot of time understanding who you’re learning
from, what credibility they have, and how it fits with your learning
style.
“Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.” —Tim O’Reilly
2. Apply the 80/20 rule
As a reader of Addicted2Success, you’ve probably heard of Pareto’s
Law. It was a concept developed by an Italian economist, Vilfredo
Pareto, which explains that 80% of your desired outputs will come from
only 20% of your inputs.
While the exact ratio varies from situation to situation, you’ll find that:
- 20% of people in your life will lead to 80% of your happiness
- 20% of your customers will drive 80% of your sales
- 20% of your learning methods will lead to 80% of your results
When it comes to learning, it feels like there’s so much we don’t
know, so it’s easy to jump around everywhere. This will only lead to
wasted time. What you want to do is focus on the one or two things that
will drive the needle for what you want to achieve, and double down on
them.
For example, if you’re learning Spanish to travel this summer, instead of learning how to write or read, you should learn how to speak Spanish.
Or instead of trying to please a dissatisfied customer that’s only
paying you $37/month, you should add 10x more value to a customer that’s
paying you $1,000/month.
3. Learn by doing
Immersion is by far the best way to learn anything. And as research shows, it turns out that humans retain:
- 5% of what they learn when they’ve learned from a lecture.
- 10% of what they learn when they’ve learned from reading.
- 20% of what they learn from audio-visual.
- 30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration.
- 50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion.
- 75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned.
- 90% of what they learn when they use immediately.
Think back to how you learned to play basketball, ride a bicycle, or
swim. Instead of watching tutorial videos or reading a textbook on how
to do something, the way to learn faster is to get into the trenches and
gain experience through mistakes.
4. Find a coach
From business titans to professional athletes, the people performing
at the highest level all have one thing in common. They have a coach.
According to best-selling author, Seth Godin, there are five reasons you might quit in anything you do:
- You run out of time (and quit)
- You run out of money (and quit)
- You get scared (and quit)
- You’re not serious about it (and quit)
- You lose interest (and quit)
Having a coach allows you to see the blind spots that you couldn’t
see before, and guide you through the tough times that inevitably comes
when you’re learning anything new.
A coach doesn’t have to cost $1M a year, like what Tony Robbins
charges, or even $1,000. If you’re trying to learn a language, you could
have a language coach you work with. If you’re trying to learn an
instrument, it could be finding a private teacher to help you.
The point is, you’re not going at it alone. And having someone that’s
keeping you accountable can take you miles further than doing
everything yourself.
5. Process over performance
Doing the work is often the hardest thing for most people. A common mistake people make when they’re learning something new
is to focus on performance over process. It’s hard to see any
consistent results until you have put in a significant amount of work
upfront.
For writers, this is sitting down and writing 500-words a day, no
matter how bad it may turn out. For athletes, this is waking up every
morning and training, no matter how groggy and sore you feel. For
language learners, it’s forcing yourself to speak the language everyday,
no matter how many mistakes you make or how uncomfortable you may feel.
“Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.” — Woody Allen
Taking small steps may not sound sexy, but it has been the proven
path to follow for anything you’ll want to achieve in your life and
business.
