Becoming a Self-Directed Learner: Operationalizing Your Learning

All of the work that you’ve done creating your vision and respective goals, assessing your skills, and getting organized leads up to this. It’s showtime! Before you set off on your learning journey, there is an important set of guidelines to consider.

As a Kwik Brain student, I wanted to pay tribute to Jim Kwik's FASTER model, a tool for helping you effectively tackle the learning challenge before you. Kwik has tons of resources on this topic and I highly recommend checking out his book, podcasts, and articles. Here is my teach back on what the FASTER model means for optimizing learning.

F is for Forget

There is an old expression that goes like this: to be committed to continuous learning, you must “empty your cup.” It is based on a story in which a scholar visits a Zen master for wisdom, and upon his visit, the Zen master invites him in for tea. As the Zen master pours tea for the scholar, he continues to pour even after the teacup is full. As the scholar notices the tea overflowing, he exclaims, “Stop! The cup is full already. Can’t you see?” The Zen master smiles at the scholar and explains that just like the cup, the scholar’s mind was so full of ideas and convictions that nothing more could be absorbed.

The principle the Zen master was imparting was to forget what you thought you knew about the topic at hand, and approach learning with a beginner’s mindset.

To embrace new ideas, you must be willing to let go of old ones that are not working for you anymore.

For information about this concept, check out Barry O’Reily’s book Unlearn

The other thing to forget is your limitations, or what you think your limitations are. In other words, don’t go into your learning experiences weighed down with negative thoughts about your ability to learn something new.

Reflection Questions:

• Before you set upon learning anything, take note of what you think you know. Are you ready to consider viewpoints that may contrast with yours?
• When was the last time you went into learning something new with a completely fresh mind? What did it feel like?
• What do you feel might be preventing yourself from learning more?
• What could you do to clear your mind the next time you are going to learn something?

A is for Act

Think about the last presentation you sat through where you just passively listened. How much knowledge did you really walk away with? Research shows that the more cognitively engaged you are in the learning process, the more likely you will be able to retain information long-term.

So, what do you need to do to be “cognitively engaged” in learning? The key to active learning is curiosity.

To quote a 13th-century Persian poet, popularly known as, Rumi,

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.”

As you approach any sort of learning task, ask yourself what about it piques your curiosity.

Jim Kwik recommends creating a list of 5-9 “power questions” before learning. These are questions that get to the heart of what’s important for you to know. What do you really want to get out of this technical content? Even if what you need to learn is not at the top of your list of interesting material, you can find something that you can connect with.

If you’re reading a textbook, draft your list of questions at the beginning of each chapter, highlight the text that can help you answer those question, and then answer them at the end.

If you’re attending a presentation, draft your questions before hand, take note of the clues as you hear them, or ask your questions throughout if your questions aren’t being addressed. Being a shy learner will not work to your advantage. This doesn’t mean you have to be the person that constantly interrupts the speaker with questions. But you should have your hand up at each available opportunity and even consider engaging the speaker when the presentation is done.

Being a life-long learner is much more than attending a series of courses. It’s about committing to being constantly curious and always asking questions. As part of your regular journaling, considering a place where you can document your continuous inquiry.

Networking is also an important tool for active learning. As you come up with questions, you may think of people who can answer your questions or lead you to the resources that might help you. Or perhaps you can brainstorm with people you know who have the same questions. There is a world of curious people out there just like you who would love to talk. Make learning a social activity.

Reflection Questions

• What can you do personally to become more active in your next learning opportunity?
• What are the top 7-9 power questions that your curiosity compels you to ask?
• How do you currently ask questions to help you learn? What behaviors do you need to change to improve your personal inquiry?

S is for State

All learning is state dependent, meaning that you must put yourself in an optimal state for learning something new. Take a minute to recall the last time you were in your “learning zone” or “in the flow.” Being in the flow means that you are completely immersed in the task at hand.

Jim Kwik provides five tips to being in the flow for learning.

1.    Eliminate distractions – start off by putting your phone where you can’t see it. If you’re using any digital device for your learning task, close out of every app and window that you don’t need.

2.    Give yourself enough time – Kwik explains that even when the conditions are right, it takes at least 15 minutes to get into a flow and you don’t even reach your peak until 45 minutes in. This means you should block out at least 90 minutes for the task at hand.

3.    Do something you love – It probably goes without saying you will be able to be more focused on anything that captures your interest, having a strong emotional tie to what you are learning will lock in your attention. With that said, you know you won’t love everything you have to learn. This is where the power of curiosity comes in. If you can learn to love being curious and apply that curiosity to something you might not traditionally like, it will help significantly. It also helps to remind yourself why you are learning something. How does it tie into your vision?

4.    Have clear goals – As mentioned before, if you can tie in your learning task to your overarching goals, you will be more engrossed. It also provides you with a tangible beginning and an end to your learning efforts. When you sit down to learn anything, you should have in mind what the outcome of that session is.

5.    Challenge yourself…a little – Learning is growing and growing always requires us to go out of our comfort zone to some degree. If you are not challenging yourself enough, you’ll be bored and lose focus. Imagine driving slowly down a straight, empty road. You will probably be tempted to look around and multi-task, whereas if you are navigating traffic at a faster speed, you will be more focused. On the other hand, over-challenging yourself will result in frustration, so be mindful of the level of difficulty you’re stepping into.

Managing Your Emotions

You will not get very far in learning if you are harboring heavy, negative emotions. We’ve all experienced this. Maybe you got into a heated argument with your partner or friend, you sit down to do something, and you just can’t let go of your anger which has dominated your focus. Luckily, you can do something about this, and mindfulness mediation can help.

In his podcast on Falling In Love with Learning, Kwik compares the mind to a thermostat as opposed to a thermometer. A thermometer is simply reactive to its environment has no control, but a thermostat can read the environment and adjust. Like a thermostat, you have the ability to control your emotions as long as you are first aware of them. The faster you can acknowledge your emotions and take action to change them, the faster you can put yourself into an optimal state to learn.

Managing Your Environment

What does your learning environment look like? What does it sound like? Smell like? Feel like? As a committed learner, you need to consider all the things in your environment that impact your senses. Before settling into your next learning experience, do a quick sensory assessment.

What can you see?

First, look around you and notice what you can see. What is in your environment that could catch your eye and drag your attention away from your studies? It could be the clutter on your desk, it could be your family, or it could be your cat knocking over that clutter on your desk. Also consider what type of lighting you have in your learning space. Are you in a dimly lit room that’s going to strain your eyes? Or conversely, are you in a room with bright florescent lights that might irritate you over time?

What do you hear?

Next, close your eyes and pay attention to what you can hear. Are you studying in a busy café with people talking, music playing, and espresso machines buzzing? Try to minimize your auditory distractions and consider incorporating what can help you focus.

Jim Kwik recommends Baroque music such as Bach or Handel. Research shows that since Baroque music runs between 50 and 80 beats per minute, it resembles the heartbeat and helps put the brain into an alpha wave state that is optimal for learning.

What do you feel?

Now focus your attention on how your body feels. Are you too cold? Too hot? Is there something that could be rubbing against your skin and irrupting you to the point of distraction?

 What do you smell?

Finally, take note of what you can smell. Kwik explains that smell is an overlooked sense when it comes to learning and to consider using a distinct smell that can help trigger your memory. He suggests having some sort of scent nearby when you study and using the same scent when you have to recall the information such as during an exam.

Learning by Exploring

There are times a when you, as a Self-Directed Learner, may find yourself in uncharted territory and need to explore beyond what is neatly packaged into a textbook. Your curiosity may take you beyond the resources that are readily available.

Earlier, we addressed the need to be an active learner and to maintain a state of inquiry. If you find yourself learning through experimentation, you need to consider what you can do to put yourself in a creative state. Consider what playful activities you can incorporate into your routine that get the creative juices flowing. Making the space to laugh, play, and just to be plain silly can prepare your mind for discovering new ideas and possibly innovating.

Natalie Nixon’s The Creativity Leap is also a great resource for learning how to engage your creativity by toggling between states or wonder and rigor.

Reflection Questions

• What can you do to put yourself in your learning flow?
• What emotions have you observed in your latest learning sessions?
• How do you need to change or adapt your environment to be more focused?
• What works for you to put yourself into a creative state?

T is for Teach

In this part of the FASTER model, Kwik stresses the importance of learning with the intention of teaching. He states, “When you teach something, you get to learn it twice; once on your own, and then again through educating another person.” Challenge yourself to make learning social and you will take your learning to a whole new level.

There are a number of ways you can do this:

• Lead a topical group discussion where you explain the key points and elicit responses from the group.
• Have a peer-to-peer discussion with someone who is learning the same topic and practice teaching back the key points.
• Find a friend or partner who will graciously let you teach them what you’ve learned.
• Record yourself explaining the topic on video or audio and post it to a blog. You can also decide to keep it private for your personal learning purposes.

Regardless of the teach back method you use, what’s important is that you find a way to verbally relate the information which will help entrench the information in your long-term memory. Knowledge is a beautiful thing and it’s worth sharing!

Reflection Questions

• How have you relayed information you’ve learned in the past? Has it helped you to better retain the information?
• What teach back method listed above might work for you?

E is for Enter

Making time for personal development can be a big challenge, especially when you have competing priorities – projects, chores, family activities. If you have gotten this far in the Self-Directed Learning process, you probably don’t need to be convinced on the importance of learning for your personal growth. Even so, if pays to be organized and to find time each week to work on your learning goals.

In the previous blog for of this series, Getting Organized, we talked about the importance for identifying the critical habits to adopt for your learning journey and planning out when you will use them. Here we reinforce this point. Block out the time you need for learning and be mindful of how you are using that time.

Reflection Questions

• How much time do you need to prep for the content for your next learning opportunity?
• How much time do you need for absorbing the content?
• How much time do you need for note taking and reviewing those notes?

R is for Review

This is an often-overlooked part of the learning process. Many learners tend to associate the end of learning something with completing a course, a book, or a presentation. The reality is that you must commit to reviewing information that you have learned in order to retain it into your long-term memory. As mentioned above, you should make time for reviewing your notes and find creative ways to apply the information within your life.

Jim Kwik recommends taking a few minutes at the beginning of each study session to review the content from your previous session. Taking even just a few minutes can significantly improve your knowledge retention.

Reflection Questions

• Do you have a good note taking system set up that will help you to retain knowledge?
• When can you schedule time for regularly reviewing your notes?

Key Takeaways

Here’s a quick recap of Jim Kwik’s FASTER framework:

F is for Forget

• Make room for new ideas by clearing your mind of old ones.
• Forget about your limitations. You may surprise yourself on what you can accomplish.

A is for Act

• Commit to active learning. Activate your curiosity by creating power questions and aggressively pursue the answers to your questions.
• Think of people you want to engage who might help you in your personal inquiry.

S is for State

• Get in the flow; set goals, eliminate distractions, give yourself time
• Look for ways to explore new ideas by enhancing your creativity.

T is for Teach

• Look for ways to verbally relate information after you’ve consumed it.

E is for Enter

• Schedule time in your calendar for all learning activities. Schedule your study sessions in intervals to avoid cramming.

R is for Review

• Commit to reviewing your notes regularly to enhance knowledge goes into your long-term memory.

The tips covered in this blog will help you become a more effective learning. However, the most important tip is to be self-aware and be committed to improving how you learn. You have the capacity for taking your learning into your own hands and designing your own brain hacks. Your brain is the most powerful tool you have and by learning how to optimize and control it, you can ensure it will work for you.