GrowthHack: Learn More Skills & Learn Faster in 7 Steps

By gaining “domain expertise” you can create enormous personal and professional growth. Alec Ross said:

“There is a real opportunity for stakeholders with domain expertise to innovate for themselves, and in breathtaking ways.” 

Adapting to your current and future environment allows you to find greater success. One way to adapt is to learn the new skills that will enable you to succeed in a rapidly changing world. One skill to master in order to develop new skills is the ability to learn, and learn fast.

In order to get that higher level of expertise, you must be able to learn.

 "One skill you want to master in this day and age we live in, if you want to have an extraordinary life, is the ability to learn rapidly." - Tony Robbins

 The 7 Step Learning Process:

1. Decide, Define, and Read.

Decide what you want to learn. Define what the knowledge/skill will do for you and then read. Read more. Read often. Most things you want to learn have been written somewhere by someone. Read about your end goal, read about the process, read and then apply what you read. How do you make what you read stick? Josh Steimle has some great advice for this: 

"If you want a book to remain influential in your life, you’ll need to “quotify” the books you read. That means writing down the key points, and putting those points or quotes where you’ll see them regularly."

2. Copy

Find those who have been successful before you and model their actions, attitudes, and ideas. No need to reinvent the wheel. Find those who do what you want to be able to do and learn their habits and behaviors, then apply it to what you do. Get a mentor. Listen. Ask questions. Learn. Take action.

3. Use Pareto’s Principle

Focus on what is vital. The 80/20 rule works in just about any function or field. 20% of your actions will result in 80% of your results. Find the 20% of the skills that are directly correlated to your learning objectives and intensely develop those skills through study and practice. 

4. Focus (Stop Multi-Tasking)

Multi-tasking kills your ability to perform exceptional work. Schedule blocks of time to complete your goal based learning objectives. Don’t let distractions steal your ability to learn. When an individual gets distracted, it takes an average of 25 minutes to mentally return to the task at hand. Commit yourself to focusing on specific tasks at specific times. Your productivity will increase. Your memory will improve and you will learn faster and learn more.

5. Seek Feedback

You need to have quality outside feedback to give you an accurate assessment. Immediate feedback that will allow you to make changes for improvement is the most valuable kind. Ask for help. Ask for advice. Feedback can come in a variety of forms. Sometimes feedback feels like failure. But, it is only failure if we do not learn from it. One of my favorite quotes on feedback is from Jeff Haden:

“Embrace every failure: Own it, learn from it, and take full responsibility for making sure that next time, things will turn out differently.”

6. Apply Feedback and Repeat

Don’t just receive criticism but apply it. Practice. Practice. Practice.

“…we're talking about practice man!” Allen Iverson, NBA Great

Yes, that was taken out of context. But, it is an all-time great quote so I needed to use it. If you have not seen the video, you’re welcome.

Each new attempt, new practice session should be done with an eye to improvement. Keep working on getting better, not just on practicing it the same way. Practice at getting better, learn and grow every time. If it is easy, you are not growing and your skills are not improving. (Read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.)

7. Keep Going

Especially when it gets hard. True mastery comes after you overcome the obstacles that stop everyone else. The legendary Seth Godin says that although it’s important to know when to quit, many potential winners don’t reach success because they quit before the hard work has paid off, and the success drivers really kick-in. According to Godin, there are five reasons you might fail to become the an expert.  Seth Godin says you quit when:

• You run out of time
• You run out of money
• You get scared
• You're not serious about it
• You lose interest

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.” – Vince Lombardi

The transition cycle is the psychological process we go through whenever we experiencing dramatic change like marriage, a new job, death, extreme loss, or extreme gain. There’s a sense of excitement and pleasure we all experience when we begin something new. The extreme pleasure is caused by dopamine being released into the brain. That is why - in general - we’re so addicted to seeing notifications for texts and social media, because dopamine gets released each time.

Once that initial euphoria fades away, we experience a let down, and our progress begins to stagnate. This is when most people quit. If you can anticipate that a dip is coming, especially when you’re learning anything new, it’s easier to push through it. Those who stick through the “dip” are the ones who become experts.

Learning is fun and learning is what can provide new avenues toward success, if we are willing to master the process.

Your Turn: What steps/processes have helped you to learn? What ideas will you share that might help others? What would you change/adjust?

**Comment below. Share if this might help someone you know.** 

More articles like this.