Why it's important to UnLearn?
"Learn to empty your cup before filling it!" The overflowing cup serves no purpose and is a sheer waste of resources, and your time in cleaning up the mess!!
Now just think the overflowing cup as your mind overloaded with thoughts (positive and negative), ideas (short term and long term), beliefs (yours and others) and learnings (knowledge, skill & behavior). None of this overloaded content helps in shaping you as a better individual, or equips you with more ammunition to take on the challenges! It instead takes away your existing strengths leaving you more vulnerable.
Learning is important but UNLEARNING is more important to develop a unique perspective for a greater impact at workplace and in personal life. Sounds strange? Well it does but further contemplation and deep thoughtfulness, one gets to understand why it makes sense.
As an individual, your learning process is continuous - either spontaneous through observations and life events, or deliberate through self sought learning methods. Through this learning, you develop -
- Beliefs and principles that act as the guiding force behind your decision making
- Habits and a routine that makes a major chunk of your day
But what if you wanted to have a relook at your beliefs/principles which you have held on to for infinite amount of time? Or shift few aspects of your routine/habits which are beliefs/principles in action? You would need to shift the ingrained patterns of your behavior. And that's where Unlearning becomes crucial, acting as a catalyst to your development and growth at workplace, and bringing in harmony in personal life.
So How Do You Unlearn Something?
As futurist Alvin Toffler once wrote, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”
Unlearning is the art of discarding something that you learned earlier. And it is not easy to unlearn because you don't want to leave your comfort zone - a web of your thoughts, beliefs and habits which are limiting your ability to look outside for a fresh perspective. A simple way to get started -
- Introspect - List thoughts and beliefs that are holding you back or are limiting your true potential, and activities that aren’t productive, but still, you keep doing them.
- Self Control - Be more conscious of not repeating those listed activities, and not letting those thoughts/beliefs hamper achieve your goal.
- Action Mode - Replace junk with meaningful learning! Time to reeducate yourself and let new, fresh learnings become part of your mind, routine and life.
Learning, Unlearning and Relearning - 'Learning Chain' is a continuous process, and it is imperative to follow it through your career, and life to be successful and more importantly to gain self awareness.