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Ass-Kicking Email – What’s Your Mission?

Hey,

In this email:

1. Pick your learning mission.
2. Accomplishing your learning mission.

—

If you aren’t in strenuous classes right now, now is the perfect
time to master learning tactics. But, more importantly, it’s a time
to learn things you actually want to know.

Over the last few summers, I’ve made a dedicated effort to take on
new self-education missions. Two years ago I decided to sit down
and finally learn PHP and MySQL. A year before that, I bought a
large stack of books that had been on my to-read list for awhile.

The key to a successful mission is to pick something *you* are
genuinely interested in, not just because you “should” do it.

Whether you want to learn Spanish, program in Python or study
Japanese cinematography, the point is it needs to be something that
excites and interests you.

If you’re sick of book-studying, why not take classes in jiu-jitsu?

If you’re tired of math, why not try musical composition?

Or maybe you can use all the skills you learned in your classes,
but apply them to more interesting projects? I’ve done this in the
past where I’ve made games outside of my duller computer science
assignments or worked on business projects outside of my
accounting classes.

It doesn’t need to become a chore. You just need to plan a few steps
so that the mission becomes a part of your routine.

—

Once you have an idea of what your learning mission will be, you
just need to take a few steps to make it relatively easy to invest
the time.

The first step is to immerse yourself in the material. Try picking
up a few do-it-yourself books on the subject and put them in the
room you spend most of your time in.

If your mission is a social one like learning a dance or language,
try to identify some places you could go to practice on a regular
basis, like a club that does tango or a group that meets to speak
Tagalog regularly.

If you are genuinely interested in the subject (i.e. you’re not
just doing this because you feel you “should”) then you shouldn’t
need too much discipline to practice. It should come fairly
naturally.

My feeling is that most people give up on missions like these
because they forget and don’t get fully immersed from Day One.

You can avoid that trap by making sure your environment reminds you
of your mission–try changing your desktop background or put post-it
notes around the house.

You can also help make it a routine by making a light 30-Day Trial.
You don’t want to suck all the fun out of your mission by making it
too painful, but establishing a minimum routine can help you dive
right into your immersion.

—

An even better idea? Post about your mission in the forums, I’m sure
we’d all love to hear about it!

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