Hey,<\/p>\n
In past surveys, “rapid self-education” was almost universally
\nagreed to be the most important benefit for readers here. So, along
\nwith general studying and motivation advice, I’m going to try
\nto devote the next few ass-kicking emails to the idea of what it
\nmeans to really teach yourself.<\/p>\n
In this email:<\/p>\n
1. The obstacle to teaching yourself anything, and how to avoid it
\n2. The goal of becoming insanely intelligent<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Scaling Mount Frustration<\/p>\n
The biggest obstacle to learning anything new, in my opinion, is
\ngetting past the frustration barrier. This is the inevitable period
\nwhen you can only say to yourself, “I suck at this.”<\/p>\n
Yes, a lot of people will tell you that you need confidence during
\nthis phase. That you need to ignore your grammatical mistakes when
\nstarting with that new language. Or that you should expect calculus
\nto take awhile to “get” because it’s a difficult subject.<\/p>\n
But, even though confidence is important, we’re all human. We all
\nget stuck in moments of thinking we aren’t cut out for the subject,
\nor even if when we don’t, we all occasionally succumb to being
\noverwhelmed by the subject.<\/p>\n
When I started learning French, I was continuously overwhelmed by
\nthe goal ahead of me. Thousands of words, new syntactical structures
\nand all the audio recordings sound like gibberish.<\/p>\n
When I started computer programming, it might have been written in
\nan alien language. I would often have to copy and paste whole
\nsections of working code because I couldn’t understand why it was
\nwritten that way.<\/p>\n
When I took a class in salsa dancing, I was painfully reminded many
\ntimes how completely uncoordinated I am.<\/p>\n
In short, the number one reason you’ll fail to learn and master the
\nsubjects you want to learn generally isn’t initial talent. It’s also
\nnot usually motivation or even strategy.<\/p>\n
Instead, it’s getting stuck in the “I suck” phase and never pushing
\nyour way out.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Getting From “I Suck” to Kicking Ass<\/p>\n
There are a number of tactics for getting through this phase and
\nmoving towards really “getting” the subject you want to master. Some
\nare even large enough that I’ll be devoting entire implementation
\nguides to them in the future.<\/p>\n
But right now I want to focus on two: immersion and stepping stones.<\/p>\n
Immersion allows you to get through “I suck” because it doesn’t let
\nyou escape. If, for example, you just study your subject when you
\nfeel like it, the frustration barrier will often keep you from
\nbecoming good.<\/p>\n
However, if you center your entire life and free-time around the
\npursuit, magical things start to happen. You may still think you’re
\nterrible at the subject, but you no longer can escape it.<\/p>\n
If you live in a foreign country, you’re immersed in all your daily
\nactivities in that language (unless you insist on speaking English).<\/p>\n
If you surround yourself with an exciting computer programming
\nproject, you’ll be forced to learn methods that never get touched
\nin assignments for class.<\/p>\n
If you go out to the salsa clubs and be around people who have
\ndanced for years, your feet will eventually forget their clumsiness.<\/p>\n
Stepping stones tackles the frustration barrier from a different
\nangle. The idea here is to defeat frustration with routine.<\/p>\n
As a stepping stone, you decompose your big, hairy goal into bite
\nsized pieces. “Learn to Speak Italian” is replaced with goals like
\n“Learn all the words in the kitchen” or “Have a conversation each
\nday”.<\/p>\n
With this latter approach, your aim is to systematically introduce
\nand complete these stepping stones before moving on. Thirty-Day
\nTrials are good for this, because they allow you to focus on a
\nsub-goal without being overwhelmed by the entirety of your mission.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Becoming Insanely Intelligent<\/p>\n
We all know the nerd stereotype. The know-it-all. The bookworm who
\nknows facts and figures but not people. The geek who can diagnose
\ncomputer problems, but is unable to diagnose his own life.<\/p>\n
And, due to these stereotypes, many people resist the idea of
\nbecoming insanely intelligent. They claim to want “street smarts” or
\nwisdom or something more practical.<\/p>\n
But the truth is, there are few things more practical than smarts.
\nRounded intelligence, knowing many abstract things and having them
\nbound to concrete life experiences is perhaps the most valuable
\nasset you can ever own.<\/p>\n
Money, relationships, health, business and even life satisfaction
\nare all derived, in part, by your ability to think and act on life
\nin an intelligent manner.<\/p>\n
I don’t claim to be insanely intelligent, or to have discovered
\nexactly the recipe for becoming so smart.<\/p>\n
However, just as most people don’t exercise regularly or manage
\ntheir finances well, few people actively engage on becoming smarter.<\/p>\n
Simply setting the goal of increasing your useful knowledge sets
\nyou apart from the crowd who will never read another book or take
\na class in a skill outside their comfort zone.<\/p>\n
This program is dedicated to people like you, who train their minds
\nlike athletes train their bodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, In past surveys, “rapid self-education” was almost universally agreed to be the most important benefit for readers here. So, along with general studying and motivation advice, I’m going to try to devote the next few ass-kicking emails to the idea of what it means to really teach yourself. In this email: 1. The obstacle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}