MindThe Beginner

Did you ever ask yourself what the key to mastery is? Why do some people become insanely good at something while others never seem to get ahead? Why do some people learn faster?

Is it a talent? Are they just gifted? I don’t believe so.

I believe that all there is to it is something so simple, that it’s actually very hard to do: The right mindset.

When we engage someone or something, ninety-nine percent of the time we act out what we have powerfully created to survive – historical patterns

Questioning learning

When learning, the way you were thought was to learn by repetition. Do the same thing over and over and over again. Until somehow, things started to fall into place. Learning by repetition is boring, and takes a lot of time.  Probably the main reason why people don’t like to study.

But there are faster ways to learn. Ways to not only speed things up, but to do so without being bored. Oh yes, there are much more effective ways of learning.The first step is to question how you go about learning right now.

Questioning how you do things, questioning your habits is a very healthy way of life. That alone will speed things up, why are you endlessly repeating something? And what are you looking for while doing it?

What is this?

I never learned anything I didn’t already know – Peter Ralston

Read that quote again and let it sink in for a moment. Repetition isn’t learning. It’s mindless most of the time. If you truly want to learn something and become a master in that field you will have to find other ways. Or be prepared to spend a lot of time.

The best example I can think of is martial arts. The frequent way to learn is to imitate sensei, and if you get lucky you get a few personal pointers to look for. Other than that, you just copy and repeat.

But Martial Arts are a brilliant field to investigate yourself in and it’s my main reason for training daily, one way or the other. One moment I’m in the dojo training, the next I’m training while waiting for the bus, or lying in bed.

Yes, I can train anywhere, without other people noticing even! And it’s easy to learn as well.

Mind Learning

In an experiment three groups of people were asked to train for the task of shooting a hoop. The first group was allowed to physically train two hours a day, the second group was asked to imagine training two hours a day and the third group was asked to train one hour physically, and one hour mentally.

Can you guess which group was the best after two weeks?

The mental group came in last. They had no idea what it was like to actually hold the all. The complete physical group was rather good, but neither of them could stand in the shadow of the combined mental and physical training group.

Why? If you don’t know what something actually feels like, you can’t imagine it properly. If you train only physically, your mind is allowed to wander while your body mindlessly repeats motions.

But if you combine training, you will have a good sense on what it feels like when you are doing the mental training. And while you are physically training you will remember your mental training and look for the things that feel different than you imagined.

The concept is simple enough, but give it a try. You’ll find that you will grasp back to mindless repetition while training physically and getting distracted when training mentally. Like I said, the concept is easy enough. Doing it will be a bit harder. Especially staying “here” with your minds attention. But there are solutions there too.

Switch between mental and physical and they complement each other. You’ll be on your way to mastery in the fast lane.