Learning 101: The Subtle Art of Learning
In a word which demands us to keep learning continuously, the most import thing to learn is the art of learning.
Learning starts as soon as we are born. Our early years are spent on learning essential survival skills, formulating our instincts and building intuition. As we grow up, beyond the experiential environmental learning, we are put through institutional learning to develop professional skills making us a useful participant in workforce.
If learning is so intrinsic to our lives and well defined process, why do we need to learn the art of learning? Because the learning needs have been changing drastically. In the past century career aspirations were limited and competition lower. Tools and Technology remained same for a longer period of time; and life skills learnt relevant for life.
We have moved in to a world, where personal and professional environment, both are changing rapidly. Professional opportunities and options are limitless, new tools & technology continually being introduced and living environment is more dynamic than ever. We need to upgrade ourselves continuously to thrive in this world. This unprecedented need requires us to master the skill of continued learning.
Let’s unpack the subtle art of learning!
In this post
The Subtle Art of Learning
Stages of Learning
When & How Do We Learn?
Setting up the Learning Environment for New World
Neel’s Job Board
Stages of Learning
How do we know what do we need to learn? In truth, we don’t always. Our learning journey goes through four stages of competences. All of us start at the stage where we aren’t even aware of what we need to learn, and then through the stages we end up to the point of mastery.
Unconscious Incompetence
When do we think that we need to learn? When we know that something exist and we need to become competent on it. Before that we stay in the stage of incompetence and we aren’t even aware of that incompetence.
This is the stage of unconscious incompetence. Ignorance is bliss. At this stage there is no need to learn unless an external trigger changes that.
Conscious Incompetence
Once we become aware of the incompetency, ignorance is no more bliss. At the stage of conscious incompetence, we (of course, if we want to acquire the said skill) start seeking to learn.
Through this stage we set learning objectives, methods, process and tests to identify our progress. And, thus our learning starts.
Conscious Competence
This is the stage where a learner has learnt, but hasn’t acquired the skill to the a level where it comes naturally. In this stage, we need competencies tested, upskilling done and mastery gained.
Unconscious Competence
In the final stage of learning, the knowledge becomes the power. Once in this stage of competence, we gain the kind of mastery that we do not need to consciously think of the learning we have gained at the time of putting it to practice.
When & How Do We Learn?
Short answer. We learn all the time, and from everything. Which makes it extremely important that we remain conscious and aware of what we are learning from where.
We learn our life & social skills from family, friends and the social environment around us. And, we learn our professional skills from going through the traditional educational system. Our traditional systems have been designed for us to gain competence on single profession over years and then mature our skills working through that profession to a level of expertise.
The learning models in this system are predetermined, compartmentalized, authoritarian and unidirectional. These worked well for a world where most people lived through two professional shifts - starting work and then retiring. Our world has changed - we have more access to information, incredible technologies to aid us; and we now live a multi - stage multi - transformation lives. Our learning models need to change.
Setting up the Learning Environment for New World
Increased access to technology, and ease of global mobility has made our choices endless. It has also heralded an era of alternate career choices, side hustle and gig work. In the least two decades we have seen a surge in passion and creator economy which has changed the meaning of ‘professional career’ as it was understood for most of the past century. Distinction between personal and professional choices has reduced and the line between personal & professional life has blurred.
Reimagining Learning in a Networked World
We live in a new world. And, we need to realign our learning environment for this new world.
In a networked world, that we live in, we have benefit of unlimited access to information, people, courses from across the world. This creates an opportunity to reimagine our learning in this networked world.
We need to take advantage of the access and technology that we have. Set up your learning environment to make most of the opportunity available. You can now chose to pick topics that you would want to learn, from whatever source you want to learn, without signing up and committing for an academic program.
Learning for a Multi-Stage Multi-Transition Life
We now live a multi-stage multi-transformation world, which means our learning cycle needs to repeat multiple times in one life time. For that we need to set up to continually learn and relearn. Set up the learning environment to expand your sphere of awareness, to have multiple layer of competence and to hit your zone of genius multiple times.
Build your Personal Board of Advisors
The variety of parallel learning that we require, makes it important that we have multiple sources for learning with varying experiences. Put together, in today’s time we need on demand, specific and up to date guidance on a diverse set of topics. A sort which cannot come from a non personalized or singular source.
This can be answered by setting up a personal board of advisors. Set up a group of people who can support you in your learning and add to it through their own experience. Your personal board should show following characteristic to be in your best interest:
Unbiased (not friends or family)
Specialist (they should really know what they are talking about)
Have some skin in the game (not meeting goals should affect them)
In the summary, leverage technology to decentralize your learning, build multiple learning cycles and gain distributed experience from the experience of other people.
Neel’s Job Board
A curated list of open roles in my network
Performance Marketing Manager at Haldivita in New Delhi
Golang Developer at Kreate in Bangalore
Backend Developer at Kreate in Bangalore
System Architect at Kreate in Bangalore
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