Add To Your Knowledge Base And Learn New Skills
This week, I’ve started learning about a whole new subject related to sales online. I’m sure I’ll tell you all about it in the days to come, because it’s taking up a ton of my time.
I think of myself as a writer. You can’t just be a writer and succeed though. You have to learn about marketing. You have to learn about business in general. You have to learn about sales and leads and all that boring stuff that we don’t really care about because if you don’t, then you get left behind.
If you’ve felt any of the below or experience the following, then you’re probably at a stage where you need to expand your business horizons:
- Your income stagnates
- Your enthusiasm for writing/business/whatever fades
- You feel like there’s nothing new to learn in your current field
- You’re bored of work
- Everything takes longer (e.g. freelance articles, sales pages, etc.)
- You’re getting grass-is-greener syndrome
- You don’t want to get out of bed and work
The above applies whether you’re a freelance writer, a business owner or a guy working in a shop somewhere. Most people live in a state of stagnation and then they pursue completely different lives through online gaming, freedom porn or other escapist stuff.
That’s a topic for another day (and probably another blog/writer) but suffice to say, if you’ve felt the above then learning some new stuff is going to make you feel better.
How To Learn A New Field
I’ve written recently about learning from various materials. I don’t want to repeat myself unnecessarily, so go here and read about learning.
Something I’ve found this week though that I didn’t mention is this: If you want to learn about a subject at any decent rate, then you need to switch off the outside world.
I’ve been sat with pen and paper and a Kindle. No computer. No internet. No distractions. Rather than learn from webpages on the webpages themselves, I copy/paste into a word document and then save that as a pdf and put it on the Kindle. I can’t be tempted to browse online or watch videos or even listen to music, because I don’t have that.
This is working great. I have to concentrate. My brain aches more than it has in years because of the strain I’m putting on it to learn this new stuff. That’s the feeling you want to have when you’re jumping into a new field.
With the above said, there’s one more consideration you need to take into account.
What To Learn
The only reason I can do the above – sit back and learn without distraction – is due to the high-quality material I’m consuming.
It’s better to read one decent book on a subject than a hundred terrible forum threads or a few blog posts. So you need to pick wisely.
Unfortunately, this means internet research time and all its pitfalls. I wrote an article about this too, which you can read here.
What I’ll say in addition to that though is find an expert who has a track record (including evidence) of achieving success in the field you’re studying. If that person comes from a similar background to you, then all the better.
For instance, a lot of “make money” gurus were rich to start with. They had various networking advantages and safety nets that you may or may not have. This will affect how pertinent their information is to you. The same goes for other things; are they a similar age to you? From a similar country? So on and so forth.
This isn’t crucial, but it’ll help with your learning if you find a resource that comes from the same mental space as you.
Right.
You’ve picked your expert, and now you need to know what to learn. The answer is usually pretty obvious, but people obfuscate it through various means.
You generally want beginner information. Don’t think you can “skip” a step.
You want information that’ll get you from point A to point B, where A is “know nothing” and B is, “I can learn for myself using your information as a framework.”
You want information that’s not some sort of in-group thing. Most books are jargon-filled nonsense with little value. This is why you pick the expert with demonstrable results.
You will need to learn the jargon, but don’t put too much focus on this.
That’s about all you need to know about what to learn. The bolded part is the most important.
You’ve picked your materials and they’re downloaded for offline consumption.
The Key Thing To Do Is Act On Your New Knowledge And Integrate It Into Your Life
I went through a period where learning languages was my main hobby. The problem with that is that none of it really stuck all that well. That’s because I didn’t have any way to integrate the practice into my life.
The same is true of a ton of other skills I’ve picked up. It’s also true of a load of skills you’ve picked up. Knowledge itself is even more susceptible to this.
It’s best to learn new skills that interface well with your current skills. If you’re a writer, you should maybe learn about advertising. If you’re a graphic designer, you should learn about web design. So on and so forth. In this way, you’ll be able to add to your knowledge and expertise in one area whilst using that knowledge to build up your skills in a new area.
I said above that you need enough information to get to the point where you can learn off your own back. That is all you need at the beginning stages. I also said that you need beginner information.
The reason is that intermediate information is completely useless to a beginner. There’s no point in teaching the mechanics of a particular swimming stroke, for instance, to a person who has never been swimming in their life. They won’t understand it and you’re filling their head (or your own) with useless information which will just paralyse them intellectually.
Also, by going too advanced with the information too early, you’re going to create in yourself a sense that you’re too good to make beginner errors. You need to make those errors though.
Final Thoughts
This article was on the vaguer side of the how-to spectrum for this site. However, it’s pretty fundamental because I’m going to start talking about how I’m learning a new aspect of business, and I figured the framework by which I learn new stuff is important.
Hopefully though, the article is useful for people who want to learn new stuff but don’t know what to learn or how to learn it.