Coming from a cultural influence of mainstream education learning hasn’t always been a pleasurable experience. To most of us this is coupled with pain and insecurity even though learning is the most natural thing for all life forms, as a matter of fact it is essential to our growth, survival and evolution.
As new born babies we are posed with the challenge of learning head on! We absorb a immense amount of knowledge during the early months of our lives but we do it in "style".
Experimentation is the key! Babies try out everything that they can get their hands on and all of their senses are engaged in this learning process. Through this they learn more in a year than most adults learn in a decade.
With all that said I want to say that I personally love learning in fact I can’t seem to stop myself but it was not always so. I had a strong desire to learn but I just could never follow through with it, there always seemed to be something that gets in the way it was either a lack of motivation, procrastination or just overwhelm. Growing up I did well in school almost effortlessly, I got praise for it and naturally I began to believe that I was “smart”.
This might not sound like a bad thing but there is a reverse side to all of this. Thinking that I was smart made me believe that learning should be effortless, well.. almost, but this was not the case. This caused inner conflict whenever I was posed with a challenge that threatened my intellectual "superiority". It made me feel like I was not smart at all and that maybe I was a "fraud".
Well simply put, learning is never fun when you have unrealistic expectations or limiting beliefs. From myself as a self taught programmer I had the realization that learning something new, especially if it is way outside of your scope of knowledge and familiarity then naturally it will be tough that is just how it is. What makes the process more difficult is the inner resistance or belief that the struggles are due to the lack of intelligence on your part which is utter nonsense that we often tell ourselves and in turn believe. When you stick with the process long enough your brain will begin to make sense of all this new information that you have been feeding it because that’s just what the brain does, it "figures $#!t out".
When you learn to give your brain time to learn you will realize that no matter what, it will always deliver so never despair or think that all your efforts are in vane this is only an illusion. Your brain is a useful tool and once you understand it better it can be used to work for you and not against you.
The ability to "self teach" is very empowering and here is a list of
"The perks of self teaching" :
- Confidence in your intellectual capacity
- Independence of thought and action
- Heightened sense of curiosity
- Improved creativity and open mindedness
- Improved neuroplasticity
I cannot emphasize just how great a skill this is; it counteracts the effects of mainstream education, like a new born it gives us the power to learn and teach ourselves in ways that are the most natural to us. We become the authorities of learning in our lives and become less dependent on authorities outside of ourselves to dictate our knowledge.
Pain is part of life as much as pleasure is, it is neither good nor bad; the sooner you come to terms with that the better and soon you will be able to rise above any challenge hence the phrase “no pain no gain”.
I hope this serves you as much as it has served me.
Love and peace fellow steemians!
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