stephanieburns - what you never learned about learning

7/30/2019 Stephanieburns - What You Never Learned About Learning

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s t e p h a n i e b u r n s . c o m 2

What You Never Learned About Learning

by Dr. S tephan ie Burns

Introduction

When you open the box to start learning from The Wealth Builders Blueprintyou WILL use the

best strategies for learning and motivation you have on hand. The question is: How good are

those strategies?

Most adults still use the strategies and the mindset for learning they developed during their

days in school. Except for the fortunate few who have had some cause to re-evaluate their

learning strategies and acquire new ones, most adults produce poor results for all the effort

they put into it. I have worked with more than 100,000 successful adults in all forms of learningevents, and one thing I can say with a certainty is that it is a good thing that success does not

solely depend upon being a good learner!

In a number of studies I conducted when I first became fascinated by the behavior of adults in

learning situations I discovered that many adults left school having LEARNED:

To have poor concentration Ineffective reading and memory strategies

To develop low self-esteem To have low expectations

To be shy To be poorly coordinated To be depressed and stressed when learning

To talk to themselves in demeaning and demoralizing ways

To do things in ways that are fatiguing and perpetuate low energy

To diminish successes and generalize failures

To be forgetful

These are not simply beliefs adults hold about themselves they manifest in their learning

behavior.

As an adult it is important that you recognize that these problems are a result of past

experiences, not upon your capabilities. It is time to invest time in learning HOW to learn.You

have magnificent learning equipment!


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We never learned about the nature of the learning process

Learning is a challenging process for both your body and the brain. It is NOT fun. Sure there are

fun times in the process, but for the most part it is difficult. That is its nature.

The learning process starts with the discovery of I dont even know what I dont know leading at times to a feeling of inadequacy or overwhelm.

If we survive that onslaught we then have to navigate through the process of acquiring new

information and behavior leading to many uncomfortable hours of boredom, frustration,

confusion and even fear.

If we have enough resilience for that process we then must willfully and consciously begin using

the new information and behavior leading to an initial decrement in our performances, lack of

coordination and concern for what other people will think.

Learning is fraught with natural and normal pushes toward giving up. Achieving a learning

result is an extraordinary event for an adult who has not been trained how to learn as an

adult. As adults we have to have lessons on the nature of learning and understand it for the

unique process it is, and we have to build up tolerances for the experience. Without this,

quitting will far outweigh your learning successes.

We never learned 3 critical lessons for any successful learning

Learning is a process. It requires a sustained effort over time. There are three critical lessons that

adult learners have to pay attention to if they are to get the best from their efforts. These are

the lessons ofpreparation, motivation and highly effective learning strategies.

Preparation

The process of learning is different from other life activities. For instance, what you do to read abusiness report is different than if you had to learn from that report. What you do to sell

something is different than the process of learning to sell something. Learning first requires that

we access a state of mind and body that supports that process.



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When we were in school the external environment prepared us. The act of getting to school,

walking to classes, settling in, being set up by a teacher were all rituals that help us as learners

shift gears from whatever it was we were doing to the state we needed for learning.

Adults, when they engage in independent study do not realize how important those

preparations were to the quality of the result that was produced.To be successful in the

learning process you will need to prepare yourself for that activity BEFORE you begin.

This includes:

Finding a quiet, or at least enjoyable, environment for learning.

Setting up your learning space so you have everything at hand.

Removing everything else that might be distracting, such as turning off incoming mail

alarms, paperclips you fiddle with twisting into shapes, or food.

Setting a time period and keeping to it dont go longer and dont stop short.You might

use an alarm or hourglass.

Making a plan for the session. What is your outcome? What is the best method to

achieve that outcome? And, most importantly, how will you now if you have achieved it?

In self-directed learning you have to PREPARE yourself!

Motivation

The issue of motivation, and its cousin procrastination, have been the focus of my work since

the mid-90s. Having taught adults HOW to learn effectively for more than 10 years I was

surprised to learn how many of my graduates still failed to achieve important and highly desired

personal and professional goals that required some sort of learning. These goals were things

such as learning to touch-type, to swim, to complete a university course, to speak a foreign

language, to play a musical instrument, to read a book, and so on. The cause of the failure was

not due to ineffective learning strategies. The issue was an inability to initiate and sustain

learning actions over time. Lets face it, if you have a goal to learn to swim 500 meters, the only

way you could possibly fail to achieve that goal is if you dont go to the pool or quit your

sessions before any real progress is made!



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Importantly, the 11TH hour strategies you might use to complete a project are NOT useful when

learning, yet a lot of adults resort to this after days or weeks of procrastinating. To achieve high

quality learning results requires small amounts of action frequently and consistently taken over

a long-ish period of time. There is just no way to do a lot of learning at one time. The question

then is: What do you have to do to initiate the learning process again and again, and sustain it

long enough for some learning to occur?

The problem in a nutshell is this: when what we are doing is discomforting (frustrating,

confusing, embarrassing, anxiety-provoking) our brain is going to do whatever it takes to

resolve that discomfort and move us toward comfort. If you are learning to touch-type and

getting more and more angry at the beep that sounds every time you make a mistake, your

brain will intervene. It is going to save you from stress that it perceives to be bad for your

survival its prime objective.

The fastest way your brain can do this is to get you to stop the learning session, or not start it

in the future if it has already stored the fact that this is stressful. It does this by providing you

all kinds of excuses and rationale for stopping. If the excuse sounds believable enough, you will

stop WITHOUT guilt which if you continued to feel would actually keep you going! But if you

believe what you say to yourself you will stop.

Ill do this later when I have more time.

I dont really need to learn how to type.

This is just a bad program, Ill buy a different one.

and on and on.

It is important to know that this is a natural process. People who are consistently good at

achieving goals have a set of mental strategies to override the human behavior of seeking

comfort. They know that boredom is NOT a reason to stop.

The phenomenon of motivation and procrastination was the focus for my PhD studies and is the

problem being solved in The Labyrinth online course I conduct for adults around the world.

Adults see procrastination and avoidance as the single biggest problems they have in goals and

life in general.

As an adult, to achieve significant goals you will need to learn about the potentially negative

influences your mind has when you are learning all in its attempt to save you from discomfort.

Both my audio CD and my section of the workbook in The Wealth Builders Blueprintdiscuss the

strategies you can begin to use to override these brain effects.

In self-directed learning you have to MANAGE your motivation!



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Effective learning strategies

At one level I would advise you to look at what you had to do in school to learn effectively and

be reminded about the types of activities you engaged in. You didnt just read, you studied! You

took notes and reviewed them. You studied in short session daily in school, building knowledge

and skills over time. You rehearsed answers in your mind, and you did lots of repetition.

Adults, for the most part do none of these things. They listen to an audio book and thats that.

They read professional books as if they were novels, leaving little or no memory of what was

actually covered.

So, let me say this:At a minimum you should remember what learning required in school and

do more of that as an adult.

At the other level I want to say that the strategies you learned in school were not as effective

as we know they can be. There are some very smart people who have looked at learning

strategies and accelerated both the speed and quality of learning.There are people who have

rewritten the concept of reading, of studying, of remembering and of practicing.

In this short piece I can only try to wake you up to the nature of learning. One of these few keys

might just provide that wake up.

There is nothing in the act of reading, or listening, that makes the information memorable. If

you forget what you read you are normal. Stop thinking you are stupid.

To make information or skills memorable you have to DO something to cause it to be

memorable. Stop thinking you have a bad memory or that you are slow.

Notes are critical for the kind of review that is critical for learning. And, so to is writing in the

margins of your books. Take notes in a way that makes them unique use color, write big and

small, use pictures and symbols, write backwards, stop writing on the lines of the paper. The

brain is drawn to difference and you need to WANT to look at these notes and those books

again. Stop being afraid to do things differently.

Learning isnt free you have to DO something. Stop telling yourself you are stupid as your

good enough excuse to avoid achieving your goals.



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Conclusion

There is so much that can be done to support adults being outstanding learners and achievers.

It is distressing to me to meet adults with no confidence in their ability to get where it is they

want to go simply because they have never been taught to learn effectively. This is such an easy

problem to solve!

I hope to meet you one day and share with you more of what I know. In the mean time, use all

the resources you can find to improve your ability to learn and sustain motivation. Do this FIRST

Then everything will come easy!

Go well,

Stephanie Burns



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Now Discover the Burns Method for Adult Learning andGoal AchievementBased on solid science, tested by thousands worldwide, with a track record of consistent, life-

changing results thats the Burns Method.

What is your priority? Take a look at Dr. Burns online interactive courses on:

Team and Leadership Communication

Goal Achievement & Self-Leadership

Giving Great Presentations

Health and Fitness

Software Design

Youll find them all at:

stephanieburns.com/promo/courses/

There is still more to explore at stephanieburns.com including:

Overcoming Fear

Successful Horsemanship

Learning the Guitar

Plus dozens of articles about Dr. Burns fascinating research and powerful tools for change.

stephanieburns - what you never learned about learning

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