[TBD]Know how to learn: An extract from Limitless book

Introduction

Core principal

Motivation

Motivation = Purpose × Energy × S3

Observations

• Most of us behave like that elephant. At some point, we had an experience that gave us an impression of what we’re capable of, and our belief about our potential has been set ever since. But just as helplessness is learned, it’s just as possible to learn to be limitless.

• “We come into this world not knowing if life is hard or easy, if money is scarce or abundant, if we’re important or unimportant. We look at two people who know everything: our parents,”1 said belief change expert Shelly Lefkoe in our podcast interview. Parents are our first teachers, and although they probably meant us no harm, we still come away from our childhoods with the limiting beliefs they unconsciously instilled in us.

• Limiting beliefs often start in childhood.

• The fastest learners on the planet are children, and that’s partly because they don’t care what others think of them. They have no shame around failing. They will fall 300 times and get up 300 times in the course of learning to walk, and don’t feel embarrassed; they just know they want to walk.

Tips

• • Use Faster approach

    • F - Forget what distracts you

    • A - Act on the learning

    • S - State of mind (mindset)

    • E - Enter schedule in Calendar

    • T - Teach learning to others

• Generating sufficient energy is vital—if you’re tired or sleepy, or if your brain is foggy, then you won’t have the fuel to take action. Small simple steps take minimal effort and keep you from being paralyzed with overwhelm.

• Motivation is all about energy management and optimisation.

Myths

INTELLIGENCE IS FIXED

In a fixed mindset, students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset, students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence.

WE ONLY USE 10 PERCENT OF OUR BRAINS

Here’s the truth: What I want you to take from this is that you have all the power of your brain available to you now. The utopia that each of these movies and TV shows depicts is already possible for you. While we use all of our brain, some people use their brain better than others. Just as most people use 100 percent of their body, there are some bodies that are faster, stronger, more flexible, and more energized than others. The key is to learn how to use your brain as efficiently and effectively as you possibly can— and by the end of this book, you’ll have the tools to do so.

MISTAKES ARE FAILURES

Mistakes don’t mean failure. Mistakes are a sign that you are trying something new.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

Knowledge is not power. It only has the potential to be power. You can read this book and learn everything in it, but if you don’t take it and apply the knowledge, it will be useless.

LEARNING NEW THINGS IS VERY DIFFICULT

Sometimes it is hard to learn new things. What’s more accurate is to understand that learning is a set of methods, a process that can certainly be easier when you know how to learn.

THE CRITICISM OF OTHER PEOPLE MATTERS

Part of being limitless is learning to let go of the fear of criticism from other people.

GENIUS IS BORN

Genius leaves clues. There is always a method behind what looks like magic.

You have motivation

Going back to the above list of the seven lies that hold you back, perhaps the eighth lie is that you have motivation —that you wake up and feel motivated every day. The reality is that you do motivation. Ultimately, motivation is a set of habits and routines, guided by your values and your identity, that you carry out every day.

Type of genius

Dynamo genius

Those who express their genius through creativity and ideas

Blaze genius

Those whose genius becomes clear through their interaction with others

Tempo genius

Those whose genius expresses itself through their ability to see the big picture and stay the course.

Steel genius

Those who are brilliant at sweating the small stuff and doing something with the details that others missed or couldn’t envision.

Tips for goal setting

H is for Healthy: How can you make sure your goals support your greater well-being? Your goals should contribute to your mental, physical, and emotional health.

E is for Enduring: Your goals should inspire and sustain you during the difficult times when you want to quit.

A is for Alluring: You shouldn’t always have to push yourself to work on your goals. They should be so exciting, enticing, and engaging that you’re pulled toward them.

R is for Relevant: Don’t set a goal without knowing why you’re setting it. Ideally, your goals should relate to a challenge you’re having, your life’s purpose, or your core values.

T is for Truth: Don’t set a goal just because your neighbor is doing it or your parents expect it of you. Make sure your goal is something you want, something that remains true to you. If your goal isn’t true to you, you’re far more likely to procrastinate and sabotage yourself.

Tips for high energy

A GOOD BRAIN DIET

Resiliency expert Dr. Eva Selhub often likens the brain to a high- performance vehicle. “Like an expensive car,” she writes, “your brain functions best when it gets only premium fuel. Eating high-quality foods. that contain lots of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants nourishes the brain and protects it from oxidative stress—the ‘waste’ (free radicals) produced when the body uses oxygen, which can damage cells.”

She goes on to note that when your brain is forced to run on inferior fuel, it can’t possibly do everything it was built to do. Refined sugar, for example, contributes to impaired brain function, leads to inflammation, and can even cause depression (something you might want to consider the next time you reach for a tub of ice cream to contend with a tough day).

BRAIN NUTRIENTS

Research has shown that particular nutrients have a direct effect on your cognitive ability. I always prefer getting my nutrients from real, whole, organic foods.

There are natural sources for all of these nutrients, but getting all of them into your diet might not fit your lifestyle or your palate. The good news is that supplements are readily available for all of these (though not all supplements are created equal; make sure to do some research).

EXERCISE

“Exercise changes the brain in ways that protect memory and thinking skills,” writes Heidi Godman, the executive editor of the Harvard Health Letter. “In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning."

KILLING ANTS

ANTs are “automatic negative thoughts” and, if you’re like most people, you place limitations on yourself in the form of these thoughts at least some of the time. Maybe you tell yourself that you aren’t smart enough to learn a skill that you’d really like to have. Or perhaps you repeat on an endless loop how pushing yourself to accomplish something is only going to lead to disappointment.

Meditation and Yoga help to kill these ANTs

A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT

The air you breathe is critical to the way your brain functions. If you’ve ever been stuck in a room with a smoker, you know how hard it is to even think while you’re breathing that toxic air. Conversely, if you’re hiking in the mountains and take a deep breath from the crisp, clean atmosphere, you can feel your senses thriving.

If you live in a factory town or a big city with pollutants everywhere, there isn’t a lot you can do about the air around you. Fortunately, there are devices available to clean the air in your home and in your office, and you can make an increased effort to get to cleaner spaces more frequently.

A POSITIVE PEER GROUP

Your brain potential is not just related to your biological networks or your neurological networks; it is also related to your social networks. Who you spend time with is who you become.

Because of this influence, those you spend time with have a genuine effect on brain function. Certainly, they affect your self-talk, as most of us tie at least a part of our beliefs to the beliefs others have about us. But they can affect everything from what you eat to how much you exercise, to even how much sleep you get.

BRAIN PROTECTION

You have only one brain. If you were given only one car to use for the rest of your life, how well would you treat that car? You would take care of it as if your life depended on it.

NEW LEARNING

One of the most important things you can do for the health of your brain is to keep learning. We are all capable of expanding the capacities of our brains

STRESS MANAGEMENT

Whenever we experience stress, a hormone known as cortisol is released to alleviate the physical rigors of stress on our bodies. If this happens occasionally, it’s not a problem, but if it happens with great regularity, the buildup of cortisol in our brains can lead it to cease functioning properly.

SLEEP

If you want better focus, you need to get good sleep. If you want to be a clearer thinker, you need to get good sleep. If you want to make better decisions or have a better memory, you need to get good sleep.

Tips for simple small steps

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

If you struggle to get something done with some amount of regularity, there’s a good chance that you feel guilty about this and you beat yourself up over it. It’s likely you give yourself a much harder time about it than is helpful. We already know that unfinished tasks create tension in your brain. If you layer guilt and shame on top of this, you’re making it even harder to get a task done, and you’re making yourself miserable.

TAKE BABY STEPS

One of the only things that is likely to change your behavior is to make incremental progress. You really don’t want to make dinner? Make something simple for your family to snack on while you cook dinner later. You’re having trouble writing that big speech for next month’s conference? Just write the keynote to the speech now.

ON AUTOPILOT

Small simple steps repeated lead to habits. Our habits are a core part of who we are. Various studies have shown that somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of what we do every day is the product of a habit. That means that half of our lives is governed by what scientists term automaticity.

“Without habit loops, our brains would shut down, overwhelmed by the minutiae of daily life,” writes Charles Duhigg in his best-selling book, The Power of Habit.

GETTING IN THE HABIT

Just remember WIN:

W is for Want

Make sure you really want it.

I is for Innate

Remember that you’re unlikely to make something a habit when it is consistently difficult for you to perform.

N is for Now

Create a prompt for yourself that encourages you to perform the new habit now.

Reference

Limitless book by Jim Kwik (https://limitlessbook.com)