The Art of Self-Learning: Tried-and-True Self-Learning Techniques to Expand Your Horizons

Description

What do people who easily pick up one skill after another know that you don’t? Why does it seem that some people have the ability to learn or become whatever they want while the rest of us struggle? Is it simply a matter of nature vs. nurture?

Are some people really faster, stronger, and smarter?

If that’s the case, is there any way the average person can catch up?

As it turns out, the issue may not be one of genetics at all.

Prominent psychologist Angela Duckworth’s successive scientific studies show that perseverance in the face of challenges is a greater predictor of success than genetics.

Duckworth is a MacArthur Fellowship awardee which is informally known as the “genius grant.” She has joked that in her family, her father often criticized her for having the opposite, a lack of genius.

In her 2014 study, “Self Control and Grit: Related But Separate Determinants of Success,” Duckworth talks about the importance of these two qualities in determining success over time.

For those of us who are not naturally gifted, what this tells us is we can still learn to play that instrument with great proficiency, speak that language we’ve always wanted fluently, even master that skill that we thought we never could. If you’ve tried and you haven’t had the success you’ve wanted, your approach might be faulty.

Duckworth made the observation that while many of us say hard work trumps natural talent, we don’t actually believe this.

This prevents us from taking advantage of one of the biggest weapons in our arsenal: grit or mental toughness.

One of the things this book will show you is that you can increase your mental toughness quotient at any time. Here are some of the other things you’ll discover:

• Why genetics is only 50 percent of the story when coming to learning something new
• The surprising shortcut to getting better at ANYTHING in just a matter of hours
• How to give your brain the right workout to build the neural pathways that allow information to stick
• What’s an Igniting Event? Three ways to identify when you’ve found your passion
• How habits can make or break your learning regimen and 4 steps to cement positive habits and get rid of negative ones
• Why feedback can make . . . or break you
• How to be effective when you’re the one giving feedback
• The right way . . . and wrong way to practice
• And much, much more.

Based on the standards of the Mensa Foundation, the oldest high-IQ society in the world, geniuses may make up only 2 percent of the population. While most of us are excluded from this group, we aren’t excluded from becoming top performers in our field or any skill we want to learn.

This book will show you how to build the mental toughness to take you through any learning goal you set for yourself. Plus, you’ll acquire easy-to-follow steps for putting the book’s techniques into practice.