ANYONE CAN LEARN
DON'T EVER DOUBT IT
BRAIN WORKING OK?
Anyone who is capable of learning something in the past is capable of learning in the future. Yes, there are some people who have an impairment in their equipment, but if you are reading this, you are not one of them.
Salman Khan (see this video at Ted.com: Video) makes the point very well that anyone can learn IF they have the right approach. (I wrote a brief piece on Salman Khan, with links to other pieces.)
MISSING A KEY UNDERSTANDING ALONG THE WAY
And he makes the point very well that if we are missing some understanding along the way and we go on to the next level, we will likely not understand the next level up. This he calls a "learning gap". (Read about how his smart niece was failing to be able to do something because of that gap - and how the problem was solved!)
Learning is "sequential". We can't learn algebra without first learning how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
Learning is a process of building. Building what? A foundation and then strong "walls" that support the top (roof) of the building to attain a mastery of performance.
We must proceed like this, or there will be gaps that cause us not be competent:
The basics ---> Using the basics --> Solving "complex" problems (football...for instance)
If someone misses an earlier concept in an earlier grade, they might not do well in the higher grades. But people are used to moving on if they get 70% or 90% - they are missing something if that is he case. Khan has them not move on until they have mastered it, which anyone can do - see Mastery Learning
GOING BACK TO MASTER CORRECTING BELIEFS
So, if you want to master something, like to have healthy beliefs, you've got to go back to the earlier grades (where earlier in life we learned to believe things without reasoning or questioning) and see what was incorrect and learn how to correct those and how to fill in what was missing. (If something was learned incorrectly, then it could have the same effect as a missing piece of understanding in a chain of understandings.)
Anyone can do it. Anyone can go back and correct those beliefs. The likely approach would be to relearn the things that a belief is based on.
One needs to learn what was incorrect in the basis for the belief AND also learn what a correct underlying belief might be - AND understand the correct belief sufficiently to then reason his way back into looking at the incorrect one so that he can see the error of it - and banish it forever from his mind.
Yes, person can say affirmations that he doesn't believe in but they are often not effective - he must understand why the new belief he affirms is correct and why the old one isn't. If he does not do that, he has left a learning gap - one that is necessary to fill or the person will be inclined to operate based on the incorrect belief.
Because people have proceeded in many endeavors by using incomplete, inadequate procedures, they have quite naturally failed to achieve success.
Simple. Simple cause and effect.
BUT WE MAKE UNREASONABLE CONCLUSIONS
But people make unreasonable conclusions because they engage in poor thinking, using common thinking errors.
We fail to look deeply enough to discover what the cause of non-success was and then we jump to conclusions:
I can't learn.
I will always fail. I can't do it. (People conclude that in changing habits, in losing
weight, etc.)
I'm too old to learn new tricks (and I've failed so much, so I'm really sure of it).
(Or "I'm too dumb", "too young", "too uneducated", "it's too late for me",
etc.)
AND THEN...
People often don't go back to look at what is causing them to feel bad because they are not sure what "the missing" link was that lead them astray or even how to know one when one sees one.
That is why in learning things such as new, valid beliefs, one must do like in the lower grades, try to do the best he can to state what a belief was that occurred to him in his thoughts right before the poor behavior and/or bad feelings. (Incidentally, feeling bad is virtually always an indication of an incorrect belief - so it is one's clue at what to look at and rework.) At first, he will not be able to do very well at identifying and expressing it, but he must continue practicing trying to think it out, so that he can do it on his own.
And he can learn that, from this site and/or a coach/tutor/counselor who can show him/her how to think better and what some better, more realistic, beliefs are.
And, it's all very doable, but you've got to let yourself be "unsmart" at first and to make lots of mistakes (from you "not knowing yet") as a part of the human learning curve.
THE PROCESS FOR YOUR LEARNING
The process for your learning will be just as Khan proposes:
1. Start with good information.
2. Find out where the misunderstanding is and correct that and proceed from there - or go back far enough and follow the sequential learning path so that you can put it all together.
3. Read and learn from the reading (which is well-screened and in proper sequence)
4. Demonstrate your learning (show that you've learned it, vital step!)
a. Measure your learning level so far
5. Get someone else to explain that which you are missing
6. Demonstrate 100% understanding
And then, and only then, move on. Don't move on even with 10% lack of understanding - only accept mastery. (Not like you're trying to be Beethoven, but to understand it to the point of being competent and able to do it!)
If you do this, then you can learn anything, including that which you believe you are profoundly hopeless in - that belief is simply not true. You just need to use a systematic learning process in which you can correct misunderstandings and fill in gaps in understanding.
You will soon learn, if you stay with the site, How To Do Anything! (This means you can anything anybody else has done, with sufficient information...)
SEE HOW IT IS DONE
Visit (and spend some time with) the Khan Academy to see one way it is done.
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Notes for possible addition later.
look at where you are stuck (in some misunderstanding.)
rmove the doubt
you can learn - proven, but not effective w/o the right proceres, cululative (not reinvesnted, the course - vs. one size fits all, lecture
khan academy
seguential bulding
not know something, stuck
natural high from learning (derivatives!
at own pace, own time.
failur is painful
flip the classroom
no meaning, we add that it is painful
getting points (rewards) as you go - drawn toward it.
how to learn anything
math, even!
facts,
logic the rationale of why this is so
practice, repetition
LEARN
Math
Second language
Speed reading
Singing
Social skills
Piano
Anything that is
doable....
List all the things you can think of that you'd like to learn, even those you think you can't. Then go find them.
On this site, use the search engine for all the life elements that you want to master.
The Learning Gap - If you're missing something, it is like missing part of a bridge, so you can fall through.
