… when you are geniunely not ready.
There are two types of “not ready”:
- genuinely: you lacked the skills and/or the roadmap that help you achieve that goal.
- emotionally: you are procrastinating when you already know what to do, how to do, but yet “don’t feel like it” feel anxious/afraid/discomfort so you didn’t start.
And “just do it” is only for the second type of people.
When you are genuinely not ready, do not start.
There is no point starting when you don’t even have a single clue about what should you do next.
“I want great academic results.”, you say. Well, what are you gonna do to achieve it? According to what society generally teaches you, you may think you are gonna work “harder”- or better, work “smarter”. But what do those words even mean?? What exactly are you gonna do now?
I hope you realise that the next step you should take when you are genuinely not ready, is not “just do it”, but “just find the right way to do it”.
How do I get ready?
You know you are ready when you know:
- what to do
- why, and
- how to do.
Let me elaborate.
- What to do
“People focus on doing the things right but seldom focus on doing the right thing.
They don’t realise that the righter they do the wrong thing, the wronger they get.”
-Dr. Russel Ackoff
ALWAYS find out what to do FIRST.
If you want great academic results, it means you have to learn well. In order to learn well, you have to know how your brain learn, and learn accordingly. Learn the learning priniciples, and develop your own learning system with experimentation and adjustment, until it works perfectly for you.
2. Why
Do not blindly follow instructions given by anyone. Always ask “why?”.
No, I am not asking you to challenge everything you are instructed to do, but I do want you to start to adopt the new habit of understanding how things work.
For instance, if you read my blog Learning virtuoso, you will realise I emphasise active recall at spaced repetition A LOT.
Don’t just “ok, I will follow”, but really pay attention to the supportings and reasonings behind, because it is the only way to apply the principles in the right way in a consistent manner long enough to generate actual results.
Back to our study example, if you did not make the extra effort to understand the whole point of active recall is that retrieving something from you brain is the only way to strengthen a existing memory network (synaptic plasticity), and you do feel like re-reading is more effective than recalling (illusion of knowledge), you may quickly fall back to ineffective strategies, and that’s why the results are not showing.
3. How to do
“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not”
-Albert Einstein
Knowing what to do (and why) does not equate to you know how to do.
“What” and “why” are information while “how” is implementation.
For example, you now know active recall is the best revision (even learning) strategy. So how do you implement into your learning flow? Do you use your textbooks, notes, practice questions, or flashcards?
Once you get all 3 (what why how), you are good to go.
Thanks for reading! Your attention and feedback matters to me.
-Learning How to Live 2.0
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