Some people have the ability to learn new things faster than everyone else, whether it is a new subject at work, a new skill, a new language, finance, investing…
In some people this may seem innate (and in some cases it really is a gift), but the truth is that we all have this capacity for fast learning if we know how to go about it, although first we need to understand how learning works.
1. Learning through repetition.
This is probably the kind of learning university students use most. One way to learn something is to make it part of us by repeating it. It is quite simple, because we all know how to memorise something by going over it again and again.
The problem with this kind of learning is that it does not usually reach long-term memory; it stays in short-term memory. Once we have used it to pass an exam, most of what we learned (we did not really learn it, we memorised it) tends to be sent off to some other part of the brain that, for some reason, we tend not to remember. The fact is that it is still there somewhere in our mind. That is why you can finish a degree and not remember even 10% of what you studied.
(Read: 3 ways your mind betrays you and keeps you from moving forward in life)
2. Learning by connecting new concepts to what we already know.
The more things you learn, the easier learning becomes, regardless of what you are learning.
Not long ago a young man asked an expert why people think Chinese is the hardest language when, for him, it had been the easiest to learn. The young American said he had learned Spanish and French, and was surprised that in less than 15 months he had practically mastered Chinese.
The expert saw it as perfectly normal, and gave two reasons why Chinese had been so easy for him:
- After learning two languages, you already know how to learn a new language faster. Once you have also learned Chinese, a fourth language will be much easier still.
- Chinese is usually difficult because everyone expects to run into difficulties with it, when there are languages harder than Chinese. A positive mindset and motivation towards something new also make learning easier.
What the expert was basically saying is that there is a fallacy about language learning. People tend to think that if someone speaks seven languages, learning an eighth will be harder for them. That is false: learning a second language will always be harder than it is for people who already speak seven or ten. There is no secret here. There are only connections between old knowledge and new learning.
A well-trained, hard-working brain is one of the few things that is in better shape than a little-used one.
Basically, we are saying that people who read and learn new things every day will by default always be smarter than those who do not read, and their ability to learn will always be greater.
With that said, what strategies or tricks are commonly used to learn faster?
There are countless fast-learning techniques, and we obviously cannot cover them all, so we will mention what are probably the most obvious ones.
1. Start by building solid foundations in what you want to learn and master.
Many people want to learn to invest, but they are not willing to build a solid base of knowledge. They want to go straight to speculating, preferably with intraday trading. First we need to learn basic stock market concepts, how the market works and how to analyse companies. If the first thing you learn about investing is technical analysis for intraday speculation, your investing career is destined to keep losing money.
2. Translate technical concepts into your own words.
If we look up the definition of anything in a dictionary, it will be written in technical language. In other words, even if we know what it is, we will not be able to explain it because we do not remember the definition. For example:
What is a company’s P/E ratio:
The P/E (from the English Price to Earnings Ratio, that is, the relationship between the price or value and the earnings) is a geometric ratio used in the fundamental analysis of companies, especially those listed on the stock market. Its value indicates how many times a given company’s annual net profit is contained in the price of one of its shares. A higher P/E means investors are paying more for each unit of profit. (Wikipedia).
If someone is just starting out in investing and we give them this definition, it will probably sound like Greek to them. However, if we give them some minimal prior knowledge, having explained what EPS is (annual net earnings per share), we can adapt the definition in a way they will never forget, so that this person can learn what it is:
The P/E is the number of years it would take us to earn back our investment from the company’s profits.
It is a far less professional definition, but it is the one people do not forget. Then we teach them to calculate the P/E in a way they understand, and explain simply why the company is cheap or expensive based on its P/E. Each new explanation will lead us to a new term, which we will explain in the same way. There are no shortcuts in learning either.
This point leads us to the next one.
3. One explanation is worth more than 1,000 definitions.
Look for someone with a reputation for explaining the subject you want to learn well. With simple explanations and a good communicator, you can build solid foundations in the subject in two days, something that would otherwise take you months.
4. There is no better test of learning than explaining what you are learning.
When you are studying, forget the jargon and practise as if you were passing on the ideas or concepts you are learning to someone else. If you get stuck on something, read it again.
Depending on the subject we want to learn, visual association also comes into play: if we can associate a concept with an image, it will be harder to forget.
Imagine for a moment that you are studying history (a subject you dislike) and you have to read about England’s conflict with Scotland in times gone by so you can explain it in an exam. You would probably use learning by repetition to pass.
Now tell me what Mel Gibson’s film Braveheart is about. You would give me an explanation that covers that conflict without ever having set out to learn it.
This brings us to one last point.
5. Motivation and passion.
If you do not like something, it will be much harder to learn than the things you are passionate about. It is obvious. That is why, even within what we want to learn, passion is a point in our favour, just as a positive attitude towards new learning and some extra motivation will help us not to feel frustrated by the difficulties along the way.
In short: learn new things every day and you will improve your ability to learn, or build up your knowledge in your professional field and in that way keep your neurons from rusting. Just as inertia itself makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, intelligent people tend to become more intelligent over time, while the less intelligent, over time… tend to… become less intelligent.
Further reading
