Yesterday was “date day,” the day that my daughter and I hang out together, and go out on the town. So every Thursday I am brought face to face with the reality of just how many questions one human being can ask. Sometimes it’s enough to make my head spin. And the amazing thing is, she wants an earnest answer for each one of those questions. Where does she put all this information?
There is a saying that I really like. It goes something like: “If you are always using your knowledge, how can you ever learn anything.” I wish I could find the reference. If anyone knows where it came from, please let me know in the comments.
At any rate, it sums up what could possibly be the single biggest barrier you face in achieving your health and fitness goals - or any goal for that matter. If you are only able to fall back on your own knowledge, if you are too entrenched in what you “know to be true” to consider other opinions or seek out knowledge from another source, how can you ever know more and get better? If you do not learn to learn, you will be stuck in the mire of your own certainty. In essence, you will be abusing your knowledge.
If I had not been willing to learn, I would have never embraced the health-first paradigm Scott Sonnon was evangelizing when I ran across Circular Strength Training® for the first time. I had decades of conventional training wisdom under my belt at the time. I could easily have dismissed CST as a crazy fad. I’d still be living a continuous cycle of progress, injury and malaise. Fortunately, I was able to put my own knowledge on hold.
Learning is a skill, and one of the first steps on the path to learning that skill is to let go of certainty and embrace the possibility of a better answer. This does not mean you have to swallow everything whole! The second ingredient in learning to learn is a healthy dose of critical thinking, so that you can sort through the piles of information and absorb what works.
But whatever you do, don’t short circuit the process by trying to spew out everything you know (or think you know) before the conversation ever gets started. This is one of my first early warning signs that a potential client may not be someone who I want to work with. When I start discussing some of my training philosophies and approaches, only to have the other person start rhyming off all they know about diet and exercise, I immediately start thinking that this person just wants a sounding board, not a coach. You can’t coach someone who is not ready to start listening and learning.
So if you are ready to learn, here are a three common sense steps to making the process efficient and effective.
3 Steps To Hack The Learning Process
Step 1: Open the lid
For a short time, just pretend you don’t know anything about whatever subject you are exploring. Absorb as much of the new information as you can without superimposing your pre-conceived notions.
A lot of my clients are interested in losing fat. But when we start discussing fat loss strategies, I immediately run across a very strongly embedded idea about nutrition. If you look at any food pyramid published by a Western government, the base of this “healthy eating” guide is built on grains (bread, pasta, cereal, etc). Someone who has been imbibed with the notion that their morning toast and cereal is a healthy way to start the day inevitably has a hard time getting past that preconception. It’s my job to find a way for them to take a new look at “what they know.”
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein, progenitor of that quotation, was a pretty smart guy. If you have a fitness goal that is, as yet, unachieved, then perhaps you don’t currently own the knowledge you need to get you there. Stop doing the same thing over and over. Start looking for a better way to do more with less. Better is better...
Step 2: Filter & Absorb
Now you get to filter the new information through your current knowledge and understanding. This is an important step for two reasons. First, having a frame of reference is the single best way to absorb and retain new information. We are very associative creatures, and the more we can create interconnectivity in our brains, the more sticky new knowledge becomes.
I’m working through a book right now called Stretching & Flexibility by Kit Laughlin. There is a ton of brilliant information in this text, enough that I could easily forget most of it by the time I finish the book. But by consistently running the information through my Prasara Yoga filter, I can compare and contrast - making connections - and vastly improve my retention.
But filtering will also give you a first pass through the BS (bull sh*t) meter. You have to suspend your preconceptions to learn effectively, but you also need to be weary. Especially in this day and age, there is a virtual deluge of information and misinformation at the tips of our fingers. Swallowing it all hook line and sinker isn’t a particularly efficient learning strategy either.
I’m doing some research right now for my wife on the Omega-3 fatty acid ETA (you’ve probably only heard of EPA and DHA right…?). Information is not readily available, and some of the sites you find on the subject are clearly peddling a product. But more digging leads to credible sites where no-nonsense information can be found. The promise of ETA for autoimmune conditions (like rheumatoid arthritis) seems very real. But people with these diseases are in a lot of pain and looking for hope around every corner, so you have to be careful about the source of any new information. When you are looking for something new, when you want to find a better way, be open minded, but keep your eyes wide open too.
Step 3: Test & Verify
At this stage, if the new information makes it past your BS filter, it’s time to test and verify. You can start by finding corroboration from trusted sources. Call or post around to professionals that you trust. Talk to friends and family about what you have found. You may be surprised just how much extra insight you can dig up by finding out what other people in your circle know about this subject. Sometimes you’ll come up empty, but you never know. But the most important thing you can do is to put this new knowledge through the gauntlet by testing it in the real world. Take your new information, if it seems credible, and try it on for size.
As Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the smartest guys on the internet, would say, you have to figure out if the shoe fits. In other words, does this new information work for you? Is the empirical evidence positive, is it working? Do you like it? Is it something you can use, put into practice, sustain? If so, you’ve found a keeper. You’ve shifted your paradigms to accept new information or new methods. You have suspended your own knowledge long enough to absorb someone else’s for your own benefit. And you are one step closer to your fitness goals because you are a little bit less insane than you were. You’ve stopped, at least a little bit, doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Now you can use it, gain from it, and pass it on to someone else down the learning line. And with each passing on, we exert Isaac Newton’s affirmation that, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Learning to learn allows you to stand on the shoulders of giants. What little gems have allowed you to become a little less insane? What nuggets have allowed you to climb a little higher onto those shoulders and see a little further? Or, more importantly, when you think about it, what do you think you “know” that may be holding you back? G.I. Joe used to say, “knowing is half the battle.” But maybe knowing what you don’t know is even more important.
Little things add up. A snowflake is totally insignificant. A few million of them can change a landscape entirely! We tend to be a society of "big things." We lose sight of the extremely powerful approach of letting very small things accumulate.
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