Learning Nerd’s Diary #55
Welcome back Learning Nerds!
This week's issue is focused on championing 'I, me & myself' in learning. Something we don't talk about as often as we should!
👀 Sneak peak
Here is what I have in store for you this week -
💭 Learning About Learning: Finding your learning personality
🥜 Learning Nugget: Learning is a kaleidoscope
💥 Coolest Things I Learnt This Week:
Past peformance is not indicative of future results
You do you
Your elusive creative genius
🔦 Spotlight: A shoutout
Let's jump right in!
💭 Learning About Learning
When I started writing 2 years back, I had an existential question - What should my writing ‘voice’ to be?
Should it be casual or serious? Playful or professional? While I thought about what I was writing, I was more concerned about how I sounded.
2 years and 150+ articles later, I feel more confident. My focus largely is on figuring out what to write about - and how I sound is something I’m not even thinking about everyday.
I’ve had similar journeys with my choice of exercise, the food I eat, the books or movies I watch and also… how I learn!
We all have different learning personalities.
But finding your learning personality is hard.
Here are 3 things you can do to find yours:
1/ Think of 3 learning experiences you enjoyed
These could be a workshop, a course or even your time in school or college. What’s common between them? Try to find patterns here!
Example:
I know for me I like experiences that are hands on in nature. I don’t like being a passive consumer of content.
2/ Try out different kinds of learning experiences
Just like tasking different kinds of foods expands your palette and helps you figure out what kind of food you like, trying out different types of learning experiences will help you find your learning personality. Try MOOCs, cohort based courses, challenges for things you’re interested in
Example:
Personally, I love a good challenge! I did a 30 day atomic writing challenge in 2021 and that actually what gave me the confidence to I start writing about learning in the first place
3/ Explore different modes
From videos to books to podcasts & more - figure out what format do you like consuming. From writing to teaching others to creating sketchnotes & more - figure out what format do you like creating the most most!
Example:
Personally, I don’t like videos or podcasts to consume content to learn. Entertainment - yes but I prefer reading to watching.
Find your learning personality, it will help you booster your learning like nothing else! But don’t forget, like your food and music preferences, your learning personality is also ever changing :)
🥜 Learning Nugget
Learning is like a kaleidoscope.
Shift even a little bit everything changes - person, context, environment, content…
💥 Coolest Things I Learnt this Week
Past performance is not indicative of future results
Part of focussing on ourselves sometimes also involves being kind to ourselves. One of my new year resolutions was to be kinder to myself. I came across this post by the brilliant The Woke Salaryman! I won’t ruin it by saying more but check it out here
You do you
An old learning nugget that is relevant to this discussion -
There is no one right way to learn something.
Find your own way. You do you.
Your elusive creative genius
For creative people this idea of self is so intertwined with this idea of creativity. In ancient Rome & Greece, the belief was quite the opposite. You were not creative, creativity came to you.
That really changes the narrative.
This is one of my favourite videos on creativity - one of those I keep going back to every once in a while.
🔦 Spotlight
It’s amazing when you get a shoutout from people you respect!
Love & Learning
Until we meet next week!
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