3 Ways to Learn and Grow
Enhance your assimilation of all you learn.
Assimilate
The life cycle is summarized as Study, Apply, Mentor. You study and learn in your youth. Then you apply what you learn until you master it. Then you mentor others, sharing what you’ve learned, completing your cycle. My previous blog, 3 Phases of the Life Cycle, provided an overview of the life cycle. This blog focuses on ways to enhance your assimilation of the information you receive through study in its various forms.
Many ways exist to accumulate and assimilate information, using your mind, your connections and your experience. The way you assimilate that information is unique to your perspective and your multiple intelligences. To enhance your assimilation, let’s examine three techniques:
Memorize
Co-Create
Accumulate
Your memory is a powerful tool and can be used to help or harm you. You can choose to use it to help and to prevent harm. Interdependence affords you many opportunities to co-create, enhancing your ability to create more effective and efficient results. You naturally accumulate a lot of information, which can be assimilated in random ways or more deliberate effective ways. Let’s start with your memory.
Memorize
You memorize information from direct sensory perception, from books and movies, from your thought analysis or from your imagination. Your mind sorts and stores that information according to your unique categories, using your unique perspective and filter of prior experience that defines your meaning-making ability.
If your memories are creating or strengthening an attachment to a harmful limiting belief, challenge your memories.
A friend once shared a limiting belief about her mother not caring about her, sharing an example of her sharing a drawing with her mom while she was hanging clothes on the line, and her mom didn’t even look. We easily challenged that example, and she realized that she may have looked down at her own picture when her mom looked, and her mom turned her gaze back to what she was doing as my friend looked back up. That one simple realization put a big hole in that limiting belief. Maybe it wasn’t true.
You may find that example to be a simple misunderstanding of a child, yet most of our beliefs were created by those kinds of simple little memories.
From such a realization that the memory may have been misinterpreted, you can begin to tackle all the other little things that you misinterpreted to mean your mom didn’t care or you aren’t worthy or lovable, or whatever meaning you made of it.
You can consciously influence your memory of current events by attaining and maintaining a positive centered energetic state of being and by challenging negative thoughts as they arise. Negative judgments are often the result of a lack of information or a misunderstanding. Don’t hesitate to ask questions before judging.
Some of the most challenging memories you’ll face are often your future memories. When you worry about an upcoming meeting, your body reacts to your thoughts as though they are real, and you memorize that imagined experience. If you adjust your energy before the meeting, you probably had no reason to worry, which means you suffered for no reason. Even if you did have a bad meeting, then you made yourself suffer twice. Shift your energy to memorize what a good meeting would look like instead.
When a parent worries about their child who is out past curfew, they imagine and memorize all sorts of negative possibilities of events happening to their child. These thoughts are only in the imagination, but the parent’s body is reacting as though the event has already happened.
Again, why would anyone want to experience such pain more than once? The more calm you remain, the more rational you will be in managing any situation.
Consciously use your memories for good. Release false past memories and call on uplifting ones as needed. Make accurate current memories by being as present as possible and by questioning your judgements and looking for better information. Release any future memories of worry and anxiety by challenging their validity and shifting your focus toward positive possibilities.
Co-Create
Get out of your mind a little to imagine other ways you assimilate your knowledge. You typically use your heartfelt connections with yourself, others and all life to assimilate heartfelt experiences.
You store memories more easily when they are attached to strong emotions, whether positive or negative. The stronger the emotions, the more you’ll remember.
Consciously use your connections to expand your ideas of ways to increase the positive emotions around your activities. Even the most mundane activities can be fun when you co-create with others.
Even major negative events which cause painful memories can also cause some joyful ones when people move through the event together.
I cherish one of the last memories I had with my mother. I was caring for her in her last days. While helping her back to bed, she didn’t have enough energy to make it, and I couldn’t catch her, so she slid down beside the bed to the floor. While waiting for my sister and her husband to come help us, I wedged myself between my mom and the metal part of the bed, so she wouldn’t get hurt. I cradled my mom in my arms for a little while, cherishing the closeness I felt in the short time that we waited.
You cannot predict such moments. I would never have wanted my mom to fall, but I am glad I was there to make her comfortable in the moment, and that I got to experience the deep connection I felt in that moment. You can choose to make any moment into a happy memory.
Play with ideas to include more deep, meaningful connections in your activities. My sisters and I used to sing while doing the dishes, which was fun. Working on projects of any kind with others makes them more fun. Prioritize activities that you think would produce your greatest life experiences.
Accumulate
It’s easy to accumulate information in our modern world. The bigger problem is narrowing how much you expose yourself to without overwhelming yourself. Think about all the different ways you currently receive information. Various forms of print, audio and video are available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, in every field imaginable. You have numerous forms for work, for personal commitments and for fun. You have to be very intentional about it to have any down time.
Often people choose what’s easy and convenient or inexpensive. Others can’t handle the stress and limit themselves severely. Everyone has unique needs based on their relationships, occupation and interests.
Find your optimal balance between information from courses, from experiences with others and from nature. Also balance your activities to match your unique needs for quality time with others and time for your solitude.
Be sure to consciously choose sources and topics that align with your vision and values. What are you interested in that you haven’t been able to pursue before now? Can you release something that no longer serves you and gift yourself the time to pursue your interest?
Remember that time expands when you’re in a positive mood doing something that you enjoy. Follow what interests you to energize yourself and expand your time.
Create a system to accumulate and assimilate all of your experience to memorize the special times of your life. Create the story of your life that you would love to cherish forever.
Going Deeper with the Life Cycle
In the next two blog posts, I will discuss the phases of the life cycle in more depth.
3 Steps from Student to Mentor
Study, apply and mentor in all areas of your life.
3 Fun Ways to Learn with GAMEs
Discover and choose your ways to make learning a fun game.