3 min read
“How To Treat Learning Like A Game You Love Playing”
Introduction
This is probably going to be one of my bigger learning statements and pieces of advice; simply because of how versatile and potent it is.
Most learning tactics tell you to “study hard”, “do it even it it’s hard”, “sleep”, “take breaks”, and so much other bs. Some of them might give you the slight edge in some cases, but they usually aren’t definitive. You need plenty others to give you the real edge. If you want to be ahead of everyone else, you need to be the defining marker. And by that, I mean: you need a wake-up call.
The biggest and most transformative learning realization that I had is not something someone else told me, but rather that I learned on my own.
This post is exactly that realization.
What I Won’t Tell You
You probably have seen this topic of “making learning feel like a game” with some kind of special app that someone tries advertising you, or by setting dopamine rewards for every task completed. If you aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about, take this:
Say that, instead of just working for 2 hours, and then taking a break, and then continuing; instead, I set a REWARD. This can be a snack, sweet, phone time, drink of water, or literally anything that makes your brain feel satisfied. Doing this is supposed to make your brain want to continue working, or at least be more willing to repeat. So, working becomes easier! No need to worry about motivation, because you’ve taken care of that.
However, for me (probably just me), this isn’t very promising for longer work segments and more deep work. I work for long hour blocks (spanning full days at times without very few breaks, usually only for eating or bathroom breaks). My best work usually follows that schedule. It’s not ideal for practically anyone, and I get that. But for me, it actually works. Not all of us function the same. For that reason, I want you to take what I say with some consideration. Dopamine rewards don’t work for me. But, it could work for you. Feel free to experiment and figure out how you work.
Re-Emphasis
Again, I’m not going to tell you to eat a snack every x hours or take a walk or drink some water whenever you feel drained. No, that’s boring. I want advice that is juicy and fruitful (if that makes sense). I want information that will make me stronger. For this to make even more sense, I’ll also be referencing the one and only, [TITLE CARD].
If you know, you know.
There Is Only One Way Up
If you want to improve your ability to learn, specifically the ability to retrieve and grasp information; then it means you need to how to learn, but in a way most enjoyable for your brain. It won’t utilize breaks, nor change how you complete tasks, nor even clutter your schedule with more bs. This isn’t meant to occupy more of your time, but to simply leverage it more effectively.
There is only way to get better, and that’s by doing more practice. It’s by solving more practice, learning more information that you didn’t know already, or watching others. That’s pretty much all there is to it. However, this process is repetitive and boring.
Here’s the cool part: we can reframe this into being a lot less boring by setting a mental goal incentive. What this means is we treat our path of improving and continuing to learn better as a game of getting better.
It probably still sounds like a terrible idea with no promise. Let me try and see if I change your opinion:
[TITLE CARD]
Mark Grayson, who at the beginning of the show was just a regular teenager with regular parents, proved to be not so regular. And, his father wasn’t so regular either. His father, an alien, was equipped with unreal strength and raw power, being able to destroy anything in his path with ease. His father was Omni Man, and the strongest being on that planet. Although we aren’t able to see his path to becoming unbelievably strong and powerful, we do see Mark, or [TITLE CARD]’s journey.
That’s when we meet Invincible. He just got his powers. And what’s different in this particular situation between him and his father is that we can see his growth and journey to becoming stronger every day (or at least every episode). To do this, it doesn’t mean staying in his room and doing push-ups until his arms hurt. And it sure doesn’t mean going out and finding the best and most ideal meal-plan to feel “SPECTACULAR” every single day. There’s no time for that. Every day, there are beings attacking his home and threatening to destroy his life and his loved ones.
The Most Important Lesson
So instead, he does the best thing he could possibly do to get stronger. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Every chance he gets, he faces new enemies. He goes against those aliens from a far distant planet that his father absolutely annihilates as soon as he sees them harming his son. He goes to mars, and fights with other aliens. In some fights, he enters and leaves unscathed with no sign of struggle or injury. But in other cases, he leaves just barely hanging on. His brief fight against that random evil organization with the robot man and Battle Beast was a good example.
His rush of adrenaline allowed him to take advantage of a few, but ultimately get his skull crushed within seconds by another enemy in the building. He is left on the brink of death, with basically everyone else around him who was there to help him in the same terrible state as him. Everyone in that room that wasn’t on the enemy side stood no chance and were abandoned. It was only until help arrived that they were able to recover.
This lesson was extremely valuable for Mark. Now, he had learned something absolutely invaluable. No, it’s not to know his limits (he never learns that). But instead, it’s to keep on pushing his limits in order to protect those he loves the most. If he isn’t willing to do that, his loved ones could get hurt, or worse. He needs to take the bigger leap forward and make a step no one else is willing to take.
In The End…
Mark, or shall I say, [TITLE CARD], gets stronger than he was in the last fight. His pursuit to get stronger is exactly what makes him stronger.
That’s exactly how you need to treat your learning. Every day, you can get better, and every day you can improve.
The best way to tackle learning is to tackle it in a way in which you prioritize progress and looking forward to the next challenge. By no means is it an easy mindset to develop, because I too haven’t properly adapted it either. However, in my pursuit of trying to, I’ve only learnt harder things easier.
Studying for the SAT is actually a really good example. The larger and more centralized goal is to do well on the exam and earn a score that feels deserving. So, for every problem you solve, you should look forward to it. For every problem that seems confusing or impossible for your brain to solve, you should look forward to it. You should anticipate the challenge. You should be happy at the sight of seeing a problem that tests your limits; and be upset when a problem doesn’t.
Your goal should be to improve and set new limits for yourself. We all have predefined limits that are far above our perceived limit. Therefore, this means you shouldn’t look down upon yourself just because your preconceived limit is low; because sometimes, it doesn’t always mean that your true, predefined limit is also that. The numbers might not always match.
Conclusion
Aim to get stronger and to learn better than you did yesterday. Search for progress not in the quantity of work you have completed, but rather the level and ease at which you learn. Faster and more miniaturized learning means better work and higher-quality progress.
