And they may end up getting good grades but feel like the effort has been too much. They tell me they know no other way and I believe them.
I went through high school and college with the same mindset and I hated the whole process.
Now that I'm older and wiser (I hope) I can see my mistakes. If I had only known way back when. Some of my students today take my advice and see an immediate improvement. Others are too afraid to change and so continue the same way as before.
Here are three things that will help you learn anything faster and easier than ever before. You may use them and see improvement or you may disregard them and continue to search.
It's your choice.
1- Relax. This may be the farthest thing from your mind but it is the most important when learning. Research shows that we retain much more when we are relaxed. What's more important, we access the new material much easier when we learn it in a relaxed state.
2- Learning Strategies. There are easy ways to organize material that make it easier to study. If you're a person that sits in front of a textbook and starts to turn pages and learn, you are making a big mistake. Your brain needs a little more effort than that. How about breaking things down into categories? How about finding similarities between what you're studying now and what you studied last week? The best students in class have learning strategies.
3- Inner dialogue. Do you believe you can learn easily? Or, do you feel it is a struggle and one big headache? You can start today to change your inner dialogue and learn more in less time by thinking and picturing yourself as a "learning machine." Try it. Sit down for 5 minutes each day and see yourself studying in a relaxed state and remembering everything with ease. What have you got to lose? Are you going to tell me that believing that studying is hard and stressful and nerve-racking is a better way?
Follow it up with a nicer inner dialogue where you encourage and cheer yourself on. The change will affect your whole life.
There really is little difference between the achievers, semi-achievers and non-achievers. In most cases, it's a question of habits of behavior and habits of mind.
Start to change these habits today and you will be an achiever who learns faster and easier with less effort than you can imagine.
