These are the ten things that you should start to learn and do from now on, they are the things that one needs to learn in order to be successful. No matter how old you are, it’s never too late to start!
- How to predict results
One of the most common embarrassments is “I never thought of ……”. Yes, most people are very bad at predicting outcomes, and schools never seem to consider how to help them improve this ability.
Predicting outcomes relies partly on science, partly on mathematics, and partly on an ability to anticipate. Collectively, it is the ability to create models of thinking. We rely on this ability to imagine the events that will follow: “What will happen if ……? “
The danger of this situation is that it focuses on “what you want to happen” rather than “what will happen”. For example, when you are about to jump over a ditch, you might imagine yourself falling on the other side. That’s fine, and imagining will help you make a successful jump. But you also need to anticipate what will happen if you don’t land on the other side. What would happen then? Have you ever envisioned the result of a 40-meter fall?
This is where math and science come into play. You need to compare the situation at hand with your past experience and calculate the probability of different outcomes. For example, if you are about to jump a 5-meter ditch, you should ask yourself, “How many times have I successfully crossed a 5-meter ditch? How many times have I failed? “If you don’t know, you can make a trial jump on a flat surface and you should have a good enough idea of what you’re getting into.
People don’t think ahead. But when you’re in school, you should always take the opportunity to ask yourself “What’s going to happen next? Observe the situations around you and how your environment interacts with you and predict what the outcome will be. Write down your predictions or blog about them. With practice, you will become an expert at predicting outcomes.
Over time, situations will become more interesting and you will begin to observe patterns, common phenomena, and things that help make predictions about outcomes. For example, things fall and glass is broken. People get angry when violated. The temperature of something hot goes down. Dogs sometimes bite. Buses, or trains, are sometimes late. These kinds of common phenomena, often called “common sense,” will help you avoid wrong, and sometimes damaging, predictions of outcomes.
- How to read
You may find it strange that I don’t mean “literacy” in the traditional sense here, I mean how to read a text and then go deeper to I mean how to read text and then “understand” what it represents in greater depth (this applies to sound and image as well, but it is relatively easy to build a foundation in the textual domain first, if not fully able to to other domains).
The four main forms of writing are: description, argument, illustration, and definition. You will learn how to identify these different types of writing by looking at “signs” and key words.
Then, you need to learn how sentences are combined to form these types of writing. For example, an argumentative essay has two main parts, the premise and the conclusion. The conclusion is the point the writer is trying to prove, and it will definitely have a signature connecting word (like “therefore,” “so”, “thus “) to reflect it.
A large number of essays are filled with useless text just to make the writer look learned, to divert your attention, or just to fill more space. Being able to bypass unimportant details and get right to the point the writer is really trying to make without distraction is an important ability.
Even though your school never taught you this, find a basic book that teaches informal logic (these books might be called “Critical Thinking” or something similar). or something similar). Find the format and connectives of an argumentative essay in the book (usually these books do not cover the other three types of writing) and practice finding these connectives in your essay and in what your teacher says in class. You can focus on one connective per day and observe how it is used in reality.
- How to distinguish between fiction and fact
I have written a lot about this topic elsewhere, and there is no doubt that this is an area that is greatly neglected in schools. Sometimes I suspect it’s because teachers feel their students must absorb knowledge without selectivity, and if they question everything, the teachers say, they never learn!
The first thing you learn is to question what you’ve been told, what you’ve read, and what you’ve seen on TV. Don’t accept all of what you’ve been told. Keep asking questions: How can you justify knowing it is true? What evidence makes you think that’s wrong?
I’ve written several articles that will help you understand this, including my “Introduction to Logical Fallacies” and my article on How to Evaluate a Website”. These principles are generally applicable. For example, when your boss says something to you, you can use the principles in the article to do the same test. You might be surprised to find out how much of what your boss says to you is not true!
Find yourself a piece of information (a newspaper column, a blog post, a lecture) to analyze in detail every day. Analyze every sentence, every word, and ask yourself what you are expected to believe and what you are expected to feel. Then ask yourself if there is a good reason for you to believe and feel this way, and if you are being manipulated by others.
- How to Empathize
The vast majority of people live in their own world, and there is nothing wrong with that most of the time. However, we should at least recognize that there are other people in the world who live in their own worlds. This will prevent you from mistakenly thinking that every other person is just like you. More importantly, it makes others a source of knowledge and insight that will amaze you.
Part of this process involves seeing things from another person’s perspective. For example, someone who lives in a different place than you. They may not see what you see, or they may see what you do not see. This shift in perception may change what they believe, and it’s important to be able to realize that.
But more profoundly, you need to imagine what others are feeling. This means that you must create a model in your own brain of what other people think and feel, and then put yourself into that model. The best way to do this is to imagine that you are that person and put yourself in their specific situation.
Perhaps the best way to learn to think differently is to study theater. (And by theater, I don’t mean studying Shakespeare, but how to act in theater.) Unfortunately, schools do not have this component as part of their core curriculum. So, as a fallback, you have to study subjects like religion and psychology. However, many schools don’t actually have these classes either, so you spend at least a little time each day playing various role-playing games (RPGs) that allow you to play yourself as others with different beliefs and motivations.
When you empathize, you will understand and find ways to help you bridge the gap between you and others. For example, it is more important for you to become polite and considerate. Because you can appreciate the hurt that others suffer when you treat them rudely. Likewise, becoming honest is even more important because you begin to see how obvious your lies are and how infuriating it is to be treated like a fool who can be easily fooled.
Empathy is not some kind of transaction. Nor is it a technique like the “golden rule” in human interaction (note: the biblical ……) “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”). It is truthfulness, when you feel in sync with others, and through your synchronized mental state, you understand them. You are courteous because you don’t take it well when people treat you rudely; you treat people honestly because you feel offended when you lie.
You need to learn how to have this feeling. Once you have this feeling, you will find out how pale your life was without her before.
- How to be creative
Everyone is creative, and if you look closely at your own life, you’ll find that you’re already creative in many places. Humans have a natural ability to create – that just happens to be the way our brains work – and with practice, this ability can become very powerful.
The trick to enhancing creativity is to understand how it works. Sometimes people think that creative ideas come out of nothing, but creativity is actually the result of skillfully and skillfully applying your knowledge in some form.
True creativity is almost always present in response to something. For example, this post of mine is in response to an article on the same topic that I think hasn’t been said enough. Creativity also comes in response to a specific problem: how to rescue a cat, how to get through a ditch, how to hang clothes. So the first thing to do to be more creative is to learn how to find problems to be solved, things to make feedback about, needs to be met. It takes practice. Whenever you see a problem or need, try writing it down or blogging about it.
In addition, the generation of ideas relies on the intersection of areas of knowledge, and in some cases, the combined application of knowledge. When you see a ditch in real life, think about how you cross it in an online game? Or, when you need to clean the acid from a battery, think about how you remove the excess stomach acid?
In other words, creativity often manifests itself metaphorically, meaning you need to learn how to find common ground between the current situation and other things you know. This is often referred to as “thinking outside the box”, where you need to look beyond the specific problem. The specific skill involved here is “pattern recognition”. This skill is hard to learn and requires a lot of practice, which is why creativity is so difficult.
But “pattern recognition” can be learned, and it’s what you do when you say a song like another song, when you take pictures of flowers and fishing boats. Art is the activity of finding patterns in all kinds of things, which is why you should devote some time to art every day this year – whether it’s music, photography, videography, sketching, painting or poetry.
- How to communicate clearly
Communicating clearly starts with knowing what you want to say and then picking some simple tools to say it. Perhaps the hardest part is understanding exactly what you want to say. But taking the time to make sure you know what you want to say is more important than writing a bunch of material to get it across.
Knowing what to say is usually a matter of structure. Professional writers use a small set of standard structures that are commonly used. For example, some writers like articles (or even entire books!) contain a series of bullet points, as this article does. Another structure, often called the “pyramid style,” is often used by journalists, where the entire story is told in the first paragraph, and each subsequent paragraph provides increasingly minor details. Each subsequent paragraph provides increasingly minor details.
In the overall structure, the writer discusses, explains, describes and defines, sometimes in a mixture of them. Each of them has a different structure. An argument, for example, will have a conclusion, which is a point that the writer wants you to believe. The conclusion is supported by a set of premises. What connects the premises to the conclusion is a set of “relational words”. The word “therefore,” for example, represents the conclusion.
Learning how to write clearly involves learning the tools and applying them in practice. Perhaps the best way to learn how to structure an essay is to learn how to deliver a speech with the aid of notes. This will force you to choose a clear structure (one that you can remember!) ) and make sure they are applied in a straightforward and clear manner. I’ll write more on this topic later, for now, you can refer to Keith Spicer’s book, “The Setup”.
Also, master the writing tools used by professionals. Learn the structure of arguments, explanations, descriptions, and definitions. Learn to use relational words to help readers become familiar with those essay structures. Master basic grammar to avoid confusing your sentences. Information about all of this can be found online.
Then, keep practicing your writing every day. A great way to do this is to join a student or volunteer-run newspaper and write with a team, for a certain audience, and under a certain time limit. This will force you to write faster, which is useful because it’s faster to write clearly than to write long and vague. If you don’t have a ready-made newspaper, start one, or start a news blog.
- Learn to learn
Your brain is composed of billions of interconnected nerve cells. Learning, in essence, is the formation of a group of nerve cell connections. Whether you are learning math or gazing at the sky, nerve cell connections are being formed, so your brain is always learning. The difference in learning is how you learn.
When you learn, you are trying to create patterns of connections in your brain. You are trying to connect brain neurons together and strengthen those connections. This can be done by repeating behaviors and experiences in groups. Learning is a process of constant practice and repetition.
So, to learn anything – from “2 + 2 = 4” to quantum mechanical theory – you need to Repetition after repetition, with a view to developing neural connections in the brain. Sometimes people learn by reading aloud repeatedly – a mechanical learning that was common not so long ago. Taking notes while listening to someone talk is also good because you listen once and then when you write them down you repeat them once.
Think about learning how to throw a baseball. Someone can explain any detail of the motion and you will be able to understand all of it, but you will still need to throw the baseball thousands of times before you become proficient. You need to strengthen the connections in your brain just as much as you strengthen your muscles.
Some people think learning is all about memorizing facts. Sometimes that’s true. But learning is more like recognition than memory. Because you are trying to build a network of nerve cells, it is better to learn a connected whole rather than unconnected parts, because the connected whole you learn in one area has the same patterns you already know in another area. Learning in a domain becomes important in recognizing patterns.
Sometimes we use patterns that are very artificial, as in ‘everygoodboydeservesfudge. In other cases, more useful, patterns are related to natural laws, logical and mathematical principles, historical trends, how matters work as a whole, and other such things. Drawing often helps people discover patterns, which is why brain maps and concept maps are so popular.
In fact, you should think of the study of math, history, science, and mechanics as the learning of archetypes, that is, the learning of basic patterns that require you to recognize them again and again. This means that when you learn these subjects, you should be asking “what is the pattern,” not just “what are the facts”. Asking this question will actually make these subjects easier to learn.
Think about how you learn and what you learn at any given moment. Remember, you are always learning, which means you need to ask: What are you learning when you watch TV, shop, drive, or play baseball? What types of patterns are being created? What types of patterns are being reinforced? How can you take control of this process?
- How to stay healthy
From a practical point of view, staying healthy consists of two elements: 1) minimizing exposure to disease and toxins; and 2) taking care of our muscles.
Minimizing exposure to disease and toxins is primarily a matter of cleanliness and order. Simple things like storing methanol in the garage instead of the kitchen cabinets can minimize the risk of accidental poisoning. Keeping cookware surfaces clean and steaming food thoroughly reduces bacterial infections. Frequent hand washing can stop the spread of human infectious germs and diseases.
It is for similar reasons that some of the hot button issues in education revolve around how to warn people to avoid exposure to diseases and toxins. If you have had physical contact with another person, you will likely help spread the disease, so wear protection. Behaviors like drinking beverages, eating fat-rich foods, smoking, and taking drugs are typical behaviors that bring toxins into the body and minimize exposure.
Maintaining one’s physical health may be even more important because the main threats to health are usually associated with decreased physical function. You should learn how to ensure proper nutrition and appropriate physical activity and practice it more often. Even if you don’t intend to become a health paranoid (and who does?) , it is certainly useful to know which foods and which behaviors are good for your body. Develop good habits of eating healthy foods and practicing beneficial behaviors.
Get some form of active exercise every day, ride your bike to work or school, walk a mile, play a sport, or exercise. Also, make sure you eat at least one meal a day that contains foods that are “good” for your health (e.g., contain nutrients such as protein, minerals, etc.), such as meat, vegetables, or Soy, fruit, etc. If your school does not provide proper exercise and nutrition, ask for it! You can’t learn anything if you’re sick or in a state of hunger! Otherwise, work on creating an alternative plan to get a job at lunchtime.
Finally, remember: you never have to prove the importance of protecting your own life and health. If you don’t want to do it because you think it’s unsafe, then you have the absolute right to refuse to do it. The result, any result, is better than compromising on it.
- How to make you more valuable
Maybe it’s a little cynical to say that society as a whole is complicit in making you feel bad about yourself, but it may not be entirely incorrect. Advertisers make you feel bad about yourself so you buy their products, politicians make you feel helpless so you rely on their policies and programs, and even your friends and acquaintances try to make you doubt yourself in order to gain an advantage over you in competition.
You can have all the knowledge and skills in the world, but they are meaningless if you are not sure you are capable of using them. It’s like owning a Lamborghini, but not having a driver’s license. It’s parked in the driveway gleaming, but unless you can get it going, you won’t get any value out of it.
Making yourself valuable is partly a matter of personal development and partly a matter of choice. In order to make yourself valuable, you need to feel that you are worth that value. In fact, you are worth it, but the way to help you recognize that is to achieve certain goals, learn certain skills, or earn a certain kind of prestige. In order to make yourself valuable, you must also tell yourself, “I am valuable! “.
This is important. How we see ourselves is as much a learning curve as anything else. If someone tells you over and over that you are useless, and if you don’t respond, then you will grow to believe that you are indeed useless, because it will lead to the formation of “you are useless! ” brain neural connections are formed. But if you repeat, believe, and say to yourself over and over again in such a way that “I am worth something! “, then it will be something you are convinced of.
What does making yourself valuable mean exactly? It means many things. For example, it is a belief that you are indeed good enough to have an attitude, a voice, an argument that your contribution is valid. It can also be a view that you are competent, that you are able to learn new things and be creative. It is your ability to be independent, that your personal well-being is not dependent on a particular individual or organization, that you are able to stand on your own two feet and make independent decisions about how to live your life on your own terms.
All of this is your right. But you were not born with them. You have to earn them, through your conviction (regardless of what others say) and through your self-effort.
None of the courses at your school teach this, and may even actively try to undermine your self-effort and self-esteem. (You need to be vigilant about this.) So you must take responsibility for your self-worth.
Do this every day: Tell yourself that you’re smart, you’re cool, you’re strong, you’re good, and you can be anything you want to be. In the morning, say it out loud – over the sound of the water in the shower if you have to, for sure! Then, go practice those qualities. Do a crossword puzzle to become smarter, wear your own fashion style to make yourself cool, do something you told yourself you would do to become stronger. Do good deeds to make yourself better.
- How to live a meaningful life
This is probably the most difficult of all things to learn and the least taught.
In fact, living meaningfully is a combination of several things. In a sense, it refers to your dedication to some purpose or goal, but it also refers to your gratitude and dedication to the present moment and place. Finally, it is recognizing your place in the world. Your meaning is something that you must create for yourself.
Too many people live to the end and don’t know why they live. They seek to make money and make it again, or to make themselves famous, or to wield power, and whether they achieve these goals or not, they find life empty and meaningless. This is because they confuse the path with the outcome – money, fame and power are things that people pursue in order to do what is worth doing.
What is worth doing? It’s up to you to decide. I choose to give my life to help people get an education. Others have chosen to pursue curing diseases, exploring space, worshiping God, building families, designing cars, or gaining enlightenment.
If you’re not sure what’s worth doing, some people will make the decision for you. At some point in your life, you will realize that you haven’t done anything worthwhile at all. So, today, take some time to think about what is worth doing. You can change your mind tomorrow. But at least you have begun to direct yourself to something.
The second thing is what is sometimes called “living in the present”. This is essentially the idea of being in control of your thoughts. Your thoughts don’t give you power, the only thing that works is the here and now. If you think about anything, such as hope, failure, fear, etc., these thoughts will not hurt you, and it is up to you to decide how much you really believe in them.
The other side of the coin is that what you are doing right now is what you most want to do. Now you may be thinking, “No way! I’d rather be at Malibu Beach right now! But if you really wanted to go to Malibu Beach, you would already be there. The reason you didn’t go is because you chose something else in your life that was a higher priority: your family, your job, your country.
Once you realize that you have the ability to choose what you do, you will realize that you have the ability to choose the consequences. That means that consequences, even bad ones, are in large part a choice.
This understanding is extremely revolutionary. Come to think of it, what really makes sense to the reader is that the last thing I want to do at this point is to write this article for you – yes, for you to read. What’s even more amazing is that as a writer, I know there’s one thing you want to do more than even going to Malibu Beach, and that’s to read your own words. It drives me to want to write something meaningful that will give meaning to my life.
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