Active vs passive learning

 “Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.”

***

I grew up middle class and have had the dream of being financially independent from a young age.

I knew to become financially independent, I needed to acquire enough money each month to cover my monthly expenses.

Problem: I didn’t have the necessary skills.

So I came up with the best solution I could think of:

Learn.

Learn as much as I possibly could as fast as I could so I would have the skills to make as much money as possible.

I went to college classes, worked a part time job in my area of interest, and studied the topics on the side. I told myself that I had to stay “productive” at all times. Because of this, I tried to multitask even when I was doing something for leisure such as playing video games or watching baseball. I had podcasts on at all times, I read books nonstop, I watched educational Youtube videos all the time, every single thing I did was deemed “productive” in my mind. I continued doing this through 4 years of college.

You’d think by the end of that time I became some sort of supergenius with all of the knowledge I would ever need.

Wrong.

I had gone 4 years of making little progress because I was learning the wrong way.

By trying to learn so many different things at once, I completely burnt out my mind and my ability to focus. I became stressed out when I wasn’t attempting to learn something. My education suffered. My social life suffered. My mental health suffered.

I had not recognized how passively I was learning.

I took college classes but I didn’t pay attention. I spent more time playing video games during my zoom classes and used Quizlet on every single test and quiz. I read books about doing stuff but never did the stuff. I watched Youtube videos with great information but never took action on what I learned.

I thought I was doing the “productive” thing by trying to learn all of this, but I really wasn’t making any progress.

I learned an extremely important lesson:

Passive learning is procrastination.

I did all of these things because they were easy. I made myself feel like I was doing something, but in reality, I was just taking the easy way out. I used reading and watching Youtube to put off what I knew I should’ve been doing. 

I thought that acquiring all of the necessary information would make me the most prepared I could be when I was ready to take action.

The truth: you will never have all the information.

If you look at some of the most successful people in history, you will quickly realize they weren’t successful because they knew all the information, they were successful because they took action. They learned enough to get started and immediately started doing what they learned. 

Active learning allows you to quickly develop skills and experience.

Passive learning gives you knowledge, but it doesn’t give you experience.

Don’t be like me. Don’t think you can learn everything then start. You have to start to learn. You will never be an expert unless you DO.

Fail soon and fail often.

The more you fail and the sooner you fail, the sooner you will be successful.