Learning To Pursue—Method

Applying learning to our pursuits is at once the easiest and most difficult step. It is easy because there are so many opportunities to learn and so many ways to apply the insights. It is difficult because we fall out of the habit of looking to learn and have to rebuild it.

Building that habit begins with noticing the weird angle sticking out of your usual field of vision: the kid with an engineering brain noticing the technology in the novel read in a literature class, the budding physicist noticing the complicated politics and violated ethics of the Challenger disaster, or simply the high school or college student noticing the qualities of people around them and recognizing others as potential collaborators and some as future close friends. There is nothing revolutionary about looking to learn in new directions, but we have to train ourselves to do it and then use what we notice.

I had this experience when designing my first online course. I was choosing readings and creating assignments in my usual way but was bothered that my students would miss discussing them with other students. So I decided to make every major assignment a conversation on course material with someone outside of the course. There is nothing particularly revolutionary about this method, except that people do not use it. The students in that course studied more thoroughly because they risked looking dumb if they did not and because they had to explain topics to people with no background rather than to me and the other students in the course. They learned things from others that were related to the course but that I could have never taught them. They shared what they learned and built a network of people who recognized their talents and abilities.

Drawing on this experience, I teach students two things: to identify learning relevant to their pursuits, and to share what they know with people who can teach them something but will not give them a grade, praise or any other reward for showing what they know.

As one pursuit advances, it is motivating to keep track of how resources accumulate. There are methods to help people see the wealth of opportunities to learn and apply the insights to your pursuits. I start people with the STARS method, designed by entrepreneur John D. Chisholm to maximize a person’s awareness of his or her own resources. The method begins by asking the person to list all of the Skills, Technology, Assets and Accomplishments, Relationships, and (personal) Strengths that they possess. Even a young person will realize they have more resources than they think and will become more confident.

BUT … having many resources is not an advantage when choosing and using them scatters your attention and distracts from your current pursuit. Instead, direct your resources by asking

Learning is one of the best ways to both increase your resources and direct them toward success in your pursuits. We are never studying to repeat back to a professor but to converse and collaborate with others.