Consistent Learner! A secret that changed my life!
This issue is a true story of my life about how I learned to learn!
Heraclitus says: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man.
About eight years ago, before preparing myself for job interviews, I mentioned this in my first issue; I had several days and hours of thinking of what I was doing with my life! Don't get me wrong; I had a pretty good living, though I wanted more.
But to grow more, achieve more, I knew one way! To learn more!
One day, after all, I promised myself that regardless of what happens, I would learn something new every day!
Initially, It was so scattered. One day I learned something that I could use in my job, and another day, something else entirely irrelevant for my profession. That might sound stupid, but I was happy. The feeling of gaining a new skill was astonishingly motivating.
Make a plan; learn one thing.
However, because I was learning different things with no plan, I slowly realized that if I want to reach my goals sooner, I need to focus on a few things, possibly only one thing at a time, and consistently try to become better at it.
Hence, I decided to learn one topic until I felt comfortable and then to the next topic. It might take days or sometimes months depends on how broad that topic was.
Create your learning list and prioritize
I had to create a list of things that I needed to learn and prioritize them. Believe it or not, this was one of the most complex and challenging tasks I had to deal with. I had a long list, and all seemed to be necessary.
I get to
- Read many great books
- Listen to amazing talks
- Hone my current skills
- Develop new skills
- Experience new things
- Run my side project
- Build my business
The list can go on and on.
Know your learning style
After a few trials and errors, it appeared that I had to start with something that could act as an enabler to me for the next steps of learning.
Let me give you a real example:
One of the things that I had to become better at was English. Yes, if my English had been better, I could have learned more things. I could communicate better, and my life potentially could change (which It did).
What I did was to choose a few books and resources that I could learn English from.
Establish your routine with discipline
I woke up around 4:30 AM and until 7:30 AM for about 3 hours; I studied English. Then I continued every day for about a year, even weekends, even holidays! You might say now, WOW, 4:30 AM on Sundays! That sounds crazy! But that's discipline.
It might! But for me, it was perfect timing. Because during this time, it was absolute silence and no distraction. I didn't even turn on my phone or laptop. I could focus only on my study intensely.
I'll be honest; there were some days that I couldn't wake up or had a long night or bad days. But those were all exceptions, and that could happen in life. You must find your routine and have the discipline to execute it but be kind to yourself when you cannot due to a valid reason.
This experience was my first consistent learning. My English became significantly better, which I even couldn't believe.
My second notable experience was during my job interviews.
For one year and a half, I woke up every day early morning, usually around 5 AM, and studied the topics that I was not good at or didn't know for the first 2-3 hours of the morning. Topics such as DevOps, Docker, Cloud, in-depth frontend, backend, Agile, way of working, and more,
Consistent Learning is the key to success!
The result was outstanding.
You might ask, how? It was simple to understand.
In my first interviews, I was a junior or mediocre level developer. But in my last few interviews, I was acting like a senior and beyond; I could have explained topics in-depth, pair-program without any issue. I could have built an app from scratch, backend, frontend, and hybrid mobile apps.
I don't need to mention that I got a job offer which probably has changed my life.
I believe in consistent learning!
I believe in it because I had several experiences that led me to have a better life.
A better life is subjective and will change person to person, but whatever is good for you! Consistent learning can potentially lead you to desire life.
I promised myself to stay a consistent learner forever, and up to today, I still wake up early morning; I dedicate the first 2 hours to learn something new, with no distraction.
Again, an exception might happen, that's normal in life, but still, I will do my best to follow my routine with discipline.
I whisper the following sentences to me every day.
- Take every day as an opportunity to become better.
- Always and Always, there is room for improvement.
- To become better, I need to take daily actions
- My priority is my daily improvement
I will finish my story with one wise saying:
"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Keep on learning and improving; If I could do it, you can do it.
Yours,
Majid
My Favorite
I have finally published a new pair programming video. If you are into Flutter, you might want to watch it. Do not forget to leave me a comment.