'If you don't learn to love learning, you won't learn anything.'
Most people have quite bad feelings with regards to 'learning'. This mainly stems from memories of boring classroom sessions, of high pressure during meaningless school exams and of being put on the spot by incompetent teachers.
The challenge with this is that there is no way around learning in times of accelerating change. Effective learning processes, though, are driven by the limbic system, the emotional brain, which has the power to open or close access to learning. If your attitude towards the learning situation or the learning topic is negative, forget about learning. It just won't happen!
So what to do to change that?
Reflect on your general attitude towards learning. Ask yourself: Is it rather positive or negative? Where does it come from? Is there still a good reason to feel this way today?
Try to let go of these past experiences by accepting that they happened and recognizing that they are long gone.
Remember two or three situations from your past where learning was effortless and fun. What exactly was different? What did it feel like?
Next time you are entering into a learning situation, make yourself aware of your feelings. If you feel rather bad, actively remember those good past learning situations. In addition, try to focus on the good parts of the situation, e.g. the people you learn with, the parts of the topic that are interesting for you, how the new skills will benefit you later etc.
When is the next time you can reframe your experience?
