avatarSven Vandenberghe E.P.

Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of active listening as a means to enhance learning and knowledge acquisition.

Abstract

The article "Learn How To Absorb Well And Increase Your Learning Rate Significantly" delves into the often overlooked skill of listening and its impact on learning. It posits that while many are naturally inclined to prioritize speaking over listening, the latter is a powerful tool for personal growth and knowledge acquisition. The author argues that listening with the entire body, not just the mind, can lead to a deeper understanding and retention of information. By being selfish in a constructive way—prioritizing listening to absorb valuable insights—individuals can significantly improve their learning rate. The article suggests that true absorption happens when one listens with an open mind, free from the distractions of thinking, and engages with the speaker's energy and emotions. This approach to listening is likened to a sport, one that requires practice and dedication. The author also highlights the importance of emotional connectivity and the use of meditation, brain breaks, and sleep to create a clear space for learning. Ultimately, the article encourages readers to embrace listening as a foundational skill for personal and intellectual development.

Opinions

  • The author believes that being selfish can be beneficial when it involves prioritizing listening for the purpose of learning and growth.
  • Listening is not just a passive activity but an active sport that requires full engagement and can lead to significant personal benefits.
  • The article suggests that true absorption of information comes from listening with the whole body and being in tune with one's inner field.
  • It is emphasized that thinking and listening cannot be done effectively at the same time, and that controlling one's breath can help in focusing on listening.
  • The author opines that everyone has something to teach us, and by listening, we can learn from every interaction.
  • Emotional connectivity and the use of sensory cues like facial expressions and tone of voice are seen as crucial for making learned material stick.
  • The article criticizes the modern tendency to always express our thoughts, advocating for more listening and less speaking to counteract this.
  • Writing is proposed as a tool to improve listening skills by training the mind to wait, think, and consider more deeply.
  • The author quotes Richard Feynman and Eckhart Tolle to support the idea that knowledge requires attention and that being in touch with one's inner body can enhance learning.
  • The article encourages readers to subscribe to the author's posts for more insights on various topics, including sleep, writing, exercise, and mental health.

Learn How To Absorb Well And Increase Your Learning Rate Significantly

What if the way how you pay attention can make all the difference

Picture By Matheus Bertelli on pexels

You are always in a battle of thinking, speaking, or listening.

But most people are selfish, and no one likes to listen. Everyone prioritizes their own time. Most are selfish in a way that doesn’t benefit them over time.

About selfishness.

Take me, for instance. I’m selfish because I would like you to read my writing. But this doesn’t need to be a problem per se, as long as this action doesn’t interrupt someone else’s priorities. By trying to deliver the value as promised in the title, I try not to do that. Besides that, it was your choice to click on the article. Nobody pushed you. Therefore, my writing is a selfish act that benefits me and the reader. Most writers will have that same intention.

When you’re selfish in a non-beneficial way, like just speaking out loud to attract visibility, not listening will reduce absorption.

So, not listening is a huge problem.

But being selfish isn’t an issue when applied for valid reasons.

I grew up, like many, I assume, subconsciously programmed by my environment that being selfish is a terrible act.

Do you still believe that?

By not listening often, you don’t expose yourself to absorb information, which is a terrible mistake. Many don’t focus on the value that listening offers for both themselves and the speaker. They don’t understand the magnificence of the game.

Why?

Because you lose heaps of precious time.

The way how you listen could open a new world for you. Treat listening as a game or a sport, a sport that you want to dominate.

The sport of listening

When listening to another person, don’t just listen with your mind. Listen with your whole body. You want to sense listening.

True absorption happens by souping in feelings and sensory impulses. Get in touch with your inner field. That field within you that wants to absorb all useful information. Be selfish in a non-obvious way by listening.

Selfishness is a valuable skill. Not many want to be associated with being selfish. This is a mistake. You want to be selfish, but in a way, it doesn’t hurdle someone else.

Think about this. When you are selfish for a reasonable time, you’ve accumulated heaps of information that enables you to help people later. As you listen, you want to sense that energy field nestled within your inner body.

Your thinking can also hinder your absorption rate. You can’t do both. You’ll fall behind on one or the other when you try to listen and think.

Taking attention away from thinking creates a quiet space that enables you to listen without the interference of your mind. A way to do that is to control your breath while listening. Focus on what can be useful enough for what’s being said. Increasing your curiosity by giving your listening a reason. It will fuel acquiring more knowledge. Knowledge fuels growth.

While you listen, you make the other person happy by giving them space to express themselves. To relieve their pressure. No matter who stands eye to eye with you, always, I repeat, always, there is some lesson to reap. Everyone knows something that you don’t.

Most people don’t know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking. They pay more attention to what the other person is saying and none at all to what matters.

“Knowledge isn’t free. You have to pay attention.”

-Prof. Richard Feynman-

You want to be one within that present moment.

You need two important things to learn:

First, you need to be able to think about nothing. And it’s not so easy to do that. Meditation, Brainbreaks, and Sleep can cover the first. Social interaction will provide you with the ingredients to learn significantly.

“Being in touch with your inner body creates a clear space of no mind within which the relationship can flower.”

-Eckhart Tolle-

Secondly, emotional connectivity will make the material you’ve absorbed stick. Interaction, facial expressions, tone of voice, imaginative storytelling, funny thoughts, and gestures form an interplay that makes learning stick extremely well. All of these can be reasons to make you love listening.

When you think about it, your ability to retain and recall information is closely correlated to your increasing learning rate.

How Does Learning To Absorb well enables You To Increase Your Learning Rate Significantly?

What hinders your rate of learning?

Being ego-selfish within benefits and not enjoying the practice of listening. Not detecting the impressive skill of listening.

Increase your learning rate by owning the sport of listening:

  • You learn more while listening because speaking expresses what you think you know already
  • You’ll open a window of time to absorb more than you ought to absorb
  • You’ll practice asking more questions, which boosts your learning rate significantly
  • Listening requires you to engage in social interaction, which stimulates your chances to learn faster.

Be selfish quietly. It’s a smart way to increase your learning rate significantly and become a teacher later on.

By listening, you are subjected to a higher volume of stories and experiences, which you acquire time to process and analyze to mold into more useful information. The true power of listening lays in your capability to increase your learning rate significantly when approached well.

It’s not always easy. This modern world tend to hold our minds always occupied, and we all like to express what we think. But to counter the overwhelming effects of thinking, you might focus on this:

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”

-Leonardo Da Vinci-

If you experience trouble holding yourself back and being the absorber or listener, you might have an emotional balance problem. A nifty trick to disable your habit of speaking instead of listening could be to replace that habit with writing.

By writing, you’ll practice your mind to wait, think and consider more, which will automatically induce your listening skill. You’ll be more open to listening because all that information might come in handy later. Writing could become your reason to use the tool of listening well.

Open your mind to listening more and increase your rate of learning significantly.

Absorb, Read, Write, Sleep, Exercise, Thrive!

Thanks for reading this post!

P.S.:

I like to write about: Sleep & Dreams/The process of writing/Exercise Psychophysiology/Habits/Mental Health/Circadian Rhythm/Submarine Power Cables

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Learning And Development
Listening Ability
Absorption
Learning Rate
Self Improvement
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