Want Success? Ask Yourself This Question Every Time You Learn Something New

Knowledge without action is useless.

Two rabbits — Tim and Joe — were walking along the path they took every morning. The sun was shining, the grass was green, life was good. When they came past a bush, Joe stopped and sniffed the branches.

“It smells like fox in here,” he said. “I bet that a fox has seen us on our daily walks and looked for a place to hide and surprise us.” “Are you sure?” Tim asked, not without a doubt in his voice. “Yes, stupid, that’s what foxes do. I know all about them,” Joe snapped back at him. Tim shrugged his shoulders. “Guess we should be careful then.”

The next morning, Joe was waiting for Tim so they could go on their morning walk, just like they did every morning. But Tim didn’t show up. So Joe went on the walk alone. When he got close to the bush they inspected the day before, he thought to himself: “If I was right, the fox must be hiding in that bush, waiting for me to walk past so he can leap at me from behind, right about now.”

And just as he finished his thought, the fox jumped out from the bush and onto Joe, burying his teeth in his neck. With his last breath, he uttered: “I knew it!”

Poor Joe.

Alright. Why am I telling you about the morning routine of two (now one) rabbits? Because it illustrates one of the ground rules in life: Without action, knowledge is useless.

This isn’t the only article you’ve ever read about improving yourself. Not only that, but you’ve probably read some books, watched a ton of videos, and consumed a lot of information that could be very useful.

But how much of that knowledge have you actually applied? How much of it has had a measurable impact on your life and changed it for the better? And how much of this knowledge have you obtained, labeled it as smart, interesting, or inspiring — only to stuff it into a box somewhere in the far end of your brain, never to be retrieved?

Look, nothing against consuming information and knowledge, getting smarter, and broadening your horizon. There is a lot of great material out there that’s potentially life-changing. The emphasis here is on potentially.

Think about it. If all you ever do is acquire knowledge but you don’t act on it, the impact it has on your life will be zero. You’re nowhere near personal development, getting closer to success or achieving your dreams. It’s mental masturbation, plain and simple.

Combining Your Theoretical and Practical Learnings

But that is not the only reason why you have to put the new knowledge into action. The other one is that you severely limit your learning if you don’t.

When you obtain new information, there are two parts to your learning curve: Theoretical and practical learning.

Theoretical knowledge is about understanding how and why something works. And make no mistake here, this part of the learning curve is crucial. Without knowing the inner works of a concept or method, you will have significant trouble applying it. If you don’t know what the traffic signs mean and which pedal makes your car go faster and which one slower, you’ll make one hell of an awful driver.

But can you improve your driving skills without practice? Hardly so.

Practical knowledge is about applying what you have learned to your own life and learning from that. See, your life and your circumstances are unique. Therefore, no matter how good the book, video course, or webinar you went through is, there is one thing it can never teach you, per definition. And that is the unique feedback and learning you get from putting this knowledge into action. Your driving instructor might be able to tell you all about how to shift gears, set an indicator, or change the oil. But when you sit down in your own car, you have to do it. And that unlocks a whole other level of learning.

The One Question You Have to Ask Yourself

Nowadays, whenever I come across an interesting article or finish a book that is supposed to help me be more successful, I ask myself this one simple question:

How can I put this knowledge into action?

Then, I think long and hard about it. I structure this thinking into three distinct parts:

1. Which parts of my life could this have an impact on?
2. What can I do or change to put this knowledge into action?
3. How will I do it?

If I can’t come up with an answer to all three, the information I consumed wasn’t useful at all. This sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. Unless you want to participate in a quiz show, improve your general education or read and watch for entertainment purposes only, there was no point in acquiring that knowledge.

I’ll give you an example to show you what I mean.

I was aware of the concept of flow states for years and had read quite a bit about the subject. I could tell you everything about what happens in your brain during flow, flow state triggers, the effects it has on our performance, and much more. In short, it’s a state of mind during which your brain shuts off everything non-essential, allowing you to completely focus on the thing you’re doing and get into the zone.

However, I didn’t apply this knowledge to my life, so I kind of forgot about the whole thing altogether. Zero benefits so far, apart from being able to brag about my smarts. That was until I watched Matt D’Avella’s interview with Steven Kotler, one of the leading experts on flow.

This time, I didn’t stop at the theory. I went through the three questions above and put it into practice.

1. Which parts of my life could this have an impact on? There were many possibilities, but to keep it easy in the beginning I zeroed in on writing.
2. What can I do or change to put this knowledge into action? Achieving flow state isn’t as easy as flipping a light switch, but there are some triggers and helping hands you can turn to. I put together a list of a couple of simple steps that were applicable to my writing.
3. How will I do it? I wrote up a flow script and built a habit of going through it every time before I start writing.

The result? I can now easily enter flow states almost every time I sit down at the keyboard. My writing has improved — not only in terms of quality but I also can write much faster when I’m in the zone, which gives me more free time to work on other things.

And all of this just because I asked myself a simple question and decided to put the knowledge that I already had into action.

Action Drives Results

Mental masturbation is a tricky beast. It’s easy to fall into this pit without even noticing. You work hard, read about everything, watch all the video courses and masterclasses. And it feels good because you’re working on your project or your business, you’re putting in the time and you become smarter.

The problem is that you’ve got nothing to show for it. If all you do is consume information but not apply it, you not only cut your learning curve short but also reduce the impact it has on your life to a big, fat, round zero.

Putting in the work and applying what you know is a lot harder than passively consuming information. But if you want to be successful, that’s the way you have to take.

Success isn’t about knowledge alone — it comes from taking action.

Knowledge without action is useless — but you have to have the knowledge to start with. And it’s a lot easier to acquire it if you retain more from what you read.

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