The best approach to teach yourself anything and be good at it

Table of Contents

Source: Youtube - Vaughn Gene

So how can we learn anything by ourselves? Lets see a method to learn just about everything on our own.

Main Concepts

  1. structured learning: Structured Learning
  2. avoiding bouncing around from topic to topic.

Most important things to remember

99% of learning is what we do with what we learn

  1. If there’s one thing I really want you to take away from this video, it’s that 1% of the equation is watching the video, or getting the book, or some sort of course material, but the other 99% is whatever you do with that.
    1. I’m making these numbers up, but you get the point.
  2. Just keep that in mind.

Stick to the resources that you already have

Stick to the resources that you already have

No such thing as ‘correct’

  1. There’s no correct way to learn something.
  2. I know there’s a stress that we bring upon ourselves, trying to make sure that we’re learning things in the correct order or the right way.
  3. Now, there are fundamentals that you should keep in mind, but in general, keep a loose plan in mind and just follow that.
  4. There’s really no absolute correct way to learn something.
  5. You can learn advanced tricks before you learn beginner ones and some things and vice versa.
  6. This is going to help you actually stick to the course that you make and not flip flop around and waste time, looking for more content or videos or switching categories.

Mastery Concept

  1. It is better to know everything about one piece of content than it is to know a little bit about a lot of different pieces of content.
  2. This is probably detrimental to people on the internet, who are making content, because that means you don’t have to rely on them consistently putting out videos.
    1. But it is important that you have the results that you want than to just watch their stuff online.
  3. It’s far better for you to just really fulfill those ideas that you have in your mind, and get those results that you’ve been looking for this whole time.

Focus

  1. The next one is that this is going to require a lot of focus and a conscious effort to not go searching for more material.
    1. This is something that we battle every single day.
  2. I don’t want to sit here and sound like I’m some expert, but this is still something that I have to consciously remember to not do.
  3. It’s very easy for me to just slide over to YouTube real quick, see what I can find, but I make it a point to just not do that.
  4. Rather than go to YouTube, I actually go straight to my documents, my notion page, and I click that link.
  5. And that’s the only thing I really get into.
  6. So try to keep that level of focus.
  7. Of course, when you just feel like it on a day off or something and you want to look for something new, that’s cool.
  8. But again, try to remember that 99% and 1% rule.

FOMO

  1. The next one is to check in with your favorite or trusted resources here and there.
  2. This will help alleviate the stress of the one I said right before this.
  3. That way you don’t feel like you’re missing out on valuable information, and you can still keep your head in the loop in a sense.
  4. I actually have music channels, or favorite guitar players and piano players that I look up to, and those are the people I kind of check in with.
  5. And what I will do is if I see them post a video, I’ll see if I need to put it into one of my categories, and that’s what I’ll do.
  6. So if I see them post something really advanced and I’m not ready for it yet, I’ll just take that link, put it in my advanced category, or I’ll just watch the video and enjoy it for what it is, and move on with my life and get back to what I’m supposed to be doing.
  7. I would highly recommend this approach.
  8. If you’re like me and you tend to feel like you’re missing out sometimes if you’re not checking in; this will really help you alleviate a lot of that stress.
  1. The next one is to not be afraid to actually buy a course.
  2. I know I talk about using YouTube and these other resources to avoid that, but some courses can count as a beginner phase in a sense.
  3. For instance, my piano playing, I got into it with a course and that course is not a comprehensive course of everything, but it will go over the scales, the notes and basic chords, all that.
  4. So I put that in my beginner phase, as well as some other content.
  5. And the main idea with the course is that you’re paying for speed.
    1. You’re not really paying for some super secret information, you’re paying for speed.
  6. So if you see a cheap course that just gets you into whatever you’re trying to do, I would say buy it because you kind of get a laid out plan right away, and you can just get moving.
  7. Courses combined with YouTube material is like a really golden spot to be in.
  8. It’s just that you have to make it a point to actually implement these videos.
  9. Again, I’m going to say this again if you missed it the first two times I said it, 99% of the results is going to come from what you do, and that 1% is the actual material.
  10. Once you’ve really exhausted that content to the point where you can almost teach it to someone else, I would say that’s a decent sign to move on.
  11. And something I’ve learned from real experience and what I see in myself, what I see in other people, understand that even one video I studied and acted upon to its fullest extent can be worth thousands of hours of searching through material and barely applying it.
  12. Again, I bring this up because if you’re like me and you feel like you may be missing out by not having the perfect course or some other content, you really are not missing out.
  13. If you fully break apart what you have, you’re going to get so much more results than most other people that it’s actually going to shock you.
  14. I really feel this in Japanese because though I speak it fluently, I have no certifications.
    1. I did not go to school for learning Japanese.
    2. I didn’t do any of that.
    3. I’m completely self-taught.
    4. I worked there with no problem.
    5. I was able to mingle, do whatever I want and it really came from just that idea in general.

Closing Thoughts and Homework for you to do.

  1. I really want to pass that on to you, because I don’t think it’s talked about and this is really the gatekeeper to actually getting results that you want.
  2. So in closing, you have a lot of homework to do.
  3. This video is nice and it’s good you watched it.
  4. But understand that even this video is going to take you a while to fully implement, especially if you don’t have Google Docs yet.
  5. or You don’t have notion or you don’t have these categories laid out.
  6. This is your homework to do.
  7. So watch my content for the conceptual ideas and mindset, and then go watch the stuff that you actually want to get good at.
  8. And right after that, get off the computer or the phone as soon as possible and just start taking action.
  9. I’m really big on this because I used to be into the YouTube trap as well, watching video after video…. like this one.
  10. And once I made that discovery, it changed everything for me.
  11. So with all this in mind, I hope that you can implement it and get the feeling that I get every day from actually progressing in multiple areas, or even if it’s just one area, actually seeing progress and not feeling like you’re stuck and getting to that level that you once thought was kind of impossible.

Links to this note