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 Book
Excerpt
Learn More Now: 10 Steps to Learning Better, Smarter, and
Faster
by Marcia L. Conner
(John Wiley & Sons, March 2004) Paperback ISBN#0471273902
256 p, 28 illustrations.
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1
Find Your Motivation
We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
In school, if there were such a category, I could have been voted, “Most
likely to succeed if only she can figure herself out.” My teachers’ focus on
class schedules and subjects, rather than discovering and experiencing, left me
feeling overwhelmed and fearing that I wasn’t motivated to learn. Years later I
began a journey of self-discovery, where I found that learning how to learn was
my road map to success and that inside each of us is a curious learner,
naturally motivated to learn more. Learning about learning can help you
understand your family, friends, coworkers, and customers and, most of all,
yourself.
This book reveals techniques and conditions to help you learn how to learn
about whatever interests you. My focus isn’t on the content of learning but,
rather, on the process of learning itself. You might choose to pursue a
personally relevant topic or a subject that other people have suggested would
improve your life. When you focus on how you learn, you can decide which
techniques work best and reflect on how you’ve successfully learned things in
the past.
The motivation inventory in this chapter provides an opportunity for you to
discover what drives you to learn and what might hold you back. Then you can
decide how to adjust your circumstance to address your needs. Once you know your
own motivations and can better understand those of the people around you, you
can improve most anything you do.
Master Motivation
Motivation is the force that draws you to move toward something. It can come
from a desire or a curiosity within you or can be from an external force urging
you on. In either case, you make the decision to seize or to skip a chance to
learn.
When learning seems interesting, fun, meaningful, or relevant you don’t have
any reason to try to understand your motivation. Learning comes naturally. The
challenge comes when you aspire to learn something that’s not particularly
interesting, when you have only a few choices, or when you lack adequate
support, respect, or encouragement. In those situations, learning and finding
the motivation to learn more can be tough. It’s easy to think you just lack
motivation.
That’s not really possible, though. We’re all equally motivated and we’re
always fully motivated. With the exception of involuntary anatomical processes,
such as your heart beating, your blood flowing, or breathing in and out,
everything else we do is motivated.
If you stopped reading this book now, it would be inaccurate for me to say,
“You’re not motivated!” For some reason, you’re motivated to stop reading. That
motivation was stronger than your motivation to continue.
The same could be said when you’re trying to learn something from your wife,
a colleague, a teacher, or a parent and you keep thinking about dinner or what
to watch tonight on television. It isn’t that you’re unmotivated to learn—you’re
just not motivated to do what someone else wants you to do at that moment.
Something else is drawing you (motivating you) to focus on dinner or the TV.
It could also be that you’re motivated to avoid the aggravation you feel when
someone seems to be wasting your time or you have a gnawing suspicion that you
will never understand something. You don’t lack motivation; you lack confidence
in success—and that drives your motivation elsewhere, to avoid the feeling or
the fear. It’s not that you were unmotivated. You were probably super-motivated.
Consider how much motivation it takes to ignore something right in front of you!
Motivation styles vary for different situations and topics but you rely on
one primarily. Some people learn in order to achieve a certain goal. Some people
learn for the sake of learning, and other people learn for the gratification
they get from meeting people in learning settings.
At other times, you might like being part of a group, even if your primary
style is learning-motivated. Likewise, you might go wholeheartedly after a goal,
even if your primary style is relationship-motivated. Many of us have learned
how to be goal-motivated because our society places a premium on meeting goals.
Whether you’re goal-motivated, relationship-motivated, or learning-motivated,
it’s helpful to recognize your predominant motivational style so that you can
identify the situations that best satisfy your needs.
Are you goal-motivated? Goal-motivated people look at learning
as a way to solve problems, pursue particular interests, and accomplish
clear-cut objectives. If you’re goal-motivated, you probably believe that you
should use what you know. You might ask “Why else would anyone bother learning
it?” If you’re goal-motivated, you’ll probably reach for your goals through a
direct and obvious route. This might lead you to a reference book, to a
computer, or to call an expert—whatever means available. You usually prefer
meeting in-person only when it’s the most effective method to get what you need,
and you probably don’t find learning, in and of itself, much fun.
Goal-motivated skills are required to complete any project. School, for
instance, rewards students for being goal-motivated—for turning in their
assignments on time, neatly written, and properly punctuated. Accomplishing
goals is perhaps the most valued and necessary motivation in our society.
Therefore, most of us develop some goal-oriented skills, whether or not that’s
what motivates us.
Are you relationship-motivated? Relationship-motivated learners
get involved because they like the social interaction that learning offers. If
you ask them why they suppose people want to learn, they may make comments like,
“People learn so they have more to talk about with other people,” or, “They want
to meet people who care about the same things they do.” If you’re
relationship-motivated, you learn mainly for social contact. When you meet and
interact with people, you learn things at the same time. You may not like
working independently or focusing on topics (separately from the people) because
that doesn’t give you the interaction you crave.
If you’re a relationship-motivated person in a work-alone job, you might look
for camaraderie in classes because they’re socially accepted places to meet
people and make friends. When a class is not available, you probably make your
decisions about where to learn according to the personal relationships each
opportunity offers.
If you’re relationship-motivated, you might not enjoy solo activities like
reading unless there is a social component such as talking about books in a
reading group. Likewise, self-study programs probably aren’t for you unless you
can also interact in person or online in real time.
Are you learning-motivated? Learning-motivated people seek
knowledge because of their deep love of learning anything new. In addition to
learning formally in a class or with a group, you are likely to seek out
educational programs on television and the radio, read books and magazines, and
take in as much information as you can. When you travel, you probably read about
your destination before you go and visit every local landmark or curiosity once
you get there. If you’re learning-motivated, the practice of learning, itself,
compels you. You seek out knowledge for its own sake and you may become
frustrated by anything that requires you to spend more time on procedure and
process than on actual learning.
Many learning-motivated people have been aware of their preoccupation with
learning for a long time. You may even have chosen your job or made other life
decisions according to the potential for growth these opportunities offer.
Seek Opportunities
Sometimes life, itself, educes you to learn—and it’s up to you to take
advantage of those opportunities. In the event that you still think of learning
as only workshops or classes, expand your definition to include conversations
with your peers and your children, from books, articles, informal networks,
mentoring, coaching, searching on the Internet, television, movies, and even
what you learn through trial and error.
Take responsibility for learning from everything. As you begin to understand
how you learn you can use anything that happens in your world as a source of,
and a resource, for learning more.
This matrix can help you see even more opportunities for learning. It
categorizes your options into four different groups.
Formal intentional learning is usually structured for us. Formal
unintentional learning happens when we seek out structured activities but are
unsure what they will uncover. Informal intentional learning is structured by
us. Informal unexpected learning happens in the course of everyday activities.
Begin by asking yourself what you’ve learned recently and in which situations
your greatest learning takes place. Are you limiting your thinking to meetings
or study? Have you considered seeking out a coach or a mentor, or simply finding
time to explore? Might you be experiencing real learning during a walk around
the block, a friendly argument with a friend, or a hard look in the mirror?
Become mindful of both your formal opportunities and these types of impromptu
chances to learn.
LEARN MORE NOW © 2004 by Marcia L. Conner. Published by John Wiley & Sons.
Used by permission of the publisher.
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