be more like a 5 year old.

When I was studying commerce at uni I felt like such an imposter.

Everyone was way smarter than me and they understood everything within minutes it seemed.

I felt like such an idiot but I never really understood why.

I thought it was because the subjects I was learning were not ‘relevant’ or ‘interesting’.

The problem was that I never actually understood how to learn.

It wasn’t fancy note taking methods or the latest gadget that helped me learn better. 

I never really gave my brain time to process things. 

I would try to understand a topic and the second it seemed difficult I would just give up and say “this isn’t for me”, going on to distract myself with something that I was good at.

The issue is I never stuck with a topic long enough to try and figure out WHY I don’t understand it. 

I also never gave it enough time. 

I would see my friends understanding topics within minutes and immediately assumed that I needed to also be like this.

Firstly, I’m not as smart as my friends. 

Secondly, I wasn’t asking the right questions.

Why don’t I understand this?
What is it about this subject that doesn’t make sense to me?
What am I missing?

Here’s the thing I was missing.

I wasn’t asking questions that made sense to me.

Who cares about the questions that the lecturer would ask, or the academic questions laced in snobby jargon.

I had to stop and ask the questions that actually made the cogs in my brain shift.

That's where I realised - we’re losing the skill of learning as we grow older.

Most of us were genuinely better at learning at 5 years of age than we are now.

We have forgotten the skill of learning.

The thing is, 5 year old’s simply do not CARE about how they sound or look when they ask a question a hundred times.

We all know those annoying kids that ask “why” twenty times in a row until they begin to understand it.

It’s a skill we lose as we age.

It goes beyond asking the same questions over and over. 

Kids are able to break it down and make it sense in their world.

They will use their imagination to envision concepts.

It’s why primary school teachers and educators use fictitious characters and relatable objects to teach complicated topics.

I started doing exactly that.

Instead of trying to understand things in the abstract, I would break it down into puzzles or visual concepts that I already understood well and knew.

You have to remember that the skill of learning something is only as good as your ability to remember or retain it.

I can guarantee you if I gave you your high school exams (that you aced) right now, you would have absofuckinglutely no idea how to even begin looking at these questions. 

Now ask yourself what was the point of all of that ‘education’ If you never understood or retained anything.

I don’t know about you but I think that’s a huge waste of time.

I felt very stupid for a very long time until I started thinking like a 5 year old again and reignited my voracious curiosity. 

The moment you stop caring, think like a 5 year old and begin using your imagination to learn and understand concepts, learning becomes so much easier.

Stop giving a shit about looking or sounding smart. 

No one cares about what you know. 

Lean into your childlike tendencies, it’s good for you.