Breaking The Barriers To Self Directed Learning

Learning is important in life, professionally it helps us to grow and personally it keeps us inspired. Self directed learning may feel like drinking from a firehose but it doesn’t have to feel that way if we approach learning with a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset, make it intentional not incidental and be flexible to change our learning paradigm without being fixated on how learning should happen for us. 

Notice how children learn anything new. They organise information in a meaningful way, connect it to their experience and practice it by applying it in different contexts. However, as we grow into adults, our preconceived notions and limiting beliefs inhibits us from taking a pragmatic approach to learning. 

Instead of using learning as a tool to shape our thoughts and help us problem solve better, we think of learning as a means to acquire a new job title, get a promotion or a raise. How we think about learning makes a big difference in how we approach learning – what to learn and how to learn better.

Is self directed learning acquiring specific skills?

I like the BICEPS model put together by Paloma Medina that identifies six core needs of humans at work. 

One of the six core needs is personal growth, which is learning and seeing fast growth in skills that matter to us. A developer might want to develop their skills in a new technology, UX designer might want to learn a new design paradigm and product manager may seek mastery in running successful experimentation. 

These are immensely valuable skills to acquire. However, the focus on the outcome as opposed to the system, the process that helps achieve the outcome limits our learning to the specific skill without giving us an opportunity to explore a better process to achieve the same outcome. It also prevents us from acquiring new skills with ease. 

As collaboration with multiple cross functional teams becomes prominent, skills like communication, teamwork and influence become critical at the workplace. Underpinning these skills requires self-directed learning with the focus on the How as opposed to the What. 

The shift in focus from What to How can shape our future at the workplace.  

Biggest traps of an individual learner

Learning in a traditional setup happens in the form of training sessions, formal mentorship or project allocation for acquiring specific skills. This form of learning is dependent on the organisation and restricted in its output. 

With limited control over the structure of learning in such an environment, employees may put in a lot of time and effort without getting expected results in return. Unmet expectations become a source of stress and dissatisfaction at work, which in turn leads to a desire to find better learning opportunities outside. 

While an organisation’s environment should definitely be favorable for employees to explore and learn, the environment itself is not sufficient for learning to happen as true learning is more self facilitated. 

To build an environment that’s conducive to learning, employees need to take charge of their own learning by defining boundaries and have the courage to speak up when there are conflicts with their learning goals.

Some of the biggest traps for an individual learner that prevents them from self directed learning are:

1. They wait for things to happen, someone to come and provide training, give them a project or assign a mentor
2. They believe it’s someone else’s responsibility to enable learning for them at their job 
3. Approach learning with the mindset of “only to get ahead”. Such people deal with constant anxiety on “how to catch up” and they never truly learn  
4. Lack confidence to get out of their comfort zone. They develop their own wall of constraints in mind that holds them back 
5. Fear choices due to profusion of content. Such people get stuck at “where to start”
6. Self justifying excuses around lack of time to learn anything new by keeping too busy 

Stephen R. Covey covered this well in his book, The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People 

Many people wait for something to happen or someone to take care of them. But people who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do what is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done

These barriers created by the individual in their own mind leads to rational lies to self and a self-fulfilling prophecy around lack of learning in their current environment and work. 

How to be an Independent learner

An 8 year boy approaches their parent asking for an app to be installed on their tab. 

In one approach, the parent finds the app, looks up a few quick details and basis their decision on that information. 

In a second approach, they ask some really good questions to learn more about the app –  what does this app provide, why do they need this app, what research have they done that can be helpful to make a decision? 

The first approach steals the opportunity from the boy to learn more about the app by putting their thoughts to words, which in itself is a powerful form of learning. It also prevents them from acknowledging what they don’t know and use that as an opportunity to do further research. 

The second approach enables learning for both the parties by engaging in powerful questions. It helps the boy think clearly about the problem and articulate it well for their parents to lean in his direction. It also enables the parent to make a right decision without being biased and limited in their own thinking. 

Interestingly, most of us resort to the first approach at work without utilising the power of the second approach. It could be our own insecurity in not knowing or lack of trust in what the other person knows. 

Without focusing on the How, when we focus on the What, we may end up making suboptimal decisions. 

Knowing “How to Learn” is as important as determining “What to Learn”. Follow these 3 steps to enable self directed learning with extra emphasis on “How to learn”:

1. Self directed learning starts inside-out

Revealing our ignorance is the first step in self directed learning and growth. It starts internally with awareness of our own limitations and acceptance of those limitations. 

Projecting a view outside that we know-it-all creates an internal conflict that restricts our mind to be truly open to information. Learning in this way is superficial and does not bring in the contentment that comes from true learning.

Accept you don’t know everything, believe that you can learn and then take small steps to get outside your comfort zone. To learn with a free mind, ask yourself some of these questions:

• How do I know this to be true?
• What do others say about it?
• What if my assumptions are wrong? Have I considered other possibilities?
• How can I apply different mental models like first principles thinking and inversion to gain a better perspective?
• Do I take responsibility for my own learning?

2. Learn through others

Children are born curious with a natural tendency to learn through observation, imitation and never ending series of “why” questions that get some parents mad. They learn a lot through others. 

As we grow into adults, we give up this powerful form of learning. Instead of taking responsibility for our own learning, we find excuses in personality, societal, environmental, conditional that prevents us from learning through others. 

Be willing to invest in this powerful form of learning without any constraints and try out the following strategies: 

1. Seek informal feedback from peers and colleagues. There’s a lot of learning in how others perceive you at work.
2. Build a network of like minded people to learn and share. Ask people from your network how they have developed the skills you have been trying to learn.
3. Find your own mentor in the organisation or outside. Spend time researching about the person you can look up to and who can act as a partner to help you grow.
4. Learn through teaching. Explaining what you have learnt will clear your thoughts and help find gaps in your own thinking.
5. Actively listen and learn to ask the right questions. Learning through questions will open your mind to seek new ideas and go beyond your personal beliefs and assumptions. 

3. Learn through self directed discovery

My daughter loves the book I Can Read With My Eyes Shut by Dr. Suess and it has a wonderful message for adults too “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go”.

Whether it’s through reading books, blog posts, using social tools like watching videos on youtube or consuming content on twitter, listening to podcasts, online training or any other medium, developing a learning habit is the key to enjoying it and reaping its maximum benefits.

Learning is an engaging experience, an emotional rollercoaster of our own journey. There’s no better form of learning than knowledge acquired through self coaching. 

Lets learn a few key practices to make self directed discovery successful: 

#1 Organise your learning space

Digital overload and digital distractions takes away our ability to focus and get things done and that applies to learning as well. Utilise learning time well by reducing clutter, ignoring noise and distractions.

A space created with curiosity, attentiveness and flexibility will ease the flow of information. 

#2 Practice what you want to learn 

We learn more from our failures and mistakes than from our success. Perseverance in the face of obstacles makes learning more rewarding in the long run. 

In his book, The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey talks about the significance of learning by practicing,

Start applying what you are learning. Remember, to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know

More content is not learning. Learn to do a few things better by finding ways to apply learning in your day-to-day work. Be on the lookout for new challenges at work. Find projects where you can practice new skills and make an effort to be on them. Being part of a cross functional team can be a great way to acquire and practice multiple skills. 

#3 Reflect on your learning process

Take time to reflect on how the current process of learning is working for you. What did you learn, what worked well for you, do you know your mistakes, what would you like to improve next time, how can you do better?

Self discovery on how learning is working for you will enable you to explore new ideas and discard old ones to bring it to higher standards for yourself.

I hope to leave you with some thoughts on how you can enable self directed learning at work and in life. Self directed learning is essential and there’s no better time than now to start investing in it. What do you think?

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