“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” Anton Chekhov
The majority of us are on information overload. Information comes at us invited and uninvited, through blogs, email, through the news, through social media feeds, through our friends and family, in podcasts, blogs, stories, texts and much more. We’re addicted to information, bad or good, and it’s too often a major stress factor and can be a huge time waster….
Do we need all that information? The answer is no even though we feel we really do. Information is only data that helps us understand and give something meaning and is not valuable unless we do something with it. Just because we have information, does not mean we know it and it’s important. Information can be trivial, thought provoking, exciting, yet is often someone else’s perspective. It’s a starting point of learning but needs to be weeded out for the significance it plays in our life.
Just like a garden that has many beautiful plants and is overgrown needs to be weeded out, cultivated, replanted in another area or removed and start over. The processing and viewing of Information is similar as it requires our attention, yet we must weed out information that no longer applies within the present moment to create a beautiful garden for the seeds of our efforts to take root. Information that does not serve us in our business or personal goals clutters our mind and prevents us from being our best and completing what’s currently important. Here’s three things to do right now.
1. Take time to sort through your emails. It’s not necessary to bring it down to zero, sort through and delete the last couple of month’s worth.
2. Unsubscribe from emails you no longer read, blogs, podcasts that insist upon emailing you daily information that goes unopened helps with condensing information. Or at least, condense to one email per vendor per week.
3. Once that’s done, now sort through additional information and ask a question, will this information help me right now? If not, unsubscribe as it’s distracting. You’re wasting valuable time and energy opening, listening or just viewing, and with it no longer available, the temptation to open to just peek is gone. This frees up valuable time that can be spent on working your business or personal goals. Be ruthless, you can always go back, but you can’t get back the time you’ve lost.
Knowledge is information that gives us understanding of a particular subject or the experience that another has learned. Knowledge helps us decide if the information is relevant to our life. We make a choice as to what information gets through and moves to the knowledge bucket. But what type of knowledge must we know?
Not all knowledge is the same. There’s knowledge that comes from memorization such as learning our multiplication tables or the latin terms learned for an anatomy and physiology course. This type of knowledge is learned by rote memorization, and if not accessed and used, can become stale and not easily retrieved. We’ve all taken math and science classes in high school and at that time, knew the information, but if we don’t work in these fields, the knowledge is quickly lost.
There’s informational that comes from reading articles, books, listening to podcasts, learning the how to of doing something without taking any action. On the face, this type of knowledge appears to be valuable, though it’s easily lost as it doesn’t stick and is fleeting.
So, what’s the key to making knowledge stick and become learning? Actively doing … taking action on it … feeling it … making it a part of us emotionally and physically. Knowledge that sticks comes from doing, from practicing, from trying, failing, trying again and again until we succeed. This type of knowledge builds a neuron pathway, is absorbed into the mind and body and will remembered as we’ve given conscious thought to learn it.
As an example, one cannot learn how to ride a bike observing others doing it. We might learn the mechanics, the how to’s, or the process but, the only way to learn to ride the bike is to apply the knowledge learned. We must get on it ourself, feel it wobble, lose our balance, fall, get back on and apply the new knowledge gained as to what works and what doesn’t work. It takes persistence, perseverance and commitment to take knowing something into making it a part of us that we no longer need to think about.
When we take knowledge and convert into conscious learning, we train our mind to apply the mechanical know how into practice and then into eventual permanent learning. Learning takes time, patience, and practice. Practice means failing, doubting, rising up again, finessing the actions, working with the challenge and finally succeeding. Learning is much more important than knowledge and the learner is skilled and capable whereas the knower only knows but has not experienced.
When we teach something to another, we deepen the pathway of learned knowledge in our mind. Once it’s a part of us, we’re comfortable with it, we can expand on it for future personal or business growth as we can talk to the experience of it rather than the mechanics only. When we embrace it, reinforce it, feel it and do it, we’ll never forget it. When we teach another person what we’ve learned, the process is wired into our mind and body, and we keep this learning forever.
This is at the core of entrepreneurship, this ability to take information and process it through to the teaching stage. This information can be learned by doing or experiencing. Entrepreneurship is taking information we’ve learned or experienced and provide a solution to another by teaching it. The recipient finds value in the teaching or product and is willing to exchange money for it.
If you’re thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, it’s a calling. You are unique and special and the world awaits your vision. You’ve been called to create and give birth to an idea. Begin to plant the seed and bring it forth and teach the learnings that are within you just waiting to make a difference to someone. You, your family and the world will be a better place with it.
Actions – Think about something you’ve recently read about and are curious to learn more.
What would be a first step for you to learn more about this. How would learning this knowledge be better for you in your personal or business goals?
Questions – What knowledge do you have that you can practice to make it part of you? Would
you want to teach this knowledge to another? Might you be able to get paid to do
so?
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Terri O’Brien of MasterJoyandSuccess.com is a hypnotherapist, course creator and belief changer and works with women who aspire to be their own boss, do their own thing, and breathe life into their entrepreneurial dream.
