When you have done this, stick all the labels on to your paper and
stand back. Now, see if you can group them together into helpful
categories. Then work out what kind of approach you need to take
with each group.
A useful prompt in this activity is to ask yourself questions
beginning with who, what, where, why, when, and how.Writing the recipe
You might like to see if you could describe your learning in terms of
a recipe. For driving a car, your recipe could deal with the skills you
need to learn to become competent, learning to start, changing gear,
turning corners, etc. Or, it might be that you prefer to think of it
consecutively in the way that a food recipe does:Find a car
Find a driving school
Book a course of lessons
Arrange for practice sessions
Etc.Whatever your chosen technique, with learning as with life, you
need to be able to break down any task into achievable sections or
chunks, to understand the series of “hows” you need to master.Learning by imitation
The saying “Imitation is the highest form of flattery” makes light of
an enduringly contradictory aspect of human behavior. Stealing
someone else’s lines, unless you use quotation marks or clearly
acknowledge them, is understandably considered to be a kind of
theft. At school we are told not to cheat. For commercial ideas and
products, copyright, patent, and trademark laws exist to provide a
kind of protection. Yet, we know that smart people are those who
can use other people’s ideas for their own and others’ benefit.
Given the competitive environment in which we find our-
selves, it is not surprising that too many organizations have a cul-108 Power Up Your Mind