Learn to Unlearn
Our behaviors, actions, beliefs, and thoughts are products of our history. It’s what we’ve been taught, it’s what we’ve observed, it’s what we adopted into practice. But it’s not always the best. Learn how to unlearn the old and accept the new. It’s time to make some changes.
Everything in our daily lives is influenced by what we’ve been taught and what we’ve observed. And I’m not just talking about what we’ve learned from school. I’m talking about what we’ve learned from people like our parents and grandparents. People from other generations who grew up in different times, requiring different approaches, who didn’t have access to the same knowledge we have today. The problem with that is that the information becomes outdated, it doesn’t apply the same anymore, or it’s just not good advice and it really never was. Even if it’s given with good intentions, bad or outdated advice and information can be damaging.
Sometimes we have to unlearn what we learned so we can relearn it better.
Now there’s a mouthful.
The things we learn sculpt our routines, our mindset, our habits. Oftentimes, our way of doing things, our beliefs, and our thinking are so deep-rooted and engrained that we don’t know how to change them. Or we avoid it altogether, hoping it just works itself out on its own. Or even worse, we just decide to put blinders up to better, more efficient ways and we completely miss out on the benefits. We are not helping ourselves, we are hindering. We are trying to use ancient processes and information on modern problems and situations hoping for new outcomes. The old will not solve the new. It will just keep giving you the same result. The meaning of it hasn’t changed since Albert Einstein said it.
It’s a lot harder than it sounds to unlearn things.
Scientifically, our brains are wired to perform self-cleansing actions. Kind of like what you manually do with computer files. The files you don’t use often or you don’t need anymore end up in the trash bin. Some of the synaptic connections that formed during your life fade away as they become less utilized. At the same time, new synaptic connections generate. And the overall statement applies: if you don’t use it, you lose it. Ya know that French class you took in high school? Chances are that unless you were traveling abroad often or knew someone who spoke French, you’ve forgotten quite a bit if not all of it. It’s probably been replaced with the mundane routine of what work requires now. I’m sure we can all do most of our jobs with our eyes closed at this point.
This also means it’s harder as we get older to process and use new information.
Our brains aren’t performing at the top processing speed they were when we were children. We were literally like sponges, soaking up everything we could in an effortless fashion. With age comes a decrease in processing and speed which slows down our desire to learn new things, our ability to absorb new things, and our brain’s capability to generate and keep new connections. As we get older, we learn what works and what doesn’t and we just keep it that way. We don’t rock the status quo. But what we don’t realize is that it doesn’t work that way forever. Things change and that means the way we think and the way we do needs to change too.
So how can we do it?
How do we unlearn to relearn?
Realize there is room for improvement in what you were taught and how you were taught to do them.
I couldn’t even begin to tell you the number of times I butted heads with my parents or other generations on certain topics. Most recently it involved finances. Whether it was savings vs spending or investing vs holding, our information and beliefs were running parallel, rarely intersecting in similarity. I grew up very much believing that I needed to outgrow the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle that plagued my memories. But I was so focused on that goal, that I missed the fundamental ways of actually making that happen.
It wasn’t just about having money left over after each paycheck. That wasn’t a success, that was justification. That was me being able to say to myself: look I didn’t spend all my money last week. But then what did I do? Probably spent it the next week. What I wasn’t doing was saving that leftover. Because I just kept thinking in the context of what I’ve always seen and heard throughout society at the time. The thinking that no matter how much you save, it’s never enough. Or by the time you get to retirement age, you will likely still have to work. So why would I bother looking for information on how to be better at money when I have walking, talking examples to learn from?
They have to know better right?
WRONG.
I missed out on years of compound interest, years of building better habits, years of blessing my future self with success sooner.
If I wouldn’t have made the conscious decision to improve my situation and realize that what I was doing was self-sabotaging, I would have listened to my parent’s most recent advice. The advice of putting my investments into a holding pattern rather than buying more stocks at the sale price, benefits of the lower market. With 30some years separating my potential for building wealth and theirs, I would have been hella stupid to listen to the advice of those who need to be conservative.
Find new sources for learning and take the time to learn from them.
When I stopped making the people in my life the only source for advice and information, I was embarrassed by how little I actually knew. I was spending so much time trapped in a box filled with only what I’ve been exposed to and learned back in the day, I didn’t realize that all I had to do is lift the lid off to get to freedom and fresh air. I felt so suffocated by my beliefs around money at one point that I had the novel idea that there must be a better way than what I’m doing.
Huh, imagine that.
There might be more than one way to look at things.
So I set off on my quest to unlearn the ways of my past. But how do you even start? The sheer volume of information available is overwhelming. Enough to make you crawl back in that box and willingly trap yourself again, cuddle and wrap yourself in the familiarity and warmth of that naive comfort.
But I gave it a try.
After some failed attempts at new ideas and processes, I almost gave up.
Until I slowly started to realize the majority of my problem was me.
I was hunting for the end result, and missing all the steps to get there. I wanted only to achieve rather than take the time to learn how. I suffered from (and still suffer from, but improving) the need for instant gratification. I need to see the results in my own life in order to buy into the idea that it’s better and will make a difference. Because why would I want to put in all this effort for penny results? Why would I want to go through all the hours of sorting through information and applying concepts only to find out my old way was just fine?
And there’s another problem. If I would have slowed down instead of sprinting to the end, I would have realized the baby steps in between. I would have been able to see the path that led to the success I was reading about. I would have been able to see the victories along the way instead of allowing negative thinking of “I’ll never get there” to cause me to stop trying. Maybe I wouldn’t have failed and quit so much if I would have just slowed down during previous attempts.
Putting what you newly learned into action is the only way to decide what works best for you.
Once you slow down and put it into action, you realize what works and doesn’t work for you. But that’s the point and that’s the power in it. The point is that when you take actionable steps, you are more likely to see the success and it builds momentum and belief that it works. The power is that you get to decide and you get to choose what to think, do, and believe. Instead of letting your learned behaviors, beliefs, and thoughts dictate how you face all your challenges and situations, you learn new and better ways to handle them.
I bought and tried countless Excel spreadsheets and books. Spent hours combing Google search results and listening to podcasts. What I realized along the way was that I could take tidbits of everything and apply what I felt was practical to my life. The things that made sense for me and my situation. And I also realized that there were themes and consistencies across platforms, articles, and shows. I picked up on those concepts that were uniform, that were repetitious, and that were applicable to succeeding.
In the end, over the course of years and trial and error, I was able to unlearn and relearn how to handle my money, how to approach finances, how to save and spend, and how to invest. It’s not intimidating when you accept that it takes time, patience, practice, effort, and action to help your synaptic connections decide what stays and what goes.
Though the experience I chose to share is related to finances, this is applicable to anything.
Unlearning and relearning any topic will encourage continued growth, get you uncomfortable, and allow you to evolve with the changing times to stay knowledgeable, current, and set you up for the most success. It’s time you step out of that box you trapped yourself in, surrounded by what you thought you knew. And breathe in a lungful of fresh, new knowledge and behaviors.
If my brief inkling about my changed behaviors and thinking in regard to finances have piqued your interest, feel free to contact me for a chat!
Until next week,
