I do some of my best learning when I am settled in at 35,000 feet. I read. I tap into the large store of iPod learning content I keep on hand. I think (although it may look like I’m sleeping). Sometimes I even manage to find a nugget of wisdom in the airline magazines. Here’s a couple from a recent flight from Raleigh to Baltimore, compliments of the Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine:

Be Deliberate

Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated and Eating Animals, says that his choice to be vegetarian is “one of my ways of being deliberate within my life.”  Safran Foer goes on to note that:

Eating can be so mechanical, something for which one feels exactly nothing. We eat merely to get full. It’s nice to have a chosen approach to food; eating a certain way – even if it’s arbitrary, although my vegetarianism is the opposite of arbitrariness – brings consciousness to an everyday act that rarely calls for any.

We do any number of things unconsciously on a daily basis. I think a great exercise in learning is to approach common, everyday activities in a deliberate, conscious way.  You can’t help but ask why more when you do this – Why do I eat what I eat? Why am I compelled to be at my desk by 9:00 each morning? – and asking why is often the first step in learning.

This sort of deliberate, conscious approach to things underlies the under-appreciated learning strategies I wrote about earlier. (Just a nudge to check that one out if you haven’t before.).  Cultivating reflection as a learning habit also helps greatly.

What do you think? Have you found value in being more conscious of and deliberate about some of the common activities in your own life?

Beware of Marketers in Teachers Clothes

Speaking of cultivating consciousness, Christopher McDougall, highlights how we may often be unaware of pitfalls in “education” seemingly intended for our benefit.

McDougall is the author of Born to Run, a scathing critique of the running shoe industry. Running shoes, he contends, are a racket – and a potentially harmful one at that. The rate of some running injuries has actually gone up since Nike introduced the modern running shoe in 1972, and confusion about the bewildering range of running shoe choices has multiplied at an even greater rate.

The solution? Customer education.

The trend in recent years has been for running store “experts” to coach shoppers in the process of finding the perfect shoe. This is a reasonable idea on the surface, but seems less so when you consider that most of the confusion is manufactured by, well, manufacturers.  Nike and others keep pumping out model after model, and if you believe McDougall, none of the models is a particularly good choice.

I happen to be a big fan of customer education – I preach it in my job-that-pays-the-bills – but like any educational experience it comes with fundamental pre-conditions:

• those generating “content” (in this case, running shoes and all the accompanying data) must do so on an ethical basis;
• the “teacher” must take responsibility for truly understanding the content and its context;
• and the “learner” must be prepared to question the teacher. (Questioning, after all, is a key practice of the “sophisticated” learner.)

Everyone, I’d add, should to come to the table with critical thinking skills in tow.

I’ve definitely been through the whole running shoe education scenario myself. I tried on shoes, had someone watch me run in the parking lot, bought the whole thing hook line and sinker and paid probably $20 more than I might have otherwise for the shoes. Maybe I got something of value for that $20, but I wished I’d questioned the experience more at the time.

How about you? Have you been pulled in by customer education experiences, good or bad?

World Enough and Time

A quick note to regular readers – Travel and deadlines for the-job-that-pays-the-bills have seriously cut into the time I have been able to dedicate to Mission to Learn lately. I should be able to get back to doing more in the next week, but in the meantime, I continue to seek out other bloggers and writers who are passionate about lifelong learning and who would be interested in contributing here. If you fall in that camp, please take a look at the submit page and contact me.

Jeff

P.S. – If you like what you read here on Mission to Learn, I’d really appreciate it if you would subscribe by RSS feed or by e-mail.

Related posts:

1. 30 High-Value Tips and Resources for Learning on the Cheap

Immersing yourself in a book or in the literary culture is a great way to get more out of the books you read. There are thousands of sites online created specifically for people who like to read. Many of these sites can be used to find, read, discuss, and share books online. Here is a list of 15 free online resources that any book lover will enjoy:

Like what you see here? Even if you are just “stumbling” by, I’d truly appreciate it if you would consider subscribing by RSS feed or by e-mail. - Jeff

AddAll – AddAll is a free book search and comparison site. It compares prices on books from more than 20,000 sellers so that book buyers can get the best deal possible when shopping online.

aNobii – aNobii is a book community that allows users to comment on books, create “online bookshelves,” and mingle with other book lovers.

Barnes& Noble – The online presence of Barnes & Noble is more than just a place to buy books. This site also offers book reviews, a forum where readers can connect, regular columns, articles, and much more.

Big Universe – This award winning web community is excellent for young book lovers. Big Universe users can read books online, create and publish their own works, recommend books, and much more.

BookGlutton – After signing up for a free BookGlutton account, users can find and read books online. Books can be read alone or with a group of people. BookGlutton also allows users to chat with other members while reading a book online.

BookMooch – BookMooch is a free online service that allows readers to give away the books they no longer want and get new books in return. BookMooch users can get two books for every one they give away.

BooksWellRead – This free online book journal is an excellent way to keep track of what you’ve already read. You can make a private or public list of your books and include comments so that you can remember exactly what you thought about any given book. BooksWellRead also provides a place for you to connect with a community of other readers.

DailyReader – DailyReader makes it easy for book lovers to find time to read on a regular basis. This free service sends part of a book to you each day via email so that you can read for a few minutes each day until the book is finished.

Goodreads – Goodreads is an enormous social network with nearly 3 million reading members. At Goodreads, you can make a list of the books you have read, write reviews, and get book recommendations from other people.

LibraryThing – LibraryThing is a good place to catalog your books online. Catalogs can be accessed from any PC or mobile phone and may be made public or kept private. LibraryThing also allows users to give and get book recommendations.

LitLovers – LitLovers is a site for books and book clubs. Offerings include book recommendations, reading guides, discussion topics, free literature courses, and a special section just for kids.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg was the very first site to offer free ebooks online and is still one of the web’s best sources of free books in the public domain. More than 30,000 books are available through the site’s catalog.

ReadingGroupGuides – This site provides thousands of reading guides for book clubs and individual readers. The site also offers contests, message boards, a newsletter, a blog, and much more.

Shelfari – Shelfari is a social media site for people who love to read. It can be used to build a virtual bookshelf, see what other people are reading, and discuss favorite books online.15 Online Resources for Book Lovers

The Book Cover Archive – They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but that doesn’t make cover art any less fun to look at. The Book Cover Archive displays a collection of thousands of book covers. Visitors can browse covers, leave comments, and suggest covers for the archive.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online classes for OnlineClasses.org.

Subscribe by RSS feed or by e-mail. - Jeff

Related posts:

1. 25 Free Online Resources and Web Apps for Lifelong Learners
2. Learn to Save a Life: 10 Free Online First Aid Resources
3. 30 High-Value Tips and Resources for Learning on the Cheap

Last night I hit “Send” on a new edition of the Learning Monitor e-newsletter. As usual it is chock full of free and low-cost learning sources for lifelong learners. Subscribe and you’ll automatically receive the full issue once you confirm your subscription, but here are a few items from the Learning Smorgasbord to whet your appetite:

from Collections & Teach-Learn-Share Sites

Free Internet Libraries

Free Internet Libraries provides free books, course notes, practice problems, test reviews, career advancement materials, teaching materials, and much more.

***

from Science & Math

Cephalopodcast – The Ocean Podcast

The Ocean Podcast: news from the other 71% of our planet plus topics in science and education. Gelatinous, for the masses.

***

from Computers & the Internet

Rosie Knows

RosieKnows offers free and easy video lessons on how to use hundreds of websites. Facebook, Skype, Pandora, Craigslist, Netflix, Kayak and many more!

***

from Business

100+ Places to Get a Free Business Education Online

***

from Personal Finance

Essential Personal Finance E-Books

***

from Odds & Ends

45 Awesome Free Bag Making Tutorials | frugalandthriving.com.au

Related posts:

1. 20 Language Links from the Free Learning Monitor

Each of us is physically active, even if only in very small ways, throughout each and every day, and yet we all realize that true physical fitness usually only comes as a result of a conscious, consistent exercise habit. So it is with learning.

Our learning never really stops, but once we reach the stage of life where there is no longer a teacher standing in front of us on a regular basis, it usually becomes a much more haphazard affair. I happen to be a fan of random, haphazard learning, but like most devoted lifelong learners, I also appreciate the sense of fulfillment that comes from really focusing and mastering a new topic or skill.

Reaching this kind of fulfillment demands that we establish clear learning habits, but we often fail to do so. For thoughts on how to address this problem, I’m turning once again to Leo Babauta for inspiration. Time for another installment of Zen Learning Habits.

The Main Problems
Where do we tend to fall short in making learning a conscious, regular habit? Here are some of the main pitfalls I know I encounter:

1. No real goals
I wrote about the importance of setting learning goals recently in relation to my own struggles with learning to play the guitar. It’s easy to pick up a little bit of new knowledge – a chord here, a scale there – but the path to true accomplishment requires a clear goal and consistent habits in support of that goal.

2. Too many goals
Often we set out to do too much. We want to learn a new language, become a black belt in karate, and [fill in one of your own] all at the same time. In the short term, this can feel exciting and fulfilling, but over the long haul, spreading out our focus in this way means we are unlikely to achieve any of our goals.

3. Too difficult
In our enthusiasm for learning, we may set goals or try to establish habits that are simply unrealistic. “I will practice for an hour a day,” just may not work in your life right now, and trying to force it will lead to frustration and, ultimately, giving up. I think being realistic is one of the main areas where discipline factors into learning.

4. Low motivation
Let’s face it: lifelong learning is not all fun and games. There are times when it is important for us to acquire new skills or knowledge that we may not be all that passionate about. Discipline helps, but discipline only takes you so far if you can’t find ways to boost your motivation.

The 4 Simple Steps

So how do we overcome those problems? Keep it simple. Here are the 4 simple steps to start – or jump start – your learning habit and keep it going.

1. Set one easy, specific, measurable goal. There are several keys to setting your core learning goal:

• Write it down: If you don’t write it down, it’s not important. I recommend actually putting it on paper and posting it somewhere you will easily come across it several times a day. Alternatively, if you are bit of a techie, have it load up automatically on your computer desktop.
• Make it easy: Start with something you know is a slam dunk – like practicing an instrument for 5 minutes a day – and build from there. Success breeds success.
• Be specific: Be crystal clear about what activity are you going to do, at what time of day, and where. Don’t just say “practice” or “read”. You have to set a time, a place, and specific activities. Make it an appointment you can’t miss.
• Set a trigger: It might sound a little Pavlovian, but it’s a good idea to have  a “trigger” for your habit. For example, you might always brush your teeth right after you shower. The shower is the trigger for brushing your teeth, and because of the trigger, you never forget to brush your teeth. Well, what will you do right before your learning habit? Is it right after you wake up? Right after your coffee? Right when you get home? A trigger that you do every single day is important.
• Make it measurable: By measurable, I mean that you should be able to say, definitely, whether you hit or miss your goal today. Examples: Practice scales for 10 minutes. Read 5 pages. Write 3 paragraphs. Each of those has a number that you can shoot for.
• Stick to it: Stick to this one goal for at least a month. Two months if you can bear it. Don’t start up a second goal during that 30-day period or you will endanger the success of your first goal.

2. Log it daily
It may sound trivial, but keeping a short, simple record of your daily activities can make a tremendous difference. It helps you see your progress; it helps you remember and reflect; and it can help keep you motivated, if motivation is a problem.  Make brief notes right after your daily learning activity. Don’t put it off, and say you’ll do it before you go to bed. As soon as you’re done, log it. No exceptions. And don’t make the log complicated — that will only make you resist doing the log. Just the date, time, and what you did. This simple approach to taking notes is very powerful.

3. Connect with others
I’m too much of an introvert to say you have to declare your goals and your progress towards them to the world. Nonetheless, most of us do benefit from adding a social element to our learning, and I think that connecting with others who share our learning interests – whether online or off – is a very important part of a successful learning habit. Connecting with others helps keep us more conscious of our learning goals, holds us more accountable to ourselves, and brings new perspectives and knowledge to our learning activities. Start a blog – and comment on other blogs. Find an online forum. Join a book group. There are any number of ways to connect with others in support of your learning habit.

4. Apply discipline as needed
The first three steps will take you a long ways towards developing a consistent, focused learning habit, but more may be needed at times.  As I have noted before, “to master the ability to do anything requires discipline.” If you find you are struggling at times, you may want to try out these 7 Small “Mind Shifts” for When You Lack Discipline.

Master these four simple steps – which were adapted from 4 Simple Steps to Start the Exercise Habit – and you will be well on your way to achieving your learning goals. Along the way, you may want to check out some of the other Zen Learning Habits posts here on Mission to Learn.  If you like them, I’d be grateful if you would bookmark them with Delicious or another bookmarking site of your choice.

Jeff

P.S. – If you like what you read here on Mission to Learn, I’d really appreciate it if you would subscribe by RSS feed or by e-mail.

Related posts:

1. 5 Powerful Reasons to Make Reflection a Daily Learning Habit, and How to Do It
2. 7 Small “Mind Shifts” for When You Lack Discipline
3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps – Or the Importance of Setting Learning Goals

It’s time for another edition of the Radio Free Learning podcast here on Mission to Learn. In this episode, I talk with Farb Nivi, co-founder and CEO of Grockit.

I became intrigued with Grockit quite a while ago when the company was promoting itself as a collaborative, game-driven learning platform. Since that time, Grockit’s focus has turned towards the test preparation market and helping learners prepare, collaboratively, for big standardized tests like the SAT and the GMAT.

In this podcast, I talk with Farb about how the Grockit platform works, his views on teaching and learning, and where Grockit may be headed in the future. If you are interested at all in collaborative learning and adaptive learning systems, this podcast is for you.

One other note – I’ve introduced “Show Notes” with this podcast to help give you an idea of how the conversation flows.

Here’s the MP3 file link (19:24 for content only/25:23 with extended theme music) in case you do not see the audio player below (or, if viewing by e-mail or RSS reader, click through to the original blog post).

Subscribe to the Radio Free Learning podcast:

• Subscribe using RSS
• Subscribe using iTunes

Grockit Podcast Show Notes

01:14 – Farb gives overview of what Grockit does

01:20 – Peers are a resource “left on the table” in most learning environments

01:45 – A million and a half kids take the SAT annually – a great resource to each student is other students

02:36 – System adapts to learners- whether working on their own, with a group, or with an expert. Applies algorithms to optimize environment

03:48 – Learning platform in multiple senses – people go there to learn, but the environment also learns about them and responds

04:22 – Discussion of gaming as a form of learning, starting with “Game mechanics are human mechanics,” just slightly more defined and immediate

06:30 – Discussion of standardized tests. Is Grockit sticking up for them?

08:38 – Discussion of our current educational system – and where it is falling short

09:36 – Teachers used to be facilitators of a design that had students learning from each other

11:35 – When you are forced to teach others, your own learning amplifies quite a bit

12:30 – Reference to the Cluetrain Manifesto. “Markets are conversations” – old idea made new again. Similar phenomenon occurring in education.

13:25 – Farb’s influences – Peter Senge, Edward Tufte, Russell Ackoff, etc. – and background

15:15 – The future vision for Grockit and the collaborative learning platform – beyond test prep

17:07 – Origin of the name Grockit

17:55 – What Farb has learned in building Grockit as a company

19:24 – Roll The Information Age by Anthony Fiumano, available on the Podsafe Music Network

Jeff

P.S. – Interested in collaborative learning? I encourage you to check out 15 Free Online Collaboration Tools and Apps .

Related posts:

1. Podcast: Mobile Learning with Mookee
2. About Memory, Part II – Podcast with Fiona McPherson
3. Podcast: Lifelong Learning With Bill Draves

Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event that unites bloggers across the world to raise awareness about an important issue. This years’ issue is climate change. Mission to Learn has participated in Blog Action Day since it began in 2007. Last year, when the issue was poverty, I posted 5 Games Against Poverty and Hunger. So, in that same vein, here are five learning games for climate change.

Climate Challenge
A game where you are president of the European Nations. You must tackle climate change and stay popular enough with the voters to remain in office.

Connect2Climate
Connect 2 Climate comprises of five different applications on the mobile – three mobile games involving different mindsets and psychologies of mobile users, and two mobile learning applications on climate change. The games are being deployed on low-end and low cost handsets to sophisticated high-end devices.

Copenhagen Challenge
The game “Copenhagen Challenge” … aims to create awareness among school children and youth on issues related to climate change – renewable energy, energy efficiency and reduction in greenhouse gases.Download the English and Hindi versions of “Copenhagen Challenge” game from the links below. Install it on your desktop, play the interesting game, and learn more about Climate Change and related issues.

LogiCity
LogiCity is a fun interactive computer game with a difference.  Aimed at young people under 25, it’s a game set in a 3D virtual city with five main activities where players are set the task of reducing the carbon footprint of an average resident.  As players work their way through the game they will pick up information about Climate Change, and some of the main ways in which everyone is currently contributing to the emissions of the main greenhouse gas (CO2) that causes Climate Change.

V GAS
V GAS aims at making the connections between individual lifestyles and greenhouse gas emissions, gauging personal contributions to global emissions. V GAS will try to help the user to answer the question ‘how does my lifestyle relate to the global problem?’, as well as ‘what options are there to reduce my contribution to the global problem?’

Learn and make change,

Jeff

P.S. – If you are interested in learning games, you may want to check out other posts on serious games here on Mission to Learn, and particularly 26 Learning Games to Change the World.

Related posts:

1. 12 More Learning Games for Change – and a Bonus
2. 5 Games Against Poverty and Hunger
3. 26 Learning Games to Change the World

I sing the praises of podcasts as a learning medium from time to time. After reading an article recently about how the Warwick School of Business is using iTunes University to deliver content in its MBA program, I decided it was past time for me to pull together a list of some of my favorite iPod educational content sources. Here are 10 great ones, in no particular order:

1. Quick and Dirty Tips
Probably best known for the Grammar Girl podcast, Quick and Dirty Tips offers short and snappy content on a range of other topics, like nutrition, public speaking, investing, and even dog training.

2. LearnOutLoud
I’ve been a fan of The Philosophy Podcast for a while now, but LearnOutLoud has a lot more to offer. In fact, the site claims to have “the Internet’s first directory for podcasts you can learn from.” And LearnOutLoud also has a great selection of learning resources for kids.

3. MindBites
I interviewed MindBites CEO Jason Reneau for a Radio Free Learning podcast a while back. His company’s site offers a large and growing collection of video “instructionals” on topics ranging from sewing to calculus to baby sign language.

4. Radio Lingua Network
Radio Lingua offers the popular Coffee Break Spanish and Coffee Break French podcast series as well as “My Daily Phrase” and “One Minute” podcasts for a number of other languages.

5. iTunes U (Opens in iTunes)
iTunes U is the place for great free content from top universities and other educational institutions. Apple claims there are more than 200,000 educational audio and video files available. Here are direct links to a few of the participating institutions and organizations. (You will have to have iTunes installed for these to work):

• Carnegie Melon
• Univerity of Oxford
• Open University
• Stanford University
• Edutopia
• Teacher’s Domain (WGBH/PBS)

6. Education Podcast Network
The Education Podcast Network bills itself as “an effort to bring together into one place, the wide range of podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century.” Of course, you don’t have to be a teacher to use it!

7. The Naked Scientists
If you have the slightest interest in science, The Naked Scientists is a site you will want to subscribe to. A project of the BBC, it offers up a continuing stream of interviews with famous scientists along with news and information about science, medicine and technology.

8. Librivox
Librivox is the source for free audio book content on the Web, and it offers a variety of podcast options. You can pull pretty much any audio book on the site into your iPod, or try out one of these five channels for an automated stream of content:

• LibriVox Books Podcast
• LibriVox Community Podcast
• LibriVox Poetry Podcast
• LibriVox Short Story Podcast
• LibriVox New Releases Podcast

9. TED Talks
I’m continually amazed at the stream of high quality content coming out of the Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference. The Web site is very popular, but you might not be aware that you can subscribe to both a video and an audio version of TED talks through iTunes.

10. Teaching Company
I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to The Teaching Company. They, along with Amazon and many others, dropped their North Carolina affiliates like a hot potato after the NC Legislature passed a hare-brained new tax law late this summer. Still, if you are willing to pony up the bucks for it, the company offers some pretty amazing, in-depth educational content. “Great courses taught by great professors,” as they put it.

So, those are a few of my favorites. What about you? What would you like to add to the mix? Please comment and share your favorites.

Jeff

P.S. – Naturally, I also encourage you to check out the Radio Free Learning podcast here on Mission to Learn.

Related posts:

1. Discover Your Inner Philosopher
2. Collaborative Learning with Grockit – Podcast
3. Podcast: Lifelong Learning With Bill Draves

If you are partial to attending class wearing an Armani suit and a $400 haircut, this post may not be for you. At least, that is not the sort of sophistication I have in mind (though it’s fine with me if you want to look dapper while you are learning). Rather, when I use the term “sophisticated,” I’m bearing in mind its connection to a group of teachers who wandered Ancient Greece cultivating wisdom: the Sophists.

The Sophists, in my opinion, deserve a little positive PR when it comes to lifelong learning.

The terms “sophist” and “sophistry” have taken on derogatory connotations in modern times. They suggest distortion of the truth through complex, convoluted reasoning. Ironically, this interpretation of the Sophists’ legacy is itself a distortion of the truth. The greater part of what we know about Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Prodicus and the other philosophers who are associated with the Sophist movement comes from Plato and Aristotle, neither of whom had a very high opinion of the group. If you have ever sat through even the first day or two of a Western Philosophy 101 course, you know that Plato and Aristotle carry a lot of weight. If they didn’t give the thumbs up to a philosophical movement, the movement probably didn’t fare very well in subsequent history.

So it went with the Sophists. But the real story of the Sophists – at least so far as we can now decipher it – is that they were a group dedicated to cultivating excellence and virtue, primarily through the skillful use of reasoning and argumentation. The Sophists usually charged for instruction and often questioned things that people didn’t really want questioned – like, for example, the existence of popular deities. As a result, they were not universally popular, to say the least.

But who ever said the pursuit of knowledge is a path to popularity? If you are willing to take a few risks, the following three practices of the Sophists are good ones to adopt in your pursuit of lifelong learning.

1. Question everything – and then question it again
Asking questions was at the heart of the Sophist approach to learning. Often they would push their questioning to the point of absurdity in an effort to expose the fallacy of a particular belief or argument. This was critical thinking on steroids, though as you might imagine, it has the potential to be a bit annoying. Practice this technique judiciously, but most definitely make it part of your skill set: In the info-flooded world of the Wild Wild Web, questioning is more important than ever.

2. Learn how to articulate your arguments well
The Sophists were particularly skillful with language, and I suspect this was one of the key traits (in addition to their fat fees) that turned people against them. It can be infuriating to be subjected to a stream of absurd arguments that are so skillfully constructed you don’t know how to refute them. But there is no better way of knowing how to identify and pick apart false arguments than mastering the art of constructing them yourself. Moreover, if you are able to speak clearly, in your own language about a complex topic, that is one of the surest signs that you have learned it well.

3. Cultivate a thick skin
When you start questioning things, people will disagree with you. When you question eloquently, with well-constructed arguments, you will likely even attract fierce enemies. The Sophists, I’m sure, became quite accustomed to the slings and arrows of their critics. They persevered and prospered – and even avoided drinking hemlock. If you are out there blogging, podcasting, tweeting, or otherwise being public about your learning activities, you are bound to catch some criticism of your own along the way. Learn to embrace criticism as part of the process – and, of course, be well-prepared to articulate your counter arguments when appropriate.

Master these three practices, and you will indeed be a “sophisticated learner” in the truest since.

Jeff

P.S. – Another practice of the sophisticated learner in modern times is to subscribe to Mission to Learn by RSS feed or by e-mail.

Related posts:

1. 5 Traits of the Super Learner
2. Five Themes for the Web 2.0 Learner

One of the biggest barriers we all face when pursuing our learning goals is a lack of self-discipline. We may know where we want to go, but putting in the time and effort to get there is another thing entirely.

Maybe you don’t manage to drag yourself out of bed early in the morning to write, like you told yourself you would. Or you skipped practicing your Spanish verbs the last two days.  Or… [fill in one of your own].

In these situations, many of us have a tendency to embrace the more negative side of discipline. We beat ourselves up; punish ourselves for our failures.  But in doing this, we start to develop a negative mindset about discipline that can only lead to more failure.

Here are some ways to shift your mind towards a more positive view of discipline:

1. Realize that discipline is the sum of many small parts

“Discipline” actually derives from the Latin “disciplina,” meaning teaching or learning. A disciple, in the classic sense, was someone who followed the teachings and code of conduct of a master as a path to knowledge. Naturally, this doesn’t happen overnight. It takes many years of small successes – and failures. In fact, there really is no finish line for discipline. It is an illusion to say that a person is disciplined. Really we are always in the process of becoming disciplined.

2. Focus on the small parts

Given that discipline is an ongoing process rather than a set condition or one-time event, it makes sense to value the steps in the process. Your goal may be to become a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, but focusing in on mastering the Moa Seogi stance is a much more manageable short-term goal. Break that goal down into small chunks that you can begin to form into a habit. Maybe committing yourself to just 5 minutes a day of practice is all you can handle at first. But do that for 30 days, and you’ve got the foundation of a habit on which you can build.

3.  Keep the long-term view

You will fail. Even in the seemingly simple effort to commit just five minutes a day to practice, the day will arrive when you skip your five minutes. These are the times where we drive ourselves crazy. We focus too much on our short-term failings. Or, for that matter, on our short-term successes. But these single instances do not matter in the long run. What matters in the long run is that we continue the process of discipline.

4. Know your reasons why

If you understand the importance of learning goals and have been thoughtful in setting them, then you know what is motivating you to achieve a particular goal. Don’t lose site of that motivation. Make sure you have written it down and told others about it. Motivation is the positive energy of discipline. Always keep it close.

5. Enjoy yourself

It’s hard to push yourself to have discipline when you don’t like doing something, but let’s face it, even when we are learning about something we love, there will be less enjoyable parts. Memorizing vocabulary, for example, has never been one of my favorite parts of learning a language, but it has to be done. Doing it with a beer on the back porch is one way to make it much more enjoyable. Or maybe trying out some online flashcards. Find what works for you, but figure out how you can make the trying parts of learning a bit more enjoyable.

6. Screw up

Aristotle said in his Nicomachean Ethics “…as a practical matter, we must sometimes aim a bit toward excess and sometimes toward deficiency, because this will be the easiest way of hitting the mean, that is, what is right.” That may sound like Greek even in English, but one way of translating it is that you don’t really know and appreciate success until you have experienced failure. So don’t sweat it too much when you fall off the wagon. It’s a necessary part of the process.

7. Repeat …Wisely

Remember: Discipline is a habit. And habits, by definition, are behaviors that are repeated again and again. The important point is to recognize your “excesses” and “deficiencies,” as Aristotle would put it, and try not to keep repeating those. You will repeat them, of course, whether you like it or not, but over time repetition of “what is right” will prevail.

It seems appropriate to wrap up by saying that this post is part of my own effort to cultivate a more disciplined approach to blogging. Those who have been reading in the past month or so may have guessed that it represents another installment of my Zen Learning Habits series, inspired by Leo Babauta’s work at Zen Habits.

As always, I welcome your comments. How do you deal with the issue of discipline in your own learning efforts? Please comment and share with other readers.

- Jeff

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One of my good friends has a framed document hanging in his house that lists ten rules that Thomas Jefferson believed were essential for leading a fulfilling life.  According to the Th: Jefferson Encyclopedia,  these were compiled at the request of a father who had named his baby son Thomas Jefferson Smith. They were pared down somewhat from an earlier list Jefferson sent to his granddaughter, Cornelia Jefferson Randolph.

It occurred to me as I saw the document once again at my friend’s house this past weekend, that this type of accumulated life wisdom – particularly from a mind as sharp and disciplined as Jefferson’s – is something I ought to highlight from time-to-time here on Mission to Learn. So, here are Jefferson’s 10 Rules, which he described as a “decalogue of canons for observation in practical life.”

1. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

Certainly these words apply as well today as they did in Jefferson’s time – or any other time, for that matter. If you have a list like this that you particularly like – especially one from a less known source – please comment and share.

Jeff

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