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I've been obsessed with figuring out the
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fastest and easiest possible way to
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learn new skills for the last decade and
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after years of teaching people and
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reading the research on this I've
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stumbled across a mistake that
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guarantees an almost 100% failure rate
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on learning any skill and sadly this is
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a mistake that most people make every
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single day I call this mistake Theory
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overload and I think it is one of the
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most important things to know about when
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you're trying to learn any new skill but
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first we have to understand a key often
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overlooked ingredient to learning any
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new skill that allows us to even learn
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skills in the first place and this
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ingredient is experiential cycling so if
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I practice shooting this bow every day
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for a month I should get
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bitter right
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[Music]
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maybe but maybe not once I let go of
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this Arrow I cannot control where it
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goes midair at least as far as I know
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where this Arrow lands depends on
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everything that I did in the setup
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beforehand and by the way like any skill
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learning to learn is the same our exam
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results our memory our depth of
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understanding these things depend on the
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processes we used before when we were
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studying now imag imagine I shot this
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arrow and it
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landed here not very good but to do
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better next time I have to know what to
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change to get it into the center I
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cannot keep just firing arrows off
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randomly expecting to get better I might
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get a bullseye once in a while but it's
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not going to be consistent and once the
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target moves further away it's not going
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to work anymore same thing in learning
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if we get a bad exam result we need to
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know what to change and just because we
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get a better exam result in a different
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exam it doesn't mean we actually solved
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the problem so this is essentially the
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experiential cycle we have an experience
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we observe the result we think about
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what we need to change and then we do an
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experiment to see if it made it any
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better without this cycle we cannot
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learn any new skill this is pretty
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straight forward and obvious but here's
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the part that traps people whether it's
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learning about learning skills or
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learning to shoot an arrow or learning
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any other skill the fastest way to learn
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any skill is to learn more slowly this
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is the theory overload trap now most of
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you know that I've got a program that
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teaches people to learn more efficiently
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and one of the things that I can do on
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the program that I can't do on YouTube
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is I get to observe how the students
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behave and I can track their progress
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much more closely so take a look at
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these two students and see if you can
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guess which one ended up being more
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academically successful first one to
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look at is this one here sures who was
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on the program for 5 weeks and got
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through
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31% of the program and the second
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student that I want you to look at is
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Enzo who was on the program for 54 weeks
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and got through 20%
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of the program who do you think improved
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the fastest so despite covering less of
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the course it was actually Enzo who
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ended up with better academic results he
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went from a baseline of
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62% to latest exam result of
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92% compared to sish and this is the
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surprising part sish actually went from
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80% to
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71% s actually got worse after working
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on it for 5 weeks why did sesh get worse
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I'll give you a clue it's not just
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because Enzo had so much more time to
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work on things well the answer is Theory
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overload okay now imagine this bowl is
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your
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brain very smooth just kidding now your
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brain has a limited amount of cognitive
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resources that it can can spend it's
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like how much memory or Ram your
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computer has so let's say that these
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wooden blocks represent your cognitive
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resources now whenever we learn a new
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skill we're introduced to new things
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that we need to think about so each
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thing takes resources to keep it in mind
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and think about it hold my arrow more
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tightly stabilize my core keep my
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shoulders uh relaxed bre breathe more
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slowly aim a little bit lower you can
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see that my bowl my capacity is becoming
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filled up and on top of that there's a
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certain amount of resources it takes to
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just perform the activity now once a new
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skill eventually becomes a habit the
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amount of resources it takes goes down
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but when you're learning a new skill
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it's not going to be a habit it's going
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to be unfamiliar and difficult and
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awkward and all of those things take
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additional resources to overcome so more
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and more needs to be invested into just
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doing the actual skill and as you can
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see now we
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are overflowing we've overloaded our
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brain's ability to think about things
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because we have given it too many things
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to think about in the research our brain
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trying to think about lots of different
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things at the same time is called
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multiple element interactivity and it's
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a common reason why we enter into what's
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called cognitive overload but here is
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the thing about learning a cognitive
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skill like learning to learn for example
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unlike learning a physical skill like
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archery for a physical skill we burn
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energy using our body using our muscles
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for a cognitive skill we burn effort
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with our brain which means that the
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amount of cognitive resources it takes
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to just perform the skill the act of
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learning is innately very high to begin
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with it takes a lot of mental resources
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to understand new information and
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process it and organize it and think
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about where it belongs and create new
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memory and all of this effort helps to
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translate the learning into memory and
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understanding if we didn't feel this
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effort we wouldn't have any memory and
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that would be called passive learning
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but with effective more active learning
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it takes a lot of resources to begin
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with which means adding just a few more
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things can put us into
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overload very quickly so in that case
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what is the best way to learn a new
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skill especially a cognitive skill well
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at the end of the day all of that means
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that when we're learning a new skill we
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should only ever be trying to experient
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expent with one or two things at the
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same time so sesh who covered like 30%
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of the program in a month would have
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learned over a dozen new techniques and
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each technique has two or three things
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to think about so that means that SES
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would have been trying to juggle 20 or
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30 things at any given time he was
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completely overloaded and therefore his
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brain was not able to actually learn the
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skills and this is exactly why some
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students
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if they don't realize this trap can
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spend months or even years trying to
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learn a new skill and feeling like it is
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impossible to get it right because no
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matter how much time they put into it
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they do not seem to be improving it is
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incredibly frustrating so here's the
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secret to learning any skill the right
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way always balance your new Theory with
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practice if you practice ice without any
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Theory it's aimless if you practice with
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too much Theory you're getting
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overloaded so the trick is to balance
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new Theory coming in with your existing
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skills becoming Habits Like I mentioned
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before when skills become habits your
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brain figures out a more efficient way
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to do it it doesn't require so many
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cognitive resources anymore it finds a
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shortcut and so
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the amount of cognitive resources it
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takes to perform the skill goes down as
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more of this new skill just starts to
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become an old habit and eventually what
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took a lot of concentration to do now
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takes virtually no thinking at all and
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you can still do it just as accurately
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and just as consistently we have freed
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up more cognitive resources to take in
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some new
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Theory and turn those into habits for
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some skills and techniques it can take
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weeks if not months to develop them into
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habits whereas for some it can just take
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a few hours and by balancing the theory
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with practice we can achieve Optimum
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skill growth where we are practicing and
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every time we practice we are improving
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with focus and Direction but we're not
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getting overloaded so here's what this
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looks like in practice let's say we've
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only got 5 hours a week to
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practice now that is not probably enough
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to form new habits very quickly and so
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we're going to need to reduce the amount
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of new Theory we take in and because
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we've got a low amount of practice and
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therefore a low amount of theory the two
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of them are aligned and we can achieve
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our Optimum skill growth now let's say
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we now have a little bit more free time
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and we want to dedicate a little bit
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more time to learning this skill so we
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have now 20 hours a week that we can
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dedicate to practice so the amount that
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we can practice has now gone
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up which means we can also go up in the
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amount of theory we can take
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in but it's proportional to the amount
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of extra practice we're getting so as a
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rule of thumb I usually say for every
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hour of theory we should have at least 5
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hours of practice so for example if we
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have 5 hours of practice we would only
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be able to take in 1 hour of theory in
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this first example whereas in the second
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example we've got 20 hours of practice
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therefore we can have up to 4 hours of
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theory now unfortunately that's just a
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rule of thumb and in reality it's a
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little bit more complicated because 5
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hours of practicing a very complicated
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skill is not the same as 5 hours of
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practicing a very simple skill like a
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new way to tie your shoelaces in which
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case 5 hours of practice is probably
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Overkill and so what's more important
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and accurate than just the number of
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hours of practice is actually monitoring
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how quickly we're able to form new
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habits when new habits form we have the
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mental space to take in more Theory so
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if we're very slow at forming new habits
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then we're going to be slower at taking
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in new Theory and the way you can know
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that new habits are forming is when you
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can feel that things are becoming easier
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and faster
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without compromising your accuracy and
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your consistency and most of the time
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you're able to get faster without trying
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to get faster the speed comes with the
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efficiency that your brain develops at
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just getting better at doing it now this
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is where I have to give props to Enzo
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because Enzo realized that he was
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developing new habits more slowly than
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we would have anticipated and so he took
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a year to cover 20% of the program so
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instead of 5 hours of practice for every
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hour of theory he was doing more like 15
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20 hours of practice for every hour of
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theory so even though on the surface it
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looked like he was going very slowly his
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skill growth was being maintained at an
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optimal rate because he was never
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letting himself get overloaded and by
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the way if you're interested in the
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program yourself there's a link in the
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description that you check out now while
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Theory overload has an almost 100%
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failure rate the reverse is also true
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Almost 100% of the time I see someone
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balancing their Theory intake rate with
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their practice and habit forming rate
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they are able to learn their desired
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skill very smoothly and very quickly
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which is why I said that I think this is
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one of the most important things to
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understand if you want to learn any
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skill I hope that helps and if you've
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got the capacity for just one more bit
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of theory then check out this video that
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YouTube thinks you'll like thanks for
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watching and I'll see you next time
