Self-education is a great way to stay fit, improve your professional level and just be a more interesting conversationalist. Therefore, many people seriously think about where to start self-education. Alas, the lack of willpower combined with accumulated errors leads to the fact that time is wasted, a person who has recently been enthusiastic, gets upset and leaves a very useful beginning. How to avoid such errors?
We set a goal
First you need to decide on a goal. Not a single person begins self-education just like that. It is scarcely anyone's mind just to study the structural features of the ganglion in large ants or the declension of irregular verbs in the Irish language. Most people are looking for the answer to the question: “Where to start self-education?”, At the moment when they understand that it is necessary to know more in a particular area.
That is why it is very important to set a goal for yourself, having achieved which, you can be proud of yourself. The goal can be very different: just enough to become a more interesting person with a broad outlook. And another needs to urgently learn a foreign language or the basics of jurisprudence in order to be able to take a vacant place in the company by the end of the year.
However, it is not always that a person engaged in self-education strives for such complex and high goals. Often, everything is much simpler, for example, learning how to repair a car, mountain bike or computer yourself. Or maybe learn the basics of culinary.
In any case, you need a goal, so that there is something to focus on. It should be assigned depending on what you want to achieve. Become a versatile person? Find the top 100 best books in the world and read by the end of the year (at least the next) all those that have not yet read. Want to learn a foreign language? Decide at what point you should read freely on it, and at what point - communicate with other people. Have you been dreaming to learn how to cook? So, by the end of the month, cook ten new dishes, and by the end of the year, master a whole hundred.
The goal does not have to be global; it can be small, as long as it is achievable. After all, achievement will raise your self-esteem, allow you to believe in yourself.
Create a plan
Many people are interested in where to start self-education. The plan, or rather its preparation, is the most important stage, the foundation, without which all thoughts simply collapse and will not be realized.
Of course, the top of your plan should be the goal chosen before embarking on self-education. But its achievement is a very complex and long process. It’s impossible to get right to the top of the mountain like this. It is necessary to make halts, and it is advisable to assign their places on their own.
Want to know a car engine device? One week study the carburetor device. On the next - pay attention to the gearbox and so on. As a result, in a few weeks you will be able to tell with closed eyes about how the engine is designed, how it works.
The same thing with languages. For example, you should learn 5 new words every day, and once a week - a new rule. Such a load seems (and is) very small. But imagine what will happen in a year: knowing almost 2 thousand new words and 50 rules, you can easily communicate with an ordinary native speaker of this language, albeit not on professional topics.
The same principle applies if you are interested in how to start a lawyer's self-education. Make it a rule to study ten articles a day. Not necessarily verbatim, the main thing to remember is their number and meaning.
And most importantly - a schedule is drawn up for your convenience. But you can’t get out of it, because self-discipline is the only way to get the benefit of self-education. Any procrastination, statements like “I won’t do it today, but tomorrow I’ll make a double norm”, although justified in some cases, is most often just the beginning of the end. Well, abandoning self-education halfway, do not hope that it will benefit.
We are looking for like-minded people
Some experts will answer the question: “Where to start self-education?”, Quite original: from the search for like-minded people. They do not have to be physically close. Online dating (today there are many specialized forums) will also help. And this applies to any person. It does not matter what the goal of self-education is - the formation of the beginnings of the ecological culture of preschoolers or the teaching of virtuoso woodcarving.
Without like-minded people, learning the new is much more difficult. After all, most people are more likely to laugh at your attempts to become better, they themselves probably have never made such attempts and will not take them. But the person with whom you can talk on a new general topic will always support.
If you started to learn new things at the same time, a competitive effect also appears: everyone wants to get around a friend, to show that he is better at the task.
Finally, a very effective method: to promise a like-minded person "not to leave the track." You can always make excuses for yourself why you did not cook a new dish or did not learn the words as planned. And when deceiving another person, you will always feel discomfort. So, try not to allow this.
Choose a time
If we continue the topic "How to start self-education for a person", then in no case can you ignore the choice of optimal time. You should not hope that you will read the necessary literature or listen to lectures when there is time. This is a failure in advance. There will never be time, you can believe. There will always be some urgent and extremely important matter.
Therefore, decide that every day (or only on weekdays) you will read or listen to selected books while jogging, going to work or from work, one hour before bedtime. It is very important not to get out of this schedule. Over time, you will definitely want to postpone the matter or give yourself a little indulgence. Follow your laziness - you can immediately give up self-education, which means that this is not for you.
pros
The benefits of self-education are quite obvious. But let's talk briefly about them.
Firstly, you get the opportunity not to adapt to anyone. You are engaged in self-education when you have the time, and not the teacher and group of students.
Secondly, you can always adjust the course, ignoring those areas that you are not very interested in or already familiar with. It saves a lot of time.
Thirdly, you yourself set the pace. In a group, the teacher adjusts to the average or even the weakest student. But you are not like that? So, it is your time that will be used irrationally. If you learn by yourself, you can slow down on a topic that is difficult for you and, conversely, accelerate by learning a few topics if everything is given unusually quickly.
We use the Internet
Talking about how to begin self-education for an adult, one cannot but mention the Internet. After all, this is not just a bunch of social networks and sites with interesting facts or photos of cats. This is a limitless piggy bank of knowledge, which contains all the wisdom of mankind. The main thing is to find her.
Find the books you need. Many of them can be downloaded from free sites or bought for a symbolic cost of several tens of rubles. This is much easier than looking for highly specialized literature in a small town, paying hundreds or even thousands of rubles.
Do not ignore webinars. Either for free, or for several hundred rubles, you get the opportunity to talk with experts in an interesting business, ask them questions, and receive comprehensive answers.
Do not forget to repeat
Repetition is the mother of learning. Everyone remembers this, but in practice only those who achieve success apply. At the first reading, most people remember about half of the material, and the lion's share of this information will soon be forgotten. If after some time you re-read the material you are interested in, then up to 90-95% of the information will be acquired, and the risk of forgetting something will sharply decrease.
Set up a suitable schedule. For example, 20-25% of the time devoted to self-education should be devoted to repeating the material covered. It may seem to some that it is foolish to spend so much precious time for which you can learn additional important information. But remember: you are working for yourself. So, all the important material should be remembered, not read and forgotten right there. There will not be an exam, after which useless knowledge can be forgotten. You compose the program yourself and know that all the data that you read (listened or viewed) by you must be assimilated, if not forever, then for many years.
Learn Speed Reading
If you are interested in how to start self-education, then first of all you will get this invaluable skill. Today there are a large number of really working methods. Yes, to learn how to read a whole page in seconds, you will have to spend several weeks or months. But as a result, you will save much more time by literally swallowing books, rather than reading them line by line.
Conclusion
Now you know where to start self-education, so you can certainly achieve your goal. Well, the above tips will make learning even more effective, as well as avoid the most common mistakes.