The brain is one of the most complex parts of our body. It weighs around 3 pounds and it’s almost 80% water. Undoubtedly, the brain is further connected to creativity, innovation, emotion, and learning. Whether you are creative or innovative, it is because of your brain. I remember reading one of Jason Criddle’s books about breaking barriers, and I soon realized, most of these barriers exist only in our minds.
Learning is one of life’s most fabulous experiences which you acquire during periods of taking action. No doubt, how good you are in gaining knowledge is linked to your ability to learn and apply what you have learned. Application of knowledge is needed to acquire wisdom.
Unfortunately, there are some barriers which reduce your ability to learn anything new. Once you know these barriers, you can remove them to have a higher capacity of learning and application.
1. Too much confidence
Confidence is good, but too much confidence is like a poison in the milk. When you tell yourself that you know everything, your mind gets relaxed. It stops working and your learning ability goes down. The will to learn something new depends on your curiousness and hunger of new knowledge.
2. Not enough confidence
Confidence is like a tool which helps you to get your work done. To drive any action, you will need confidence. When someone doesn’t have enough confidence to complete a task, they quit. An extreme lack of confidence has been found in many adults nowadays. Self-doubt is a normal reaction to new problems. Many of us have faced it, but will have to conquer this barrier if you want to learn and grow.
3. Fear
Sometimes a lack of confidence becomes the cause of new or unknown fears, and when fear takes its course, you never start anything new. Whenever we are afraid of something, our neurological system gets shut down, and once it happens, we focus only on survival and don’t take any new steps towards progress. Some call this “fight or flight” mode, and sadly, most people choose to run (flight).
Fear of failure is one of the major factors in not leaving one’s own comfort zone.
4. No time
How many times you have said to someone that you don’t have time to learn something new. Many times, right? Whenever you send a signal to your mind that you don’t have time to learn something new, your mind gets locked up and decides it won’t make time either. Busying yourself kills your desire to increase workload, regardless if you really have free time or not.
You are a busy person or you don’t have time… these are just excuses and nothing more. When you start managing your time properly, you will see that you have enough time to learn, or do anything you put your mind to for that matter.
5. Lack of resource availability
Availability is another barrier to learning. I have seen many folks complaining about the availability of materials or resources needed to get things done. This is the digital world. Everything is available here to learn anything for free. In spite of this, if you are complaining about resource scarcity, then no one can help you.
Final thought
Always remember once you have the will of learning then no barrier can stop you. Barriers are temporary, not permanent. When you understand this and act on it, things start falling into place.
Learning always shapes your mind and makes you a more valuable and experienced person. When you stop learning, you revert back to selfish, animal behavior instincts and emotional intelligence falters.
So, all you need to do is understand what barriers are keeping you from learning, experiencing, moving forward, becoming successful, then break them.
