Unlearning What?
Stop telling me to unlearn but not what to unlearn!
In this era of Lifelong Learning, you will hear the term “unlearning” mentioned a lot, that we need to unlearn before we can pick up new skills and knowledge. But I have a question I am very keen to get it answered, especially as a trainer and instructor. “What do we need to unlearn?” If we cannot figure out the answer to this, asking people to unlearn is just another motherhood statement spouted by purported lifelong-learning advocates.
As life goes on, because of our unique lifestyle, family background, preferred learning style etc, we pick up a lot of mental shortcuts or commonly known as heuristics.
According to Wikipedia,
“Heuristics is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision.”
Gist of the whole paragraph is that heuristics are mental shortcuts that helps us to get closer to a solution or objective.
As life progresses, we develop heuristics along the way. Heuristics can come from many sources such as education, teachers, family members, friends, etc. Marketing is also about establishing heuristics through branding.
As era changes and paradigm shifts, these mental shortcuts might not work anymore, for instance, “Learning has to be done at Institution of Higher Learning.”, “Only faculty in Institution of Higher Learning can teach the complex topics.”, or “To test competencies, exams and tests is the only way to go.”
Is this true anymore? We all know learning can be done anywhere, once we stop thinking that learning has to be done in a classroom setting. I am sure when you explore newsletters and online video, you will see there are folks that can break down very complex topics and explain it very well too.
Start Capturing Useless Heuristics
Yes, we need to start questioning some of these heuristics that we are having if they are still serving our needs and helping us to move forward in our lives and career. What is the possible steps then?
Step 1: Raise your self-awareness: Be aware of what your thoughts, emotions, and environment.
Step 2: Capture your current heuristics: Be aware of mental shortcuts you are taking, especially when you made an opinion. Opinions are full of mental shortcuts from what I observe.
Step 3: Question what are the assumptions that you make while making the opinions.
Step 4: Question those assumptions if they are still relevant in the current day and age.
Step 5: Reframe, rejig, restructure your thought process and assumptions after step 4 to form new heuristics.
Step 6: In the first few instances of using the heuristics, ask if it does work. If this step continue with good results, the heuristics will stay.
Hope these steps can help in your unlearning journey! :)
Conclusion
We need to unlearn heuristics that are not working out for us in live and career. The faster we can capture these heuristics and change them to be suitable for the current age and era, the better positioned we are to thrive.
What are your thoughts on this?
This issue’s discussion was inspired from a discussion with a good friend of mine whom I enjoyed discussing various topics. I very much enjoyed discussion that presents many perspectives. If you do, consider reaching out to me on LinkedIn.
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Great question, Koo! The first step to unlearning is to recognise that the thing we’ve learnt is either wrong or sub-optimal. It goes beyond heuristics. Heuristics are decision-making shortcuts. There are also knowledge that are no longer valid. We need to set ourselves up to always consider that what we know and do might be wrong. That’s difficult obviously.