Figuring out What To Learn can feel overwhelming, but don’t worry! LEARNS.EDU.VN is here to guide you. This article dives into practical strategies for choosing the right skills, emphasizing aptitude and a conducive learning environment. We will focus on the importance of skill identification, and explore what new educational opportunities are available. Read on to find resources to discover your path to success.
1. Why the “Learn What I Learned” Approach Falls Short
It’s tempting to follow advice from successful individuals who advocate learning the skills they possess. For instance, someone might suggest studying compilers, arguing that understanding them allows you to recognize and solve related problems effectively. While this isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s not a compelling reason to focus solely on compilers. Many other areas, such as queuing theory, computer architecture, mathematical optimization, and operations research, offer similar benefits.
One response to this objection is that one should study everything. While being a broad generalist can work, it’s gotten much harder to “know a bit of everything” and be effective because there’s more of everything over time (in terms of both breadth and depth). And even if that weren’t the case, I think saying “should” is too strong; whether or not someone enjoys having that kind of breadth is a matter of taste. Another approach that can also work, one that’s more to my taste, is to, as Gian Carlo Rota put it, learn a few tricks.
1.1 The Power of Specialization: Mastering a Few Key Skills
Instead of trying to learn everything, consider the approach of mastering a few key skills. Gian Carlo Rota, a renowned mathematician and philosopher, highlighted this concept by observing that even brilliant mathematicians like Hilbert relied on a limited set of “tricks” repeatedly. This principle applies across various fields.
For example, an analysis of world-class judo players revealed that most excel by specializing in a small number of throws. Judo, like many disciplines, is a game of specialization. You have to use the skills that work best for you. You have to stick to what works and practice your skills until they become automatic responses. Getting better at techniques you already know is often more effective than having a portfolio of hundreds of “moves”.
1.2 Amplify Your Strengths: Focus on What You’re Good At
Joy Ebertz, a staff engineer, advises amplifying your strengths rather than solely focusing on weaknesses. While addressing weaknesses is important, significant improvement in areas where you’re already strong can be more impactful.
How can you turn something you’re good at into your superpower? It can require a lot of work and energy to barely move the needle if it’s truly an area we’re weak in. Obviously, you still want to make sure you don’t have any truly bad areas, but assuming you’ve gotten that, instead focus on amplifying your strengths.
This approach is effective because you can strategically position yourself to leverage your strengths and avoid situations that expose your weaknesses. Unlike competitive environments, workplaces often allow you to focus on projects where your strengths are valuable.
2. Identifying Skills to Learn: A Personalized Approach
The most common question people ask is what skills to learn. It’s tempting to seek generic advice, but the best approach is personalized. What works for one person may not work for another.
2.1 Aptitude and Environment: The Key Ingredients
Two crucial elements in determining what to learn are having a relative aptitude for something (relative to other things you might do, not relative to other people) and having a good environment in which to learn.
- Aptitude: Identifying your natural inclinations and talents is essential.
- Environment: A supportive and stimulating environment significantly enhances learning.
Suggesting that someone should look for those things is so vague that it’s nearly useless, but it’s still better than the usual advice, which boils down to “learn what I learned”, which results in advice like “Career pro tip: if you want to get good, REALLY good, at designing complex and stateful distributed systems at scale in real-world environments, learn functional programming. It is an almost perfectly identical skillset.” or the even more extreme claims from some language communities, like Chuck Moore’s claim that Forth is at least 100x as productive as boring languages.
2.2 Avoiding Generic Internet Advice: Lessons Learned
Relying on generic internet advice can be misleading. Many people have followed such advice, only to find that it doesn’t lead to significant improvement. Moreover, highly effective individuals often haven’t followed the same conventional wisdom.
Early in my career, I took generic internet advice, including language advice (this was when much of this kind of advice was relatively young and it was not yet possible to easily observe that, despite many people taking advice like this, people who took this kind of advice were not particularly effective and people who are particularly effective were not likely to have taken this kind of advice). I learned Haskell, Lisp, Forth, etc. At one point in my career, I was on a two person team that implemented what might still be, a decade later, the highest performance Forth processor in existence (it was a 2GHz IPC-oriented processor) and I programmed it as well (there were good reasons for this to be a stack processor, so Forth seemed like as good a choice as any). Like Yossi Kreinin, I think I can say that I spent more effort than most people have becoming proficient in Forth, and like him, not only did I not find it find it to be a 100x productivity tool, it wasn’t clear that it would, in general, even be 1x on productivity. To be fair, a number of other tools did better than 1x on productivity but, overall, I think following internet advice was very low ROI and the things that I learned that were high ROI weren’t things people were recommending.
3. Discovering Your Skills: Practical Strategies
Since generic advice often falls short, how can you identify the skills that are right for you?
3.1 Ask for Feedback: Seek External Perspectives
If you’re unsure where to start, ask people who know you well for their input. Your manager, colleagues, or mentors can offer valuable insights into your strengths and skills. Two skills that clicked for me are “having an adversarial mindset” and “looking at data”. A perhaps less useless piece of advice is that, if you’re having a hard time identifying what those might be, you can ask people who know you very well, e.g., my manager and Ben Kuhn independently named coming up with solutions that span many levels of abstraction as a skill of mine that I frequently apply (and I didn’t realize I was doing that until they pointed it out).
3.2 Observe Your Natural Inclinations: Identify What You Can’t Help But Do
Look for things you naturally gravitate towards that others don’t seem to do. What activities do you find yourself drawn to, even when you don’t have to? Just for example, on having an adversarial mindset, when a company I was working for was beta testing a new custom bug tracker, I filed some of the first bugs on it and put unusual things into the fields to see if it would break. Some people really didn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing and were baffled, disgusted, or horrified, but a few people (including the authors, who I knew wouldn’t mind), really got it and were happy to see the system pushed past its limits. Poking at the limits of a system to see where it falls apart doesn’t feel like work to me; it’s something that I’d have to stop myself from doing if I wanted to not do it, which made spending a decade getting better at testing and verification techniques felt like something hard not to do and not work.
4. The Importance of a Conducive Learning Environment
Finding the right environment is just as crucial as identifying the right skills. A supportive and stimulating environment can significantly accelerate your learning.
4.1 Seek Opportunities for Growth: Align Your Environment with Your Goals
When choosing a team or company, prioritize opportunities for learning and growth. Many people overlook this aspect, even though they value it highly. An example of not doing this which typifies what I usually see is a case I just happened to find out about because I chatted with a manager about why their team had lost their new full-time intern conversion employee. I asked them about it since it was unusual for that manager to lose anyone since they’re very good at retaining people and have low turnover on their teams. It turned out that their intern had wanted to work on infra, but had joined this manager’s product team because they didn’t know that they could ask to be on a team that matched their preferences.
4.2 Learn from Experts: Surround Yourself with Knowledge
Learning from experts is invaluable. Good coaches are able to convey that kind of information over time, but I don’t know of anything similar for programming, so I think the best thing available for learning rate is to find an environment that’s full of experts. The rate of improvement during the past few years, where I’m in an environment where I can toss ideas back and forth with people who are very good at understanding the limitations of what data can tell you as well as good at informing data analysis with deep domain knowledge, has been much higher. I’d say that I improved more at this in each individual year at my current job than I did in the decade prior to my current job.
5. Balancing Skill Levels and Applicability
When deciding what to learn, consider the level of skill you want to develop, from high-level concepts to specific techniques. Also, ensure that the skills you choose are likely to be applicable in your field.
5.1 Trial and Error: Embrace Experimentation
Don’t be afraid to experiment and try different skills. Trial and error can be an effective way to discover what works best for you. It’s a little too naive to just say that someone should think about learning skills they have an aptitude for without thinking about applicability. But while it’s pretty easy to pick out skills where it’s very difficult to either have an impact on the world or make a decent amount of money or achieve whatever goal you might want to achieve, like “basketball” or “boxing”, it’s harder to pick between plausible skills, like computer architecture vs. PL. But I think semi-reasonable sounding skills are likely enough to be high return if they’re a good fit for someone that trial and error among semi-reasonable sounding skills is fine, although it probably helps to be able to try things out quickly.
5.2 Prioritizing Fun and Motivation: The Intrinsic Drive
Ultimately, the best skills to learn are those that you find enjoyable and motivating. Learning should be fun, and a strong intrinsic drive will make the process more rewarding. This post has discussed some strategies with an eye towards why they can be valuable, but I have to admit that my motivation for learning from experts wasn’t to create value. It’s more that I find learning to be fun and there are some areas where I’m motivated enough to apply the skills regardless of the environment, and learning from experts is such a great opportunity to have fun that it’s hard to resist. Doing this for a couple of decades has turned out to be useful, but that’s not something I knew would happen for quite a while (and I had no idea that this would effectively transfer to a new industry until I changed from hardware to software).
6. From Hardware to Software: A Personal Journey
My journey from hardware to software illustrates the value of focusing on skills that align with your aptitude and interests. Although I didn’t initially know that my skills would transfer to a new industry, my dedication to learning and having fun led to a successful career transition.
7. Long-Term Goals vs. Trial and Error
While career advice often emphasizes long-term goals and strategies, it’s important to acknowledge the difficulty of finding an area that truly suits you. Trial and error can be a valuable approach, especially when combined with self-awareness and feedback from others.
| Feature | Long-Term Goals | Trial and Error |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Directed, strategic | Exploratory, iterative |
| Focus | Achieving specific career milestones | Discovering suitable skills and environments |
| Risk | Potential misalignment with personal aptitude | Requires adaptability and willingness to change |
| Best Suited For | Individuals with clear career objectives | Those seeking to explore different paths |
8. The LEARNS.EDU.VN Advantage: Your Partner in Learning
At LEARNS.EDU.VN, we understand the challenges of choosing what to learn. That’s why we offer a wide range of resources and courses designed to help you identify your skills, explore different fields, and create a personalized learning path. LEARNS.EDU.VN is more than just a website. It’s a community, a resource hub, and a launchpad for your learning journey. Join us and discover the joy of learning.
8.1 Personalized Learning Paths
LEARNS.EDU.VN provides personalized learning paths tailored to your individual interests and goals. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or simply someone who loves to learn, we have something for you.
8.2 Expert Guidance and Support
Our team of experienced educators and industry professionals is here to guide you every step of the way. We offer expert advice, mentoring, and support to help you achieve your learning goals.
8.3 Comprehensive Resources and Courses
LEARNS.EDU.VN offers a comprehensive collection of resources and courses covering a wide range of topics. From technical skills to personal development, we have everything you need to succeed.
9. Actionable Steps to Take Today
Ready to take the first step towards a brighter future? Here are some actionable steps you can take today:
- Reflect on Your Strengths: What are you naturally good at? What do you enjoy doing?
- Seek Feedback: Ask your manager, colleagues, or mentors for their input.
- Explore Different Fields: Try new things and see what sparks your interest.
- Create a Learning Plan: Set realistic goals and create a plan to achieve them.
- Join LEARNS.EDU.VN: Access our resources, courses, and expert guidance to accelerate your learning journey.
10. Embracing a Growth Mindset: The Path to Success
Remember, learning is a lifelong journey. Embrace a growth mindset, be open to new experiences, and never stop exploring. With the right skills, a supportive environment, and a passion for learning, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.
| Aspect | Fixed Mindset | Growth Mindset |
|---|---|---|
| Beliefs | Abilities are fixed | Abilities can be developed |
| Challenges | Avoid challenges | Embrace challenges |
| Effort | Effort is unnecessary | Effort leads to mastery |
| Feedback | Ignore negative feedback | Learn from feedback |
| Success of Others | Threatened by others’ success | Inspired by others’ success |
| Outcome | Plateau early, achieve less | Reach higher levels of achievement |
FAQ: Your Questions Answered
Q1: How do I identify my natural aptitudes?
Consider what activities you enjoy and excel at without significant effort. Seek feedback from others to gain an external perspective.
Q2: What if I don’t know what I’m good at?
Experiment with different activities and subjects. Keep a journal to track your experiences and identify patterns.
Q3: How important is the learning environment?
A supportive and stimulating environment is crucial for accelerating learning and maximizing your potential.
Q4: Should I focus on my strengths or weaknesses?
Focus on amplifying your strengths while addressing any significant weaknesses that hinder your progress.
Q5: Is it better to specialize or be a generalist?
Specializing in a few key skills can be more effective than trying to learn everything.
Q6: How can LEARNS.EDU.VN help me?
LEARNS.EDU.VN offers personalized learning paths, expert guidance, and comprehensive resources to help you achieve your learning goals.
Q7: What if I’m afraid of failure?
Embrace failure as a learning opportunity. View setbacks as temporary and use them to improve your approach.
Q8: How do I stay motivated?
Choose skills and subjects that you find enjoyable and motivating. Set realistic goals and celebrate your progress along the way.
Q9: What is a growth mindset?
A growth mindset is the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.
Q10: How can I get started today?
Reflect on your strengths, seek feedback, explore different fields, create a learning plan, and join LEARNS.EDU.VN.
Conclusion: Your Learning Journey Starts Now
Deciding what to learn is a personal journey that requires self-awareness, experimentation, and a supportive environment. By focusing on your aptitudes, seeking expert guidance, and embracing a growth mindset, you can unlock your full potential and achieve your goals. Visit LEARNS.EDU.VN today to discover a world of learning opportunities and start your journey towards a brighter future.
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- Explore our courses at LEARNS.EDU.VN
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Keywords: What to learn, skill identification, personalized learning, learning environment, aptitude, career development, education, online courses, professional growth, self-improvement.
LSI Keywords: Skill acquisition, knowledge development, learning strategies, educational resources, personal growth, career advancement.
