There are many learning-related myths that we need to unweed from your mind before you become a prolific learner.

Any belief that says “I can’t do it because….” nullifies our capacity for mastery. And almost all beliefs of this kind have some kind of myth behind them.

The Age Myth

We tend to believe that if we start a pursuit late, we can’t reach high levels of performance in it. Perhaps it is a factor. The problem with this is that it has a self-fulfilling dynamic, which should make us doubt its accuracy. And in the last 50 years we’ve discovered that the brain continually rewires itself through the phenomenon of neuroplasticity. We have epigenetics too. We’re moving beyond biological determinism.

True, kids are in a position of vulnerability and often have more need to learn than adults do, which boosts their learning power. But at the same time adults have spent decades building up a certain mindset and way of looking at learning. The apparent discrepancy between young and old might have more to do with the fact that adults shoot themselves in the foot with all their BS beliefs.

The Alignment of the Stars Myth

The greats came to this world with something that we didn’t. It was destiny, it was written in the stars. They almost seem magical, like divine gifts.

Again, just forget about this. It’s a cultural myth, a pernicious side-effect of our blindness to long-term effort and persistence.

Magic Shortcuts

Forget drugs, potions, magic teachers. The concepts we share at Seven Learning date back hundreds of years, they’re timeless: Don’t try to manufacture a shortcut or diversion. Get your head down instead.

Genius

This is the idea that certain people have enormous intelligence that you don’t have.

There are actually 15+ types of intelligence, ranging from emotional to cognitive to moral to social to kinesthetic. We can’t have them all, even if they were inbuilt. We might have certain inclinations, but real genius comes after years and decades. You can’t do anything ingenious without serious knowledge, especially in highly developed fields.

In fact, the best work only comes after 10 years of immersion in the field. It goes for The Beatles, Picasso, Mozart, and more. It’s an iron rule of learning and creativity.

Result of Contacts and Opportunities

Some people think competency and success are the result of contacts and opportunities and nothing else.

You need to have the right information, and knowing people certainly helps you take the skills out to the world. And sadly a lot comes to people with no talent but the right contacts.

But in the end, we’re talking about real learning. And this is a largely individual pursuit. Nobody can make you do it, and nobody can do it for you. Opportunities will come your way.

Sociopolitical

Does your social status affect your opportunities? Yes, and in some countries more than others. But really, now we have the internet, millions of books on all kinds of topics, movements to reduce barriers between genders and classes, opportunities for poor people to undertake higher education… don’t let this be an excuse.

In fact, being from a lower social class gives you an edge over more privileged people. You have that sense of something to fight against, barriers to overcome, inequality to balance, a point to make.

Learning and Discipline is Old-Fashioned

We live in a period of sound bites and attention-grabbing headlines, of anti-hierarchy, of political correctness, and of artificial intelligence. 

A 2019 study showed that screen media use continues to be dominated by watching TV and videos, playing games, and using social media; only 2% of tweens and teens use digital devices to make art, create music, code, or write.

So in a typical classroom of thirty, less than 1 of the children is building skills during screen use. Thing is, if you’re on the screen, you’re not mastering anything other than terrible habits.

We might think that dedication and persistence are relics of the past. This makes us lose touch with our inclinations and means we won’t work hard to follow them.

Let me be honest here: you might think that being constantly entertained and distracted is the good life. But these are the antithesis to mastery. And you’ll live a very mediocre life if you don’t master things.

In the end, these myths are a discredit to high achievers, and they bite us in the backside. They make us shy away from what we actually need to get good, which is really a tonne of hard work and perseverance.