Imagine what life would be like if you had your own private Knowledge Bank. Each time you wanted to fill your head with information, you would go to the Knowledge Bank for a withdrawal. What would happen if one day the bank teller said to you, “I’m sorry. Your Knowledge account is overdrawn. We can’t give you anymore knowledge.” That would be devastating. Fortunately, there are no limits to acquiring knowledge. Discipline, assimilation and application are the keys to making your brain work more efficiently.

Let’s look at Discipline. If you want to learn more, you have to get into the habit of making room in your life to make that learning happen. If you say, “I need to read more industry publications to keep up on what’s happening in my field” and you never read the journals — they just pile up in your office — then it is time to change that message to your brain from intent to action. Instead of saying, “I need to read…” say, “I am reading now…” Make it active in the present tense. You can say “I need to” for years without taking any action.

When you set aside time every day to do the learning, it will happen. Before you know it, it will become a habit that you won’t think about. You will simply do it.

I recently stumbled upon the Good Life Project’s excellent interview with Josh Kaufman, author of The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast. His simple five-step process will open up your eyes to how simple it is to adopt discipline into your life to learn anything. It requires focus and practice to get to mastery. His process includes daily practice. That’s right. Daily practice. When you set aside time every day to learn and do the things you really want to, you begin to know and master them in a shorter period of time.

What is it that you have been postponing that could use the focus of discipline?

How can you make time every day to learn the things you really want to learn?

Next week we’ll explore assimilation.