Learning to Unlearn

Every new year, we set out to make exciting changes; and write them down as a part of our resolutions. Each year goes by and as it does, we learn so many new things. We learn new things because of the ever-changing lifestyle all of us are living. But the brain has a finite capacity, so to learn something new, we must forget some older, outdated information, also known as Unlearning

What is unlearning?

Unlearning is a 3 step process: realizing, deciding, and erasing. To unlearn, we must realize that what we learned earlier is now incorrect and decide to erase those thoughts, misconceptions, or habits from our minds forever. 

We unlearn something to adopt different and better ways of doing the same thing.  Just like a baby, A classic example of unlearning and relearning is how a baby learns to walk. At first, a baby crawls on all four limbs but later, when trying to walk, the baby unlearns to crawl and learns to walk again, on foot. 

Unlearning is one of the best ways we can learn how to grow. Unlearning provides us with space for relearning. We know, that humans have this urge to keep learning and growing. When we stop learning, we start experiencing a feeling of stagnation so we let go of the old things we have already learned and understand them from a fresh perspective.

Very often, we hold an image in our heads. This image depicts only one angle of a particular problem, this is the angle you want to see and believe. As a result, you don't pay attention to or even realize that there might be more to the problem. But once we let go of the images in our heads and unlearn, we are led through a door full of images, different angles of the same problem and our curious minds start to wander and we learn new things, we grow.

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler