3 ways to get rid of old knowledge

Speaking of learning throughout life, we tend to think only about the knowledge and skills obtained in the future. The fact that you need to do is to get rid of outdated information from unwanted habits and attitudes, we somehow overlooked. And although we sometimes can not remember where we left the keys, the process of forgetting old skills and knowledge is quite difficult.

When the old knowledge hinder the brain's ability to perceive new information, training is slower and heavier. Psychologists call this proactive interference.

We are faced with this, if, for example, we need to go to manual control after the automatic car. Or when we start to learn French for work at the school learned English. As a result, we get some "frangliysky".

In this case, we need, as the scientists say, David Lea and John Slocum (David Lei, John Slocum)David Lei, John Slocum.The Tipping Points of Business Strategy: The Rise and Decline of Competitiveness. Consciously reject outdated, became superfluous information. Gradually, it will be erased from memory and replaced by a new one. However, this is not always so simple.

The more revolutionary new technologies become, the more difficult we forget the existing approaches to product development and old business models.

David Lea and John Slocum

The same works in the field of career. Stubbornly adhering to outdated views, and you will not notice as will become superfluous in its field. To get rid of unnecessary information, you have to consciously put into question all that was true before.

This will help you three pieces of advice.

1. Make your wrongness

Describing how he coped with doubts arising during the experiments, the famous physicist Richard Feynman He said: "We want as soon as possible to make sure that we are wrong, because the only way we can come to some result. "

This statement applies not only in physics, but also for all professions. However, if we just think about yourself, "Maybe I'm wrong" - it will not work. Our brain naturally tries to find confirmation of already existing ideas, no matter how biased they were. To test their beliefs for strength, better try not to fence themselves off from information that could refute them.

Of course, to change his mind when faced with the outputting of the balance of information is not easy. Unpleasant to discover that what he believed, does not hold water. That's why the ability to forgetting old information is so important.

2. Double the number of sources of information

One of the offices of collective prosperity of the reasons is that in such an environment point of view and the views of employees from different spheres are mixed and affect one another. This helps to solidify our thinking is not - and it is this, according to Andrew Butler (Andrew Butler), Associate Professor Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, and is necessary for forgetting outdated information.

False information and erroneous thought patterns come to us from a variety of sources, including from the movies and books. Instead of relying on the fact that as you think you know very well, try to extend as between themselves the number of sources of information.

Andrew Butler

Many believe that the sources from which they get their information and new ideas, completely authentic. But the longer we are in any position, the further advancing in our career, the more important we broaden our approach to information retrieval.

3. Use fear to benefit

Adeo Ress (Adeo Ressi), head of the organization Founder InstituteIt helps people change the scope of activities and to become entrepreneurs.

"In fact, to reconfigure the people get rid of the existing installations and to learn to think like an entrepreneur, it takes about three and a half months", - says Ress.

To motivate the students, he uses a variety of exercises, including exercises aimed at evoking fear. For example, start-up businesses need to create a website to attract 2000 people and sell 50 products for a limited period of time. Many are first scare.

"However, most people who are in the beginning it seemed that it is impossible to achieve excellent results when they are able to forget about the alleged limitations of its capacity," - says Ress.

So, instead of just to get rid of extra skills and replace them with new, try to put into question not only their knowledge, but also attitudes about themselves and their capabilities.