Bad Habits And How To Spot Them?

While we all have strived to learn more effectively, in today’s rapidly changing world unlearning is an essential skill. Unlearning involves not adhering to the habits, knowledge and assumptions that do not serve a purpose to you anymore. This leaves room for acquiring new and relevant concepts and making yourself more adaptable. It does not simply mean erasing everything you know so far, it involves a complex process of understanding and examining what you know and eliminating what is no longer relevant. Hence, it encourages you to be on a continuous journey of seeking new knowledge and embracing new perspectives.

Unlearning is vital for professional and personal growth. It enables individuals and organizations to adapt to new technologies, market demands, new ways of thinking and societal shifts.

What are some kinds of unlearning that you can seek to do in your daily life: 

1. Unlearning Toxic Cultures: 

Whether it is work culture or deeply ingrained cultural norms such as gender roles, these are ways of thinking that are no longer encouraged and hinder the society’s progress. What might have been relevant a few years back, has evolved and has a new understanding in today’s society. Hence, tackling to unlearn our deep-seated biases towards different gender roles, cultural backgrounds and races can provide us a pathway to a more harmonious society.

2. Unlearning In Education:

While subject content keeps developing over time, there is also a difference in the way students learn whether it is through new technologies or adopting new mental models. Whether you are a teacher, parent or anyone trying to teach others something, you have to keep yourself up to date with these different ways of thinking and teaching. 

3. Breaking Habits:

We all have coping and defense mechanisms and other automated responses which can be relearned. Habits or behaviors can also be picked up by family members through generations; unlearning and breaking that pattern is also a great way to choose for yourself and to work towards creating a better life.

Hence, overall it requires a lot of self determination, awareness and willingness to unlearn but not only is it beneficial but it is also becoming essential these days.

Written by: Shalini

02/2024

References

Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University. (n.d.). Unlearning. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/vol14no2_unlearning.htm 

Legg, T. J. (2022, March 17). How to break a habit. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-break-a-habit 

Maryville University. (n.d.). Learning, unlearning and relearning. Maryville Online. https://online.maryville.edu/blog/learning-unlearning-relearning/

Peterson, H. (2018, July 19). The inside story of Papa John's toxic culture. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2018/07/19/the-inside-story-of-papa-johns-toxic-culture/?sh=6b94f3923019