How to Train your Brain to Learn Anything Faster?

 

The legendary Dhan chand is widely regarded as the best field hockey player in the world ever. today we will take inspiration from his story, discover the secret of his mastery and see what learning there is in it to achieve our highest proficiency. As a village boy, Dhyan Chand was interested in wrestling and was in bantamweight, but when he joined the Indian army, he was introduced to field Hockey, and he began practising it beyond everybody else. He would put the ball on the railway track and run with it for miles without permitting it to fall. The daytime practise was not enough for him. He would win the night again go out to practice since it would be dark; he would wait for the moon to come out his original name funo was not Dhyan Chand but Dhyan Singh; however, since he practised so often under the moon, his colleagues gave him the name Dhyan Chand in 1924 when field hockey was reintroduced into the Olympics India decided to send its best teams for the Olympics in Amsterdam Netherlands there in the finals India and Netherlands played and India beat Netherlands 4-1 to win a gold medal they could not believe the mastery that Dyhan chand displayed with his stick. So the people of the Netherlands broke his stick to see if he had a magnet in it. Dhyan Chand practised even more on his return to India and enhanced his proficiency to the next level for the next Olympics in Los Angeles. Dhyan Chand arrived with the Indian team in the USA. The finals took place between India and the united states. This time, India beat the united states 24 1, of which Indians scored eight goals, and this was the biggest defeat ever in any international hockey match Dhyan Chand was also the highest scorer of the tournament. The next Olympics were in 1936. Dhyanchand was now an even better hockey player and the captain of the Indian team when they reached berlin before the tournament India played a friendly match against Germany and they lost this demoralized them besides some of their best players were sick or injured however the expectations from India were high by now Dhyan Chand was known as the wizard of Hockey or the magician ( jaadugar) of Indian Hockey and posters had been put up in berlin come and watch the Indian magician a India and Germany both reached the finals to watch it the stadium was full with 40 000 Germans sitting eagerly Hitler too came and was hopeful that Germany would win the gold medal the Indian players watching the hostile environment were nervous at half time both the teams were equal with one goal each in the second half India raced ahead to beat Germany 8-1 after the match Hitler spoke to Dhyan Chand looking at his worn out meager canvas shoes he asked him what do you do Dhyan Chan said I am in the Indian army what is your rank I'm a lance snike Hitler said come over to Germany I'll make you a lieutenant colonel in the German army Dhyan Chand gave a bold response to the leader of the nazi world he said India is not for sale subsequently Dhyan Chand with three Olympic gold medals under his belt continued to play and in international hockey he scored 440 plus goals in his life when he met sir Donald Bradman widely reputed to be the best batsman ever batman had this to say of him he scores goals the way I score runs in cricket so what was the secret of Dhyan chand's mastery it was the immense practice that he had put into it. 

The scientist who did the most groundbreaking study into the science of neural learning was Donald hebb his theory is today famous as hebbian learning he discovered and postulated whenever we do any work one neuron fires the next which fires the next to accomplish mental and physical work Donald hebb theorized that when the axon of one neuron fires a second neuron repeatedly day after day slowly organic changes take place in both the neurons which make it easier for the first axon to fire the second neuron that is why for example the first time when you learn typing you think i need to type a and then you have to lift the proper finger and put it on the proper key but when you do it again and again and again that proficiency goes on increasing because of the neural learning in accordance with the hebian learning theory as the saying goes neurons that fire together wire together but if we drop the practice slowly those organic changes that have taken place in the neural pathways they start returning to their original state and that is why our scriptures say look if you eat when you are not hungry it will cause disease.

If you do not continue to practice your skill it will start evaporating but the good news is that even if that skill may have been forgotten the next time we practice it learning takes place faster because the organic changes in the neurons happen much faster i have discussed this point in my latest book seven divine laws to awaken your best self let's take a look at it behavioral change goes through three stages the first conscious incompetence in this stage we struggle to learn a new skill acquire a beneficial mindset or develop a good habit the second stage conscious competence we can now fulfill the task competently but only by focusing our complete attention on it the third unconscious competence in this final stage we discover we can perform the task adeptly even without paying full attention this is the power of practice hence the message here for us is that practice is always the key to mastery when arjun said to lord Krishna the mind is obdurate restless and uncontrollable lord Krishna gave this message arjun you are undoubtedly right but what you will need to do is practice practice and more practice there is no shortcut to it this practice not only achieves perfection through neural learning there is another factor that comes into play called mental representations what are these we shall discuss in the next episode of this 21 days series purpose of life which is helping us discover the meaning for which we were born and the means for accomplishing and fulfilling it for ourselves you.