The two factors impairing our learning
Learning is impaired by overthinking in anticipation, and moving on too quickly
We spend so much time in anticipation, trying to predict what will happen and identify the perfect course of action beforehand.
What we do every day is not real thinking. It is compulsive babbling. Most decisions in life aren't life-changing ones. Thinking hard about trivial stuff is the best way to never get anything done, because Overthinking kills momentum. But once we're done, regardless if we succeeded or fail, we brush off any thinking after the fact.
Success is not as good a teacher as failure, but it's too easy to shirk at failure in order to protect our ego. Instead of embracing the experience to learn from it (embrace reality, Pros fail like amateurs, but with one difference), we dismiss it hastily to forget about it. This make us oblivious to mistakes and prone to repeat then, never making progress.
What's the sensible course of action then? Doing the opposite. Moving fast, not spending ages trying to predict what cannot be predicted, and then taking the time to reflect after the fact. We must strive to be quick in anticipation, and slow in reflection. Act fast, then take the time to reflect.
Whether it is after an experiment, a discussion, reading a book, or listening to a speech, it is your duty to take time to think, ponder, and reason about what happened. True understanding, growth and progress will only come after an effortful stimulation of the brain, via the deliberate use of thinking and reasoning.
It's not always easy. In fact, it often feels hard, even when it's not really. It just that our brain is naturally lazy in order to save energy.
There is much more value to pausing, and taking the time to reflect after an experience. By making a deliberate effort to process and reflect over what you just lived or learned, you will retain much more and therefore learn and improve better and faster than by hammering yourself with knowledge without proper reflection on the processed material.
Spend time in reflection every day.
Reference
The Power of Concentration - Introduction