stop creating, start breaking

Naturally, we are all lifelong learners. It doesn’t matter whether you are learning a language, a skill or you just enjoy the process of learning, whatever is the case I have a tip for you. Well, before I go into it, let’s start with a motto that is very popular within the community of makers, doers, or all those so-called problem solvers. Don’t get me wrong on this, but nowadays I feel like people are either CEOs or fall into one of those categories. At some point in your life, you must have heard something that went along these lines: “Stop learning, and start creating.”

So let me explain it. Essentially, there is nothing wrong with this motto, but what many people don’t realize that there is a hook to it. It assumes a considerable amount of knowledge, obviously, you can’t create if you don’t know anything. However, there are only as many things you can create as your mind and imagination allow. Sooner or later, you will get stuck- run out of ideas to create. Feel tasteless and run into infinite loops of underappreciation, or even become bored. And let’s face it, boredom is surely a killer of learning.

I pondered upon it for a while and asked myself what would happen if we gave it a little twist:

Stop creating and start breaking

Funnily enough, this can also be a learning path. You don’t have to be an avid and passionate learner to break things. It is always easier to break and destroy than to create, right? I remember that I always learn a ton when I simply take things apart. By taking things apart, I not only get inspired and learn how others do things but I also learn to understand. You don’t learn by just creating, you have to understand how things work first. How can you assure that you understand? One way of doing it is to apply knowledge to real-life practice- to create. However, most of the time we can’t truly judge whether our work is good or bad, due to our strong sense of accomplishment. What we often don’t realize, learning from others isn’t a competitive comparison.

Learning from others is a building block for your prosperity. Each of us is a unique individual, and by destructuring the work of others, you can find all those hidden gems that make us different and tailor it to your needs. Coming from a dancing background, we call this concept of ‘flipping’. When you are flipping, you take an idea and make it yours by adding a new flavor or taste to it so it becomes something new.

Please note that copying and flipping aren’t the same things. You shouldn’t make exact replicas of the originator but elaborate on it.

So to take this into practice, I have listed out some practical examples:

• For developers, I suggest to destructure a Bootstrap component, play with a website you like or just read other people’s code
• If you are learning a language, try to dismantle an essay from of a great writer. For instance, I highly recommend Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway or check out the Electric Typewriter
• Are you an engineer? Try to break an old electronic device into parts ()
• For Math lovers, obviously you won’t able to ‘break’ Math problems. What you can do is to do things the other way around. Already good at solving problems? Try to come up with some ☺️

You may or may not like this approach, but to make things clear I’m not rediscovering learning, I’m just looking at it from a new perspective. If you happen to have a system that works, then I’m happy for you- keep it up!