Book – Limitless (Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster, and unlock your exceptional life)
Author – Jim Kwik
Genre – Self-Help
Published in – 2020
“The illiterate of 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” – Alvin Toffler
When was the last time you learn anything new after leaving formal education, or picked up any book and finished it? Jim claims that even though the brain is an organ, it works like a muscle and we constantly have to use it, nourish it to get the best out of it.
Limitless teaches the five key methods to achieve whatever we want: Focus, Study, Memory Enhancement, Speed Reading, and Critical Thinking.
Jim claims how to learn is the most important skill. Human potential is the only infinite resource in the world and most under-tapped at the same time.
About the Book –
Mindset, motivation, and method. Jim claims that if your current reality is not matching your desired reality, one of these three or all three can be responsible and shares great ideas to correct all these three angles.
The book is divided into four parts and 15 chapters – Part I – Free Your Mind, Part II – Limitless Mindset, Part III – Limitless Motivation, Part IV – Limitless Method.
Here is an excerpt from each part.
Part I – Free Your Mind
“If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them”
Jim claims that before we get into how to learn, we must look at what is stopping us. The four villains that have sabotaged our speed of learning, period of retention, and do critical thinking and conclude on our own.
1) The Four Villains –
- Digital Deluge – the unending flood of information in finite time.
- Digital Distraction – The fleeting ping of digital dopamine pleasure replaces our ability to sustain the attention necessary for deep relationship, deep learning, or deep work.
- Digital Dementia – memory is muscle and tend to get tired and so we better make the best use of it and exercise it well to make it function better.
- Digital Deduction – with information on almost everything available at our fingertip, we have gone too far being depended on them as much as letting it conclude things for us or highly influence it.
2) Few More Points –
- More than anything, right questions can lead us to staggering results. Constantly ask yourself questions, as it interrupts the auto-piloted mind.
- Are your questions positive or negative? Why am not smart enough, rich enough are negative, and how can I get better, smarter, richer? are positive questions. Try this and you’ll see the difference in response you receive from your mind.
- Three dominant questions to ask while learning – 1) How can I use this? 2) Why must I use this? 3) When will I use this?
Part II – Limitless Mindset
Mindset (The WHAT): deeply held beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions we create about who we are, how the world works, what we are capable of and deserve, and what is possible.
All behaviors are driven by belief, so before we address how to learn, we must first address the underlying beliefs we hold about what is possible.
1) Reframe Your Limiting Belief –
- Key 1 – Name Your Limiting Belief – What are the areas you have sold yourself short? Where have you have put limits by judging yourself through other’s opinion.
- Key 2 – Get to the Facts – Dig dip why you believe the way you do about everything and specially about yourself.
- Key 3 – Create New Beliefs – As they say we are going to believe something, then we might as well create belief that empower us rather than restricts us.
2) The Learning Lies –
- Intelligence is Fixed – These beliefs are incredibly subtle. Few of us consciously think about our restrictions or the restrictions we believe others have. IQ test is overrated. – New Belief – Intelligence is fluid.
- Mistakes are Failures – Too many of us don’t come close to our capacities because we are too afraid of making a mistake. Instead of looking at mistakes as proof of failure, take them as proof that you are trying. New belief: There is no such thing as failure. Only failure to learn.
- Knowledge is power – Knowledge is only potential power and we must put it in motion to turn into power. New belief: Knowledge × Action = Power.
Part III Limitless Motivation
Motivation (The WHY): the purpose one has for acting. The energy required for someone to behave in a particular way.
Jim claims that motivation is not something you have; it’s something you do. And it’s entirely sustainable.
Motivation Formula = Purpose * Energy * S3 (Small simple steps)
Jim has given a couple of suggestions in the book to set goals that inspire you to push forward.
- Set Smart Goals – S – specific, M – measurable, A – actionable, R – realistic, T – Time-based.
To get your goals out of your head and into your hands, make sure they fit with your emotions—with your HEART:
- Heart Goals – H – Healthy, E – Enduring, A – Alluring, R – Relevant, T – Truth.
Habit Loop – a cue, a Craving, a response, a reward. Ask the following questions build or break habits.
1) How strongly do you want to quit that habit?
2) How strongly that habit is ingrained?
3) What are the consequences of not changing?
Part IV – Limitless Method
Jim discusses the science of accelerated learning and meta-learning in five areas: focus, study, memory, speed reading, and thinking.
1) Focus – Focus is at the center of accomplishing any task. Focus (concentration) is like a muscle, and we can develop it with practice. Consider below the two most critical steps to focus on.
- Refrain from doing multi-tasking at all cost. Numerous studies suggests that nothing affects focus more than multi-tasking.
- Keep your physical surrounding clean. Every piece of unnecessary stuff distracts us from focusing on task at hand.
2) Study – Jim suggests exact methods to amplify learning, and provides exercise to try to feel the change.
- Employ Active Recall – Read in small blocks of time and recall what you read after regular interval.
- Manage the state you’re in – It is important that you are in your optimal state of mind to get the best out of study. Make sure to assign time, when you are fresh and ready to absorb more.
3) Memory – Jim claims that even though the brain is an organ it works like a muscle, hence the more we use it betters it gets and he suggests three ways to boast memory called MOM.
- M – Motivation – If you want to train yourself to have a stronger memory, give yourself a stronger motivation to do so. Reasons reap results.
- O – Observation – Most of the time, when we fail to remember something, the issue isn’t retention but rather attention. Make sure to be attentive in situation Where have you want to remember something.
- M – Methods – Jim shares couple of methods that can help in remembering more with ease.
4) Speed Reading – Two parts of reading efficiency. Reading rate (Speed) and Reading Comprehension (Understanding).
Jim Shares a couple of myths about reading and shares a few ideas to speed up reading without compromising comprehension.
- Myth 1 – Faster reading don’t comprehend well.
- Myth 2 – it’s harder and takes more effort to read fast.
- Myth 3 – faster readers can’t appreciate reading.
Few Reading Tips –
- Subvocalisation – Stop saying every word loud and or in mind. Simply look at words and let the sentence creates images in mind.
- Using Finger – You may pass your fingers from what you are reading. It will help you focus on the lines and capture meaning with ease.
- Expand your Peripheral Vision – Instead of reading individual words, try to read in clusters of words. It will save lots of time and speed up your rate of reading.
I have also created a video of a few quotes from the book – Hope you like it. Please do subscribe to my YouTube channel – Myread4change
Conclusion –
If you are considering reading, enrolling in courses, or learning anything new, and don’t feel confident about your ability to do it, Limitless will help you rewire your belief and empower you with enough tactics and free tools to enhance your learning capabilities. Everything your read, learn after this book will come with greater ease.
You may download Limitless Free E-Book here. If you like this book, you may also like The Code of the Extraordinary Mind.
Hope this summary inspires you to pick up this book and sharpen your saw of learning.
Wish you a great learning capability.
Muzammil