Celine Mullins - Developing Learning Habits: Seven Practical Steps to Successful change

DEVELOPING LEARNING HABITS

Seven Steps to Successful Change

Book 2 of the MAXIMISING BRAIN POTENTIAL series

Dr. Celine Mullins

With Guest Author Dr. Richard Roche

Published by Oak Tree Press, Cork, Ireland

www.oaktreepress.com / www.SuccessStore.com

ISBN: 978-1-78119-459-1 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-78119-343-3 (ePub)

ISBN: 978-1-78119-344-0 (Kindle)

ISBN: 978-1-78119-345-7 (PDF)

2021 Celine Mullins.

Cover by Ian Johnston

Brain Images by Phillip Cullen

All rights reserved. This book may not be reprinted or distributed in electronic, print, web or other format without express written permission.

FOREWORD

Some books are beautifully timed, others miss their moment by being too late to market or too far ahead. This book is the right book at the right moment. The idea of successful behaviour change is the sine qua non of learning and development. We have always known that; however, it has taken a global pandemic to create a sense of urgency about making learning and development more efficient and more effective. If that is your task, take this book with you on the journey.

Using a mixture of psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science research with learning and development insights, Celine Mullins (joined by Cognitive Neuroscientist Richard Roche), has created a simple, straight forward and eminently useful volume. It outlines seven fundamental steps to better learning and permanent habit change. These range from building clarity to understanding memory and making things memorable. But what I liked most was the section on feeling awareness (HOW). What Celine clearly demonstrates is that successful behaviour change requires both psychological safety and a sense of meaningful engagement with the learning in question. Every person working in learning and development should, at the least, read this section to understand a fundamental part of how learning works in our brain.

This book is about 100 pages long, yet it is packed full of practical, insightful and evidence-based steps to create better learning that will change peoples learning behaviour forever. There is nothing more important, right now, than trying to understand the learners you want to influence and the most efficient and effective ways of doing this.

This is a sharp, well-researched practical book that will resonate with everybody. I learned a lot reading it, and I am sure that you will too. If I have to pick just one sentence from the book that sums up why I think it is so useful it is this: Engaging as much of the brain and body as we possibly can, will assist long-term change. That is an excellent mantra and something we should probably write on a piece of paper and tape it above our desk because science now shows us that learning and habit change is a full body experience. I highly recommend this book.

Nigel Paine, Change-Focused Leader: Leadership, Innovation, Learning & Technology

Leadership & Learning Consultant (nigelpaine.com) and Academic Director of Penn CLO Doctoral Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Professorship from Napier University in Edinburgh, Fellow of the CIPD, LPI, the RSA and a Masie Learning Fellow in the USA. Author of eight books, including The Learning Challenge: Dealing with Technology, Innovation and Change in Learning and Development; Building Leadership Development Programmes: Zero-Cost to High-Investment Programmes that Work; Workplace Learning: How to Build a Culture of Continuous Employee Development (all published by Kogan Page). Presenter of a monthly TV programme (Learning Now TV), and co-host of a weekly podcast (with Martin Couzins) called From Scratch.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

Are you making the most of your learning potential?

During my time working as a facilitator of learning and growth, I have had the opportunity to observe how we behave as individuals, teams and organisations. Cognitive science, psychology and neuroscience have taught us a lot about the how and why of our behaviour as humans. Only the smartest organisations and educational institutions have taken what is applicable from these schools of theory and research and have applied it to how we learn and change behaviours. And this is a work in progress for everyone involved.

If like me, and many others I know, you have read books, listened to podcasts, attended workshops and webinars, and thereafter made few changes in your behaviour, then welcome to the club. There are many reasons for not making the planned changes that might surprise you and they are covered in this book. Time and time again, in recent years I see the difference that knowing this information makes to a persons commitment to change and to their own long-term behavioural change.

Depending on your own experience, reading this book will help you to see learning from new or different perspectives. Awareness of the concepts in this book will help you to open up to learning new things and enable you to maintain the elements that make long-term behavioural change possible.

How do I know this works?

With my clients over the years, I have learned by observing what is effective and what is not in creating change. People who have taken on this information have made long-term behavioural change, while those who have not often have not had the same success.

This book is the second in the MAXIMISING BRAIN POTENTIAL series. This series is as much as possible based on the most up-to-date scientific research combined with my experience of working in the area of change as to how our brain and body potential can be maximised for habit change, learning, productivity and health.

Please note, I am neither a neuroscientist, nor a cognitive scientist. I am a psychologist and coach. The focus for me in writing these books is to pull useful information together into digestible chunks. Therefore, at times, I will leave out granular details about the brain and details from research (including many articles and books I have read) that would get in the way of applying the findings in practical ways.

The other books in the series include OUR LEARNING BRAIN: How to Teach Your Brain to Learn New Habits and CHANGE BEGINS HERE: Building The Foundations For Learning & Habit Change . These books introduce additional concepts and also probe deeper into some of the topics discussed in this book.

Similar to the current wave of just-in-time learning, where learning is available on-demand, and can be accessed when the learner needs it, the MAXIMISING BRAIN POTENTIAL series of books is just-what-you-need-to-know-to-make learning-easier in adulthood.

I know this text will be useful for you, whether you want to make a change in your own life, or you are involved in helping others learn and make change.

If you would like more support applying this information in your organisation, we also provide workshops on these topics, and have an online course available. Contact info@adaptastraining.com for information.

Dr. Celine Mullins, Adaptas

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Diana Friedman for once again having so much patience and taking care in reading, editing, re-reading, and editing this book many times over the course of a few years! Having initially thought this book was ready to follow hot on the heels of Book 1: Our Learning Brain