Do These Four Things to Learn Anything Faster

At What Counts, we want to investigate the science of self-improvement—physical, mental and emotional. 

One of our favorite people to learn from is Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist and host of the incredibly popular Huberman Lab podcast, where he translates cutting-edge brain research into practical tools for learning, focus, and well-being. 

In 2021, Huberman recorded a nearly 2-hour podcast titled “How to Learn Skills Faster.”

If you’re interested in taking a scientific approach to learning and developing new skills, this podcast is full of interesting ideas. 

We wanted to use this email to highlight four key takeaways you can start implementing immediately…

1. Learning from your mistakes 

One of the biggest takeaways from the episode is the critical role of errors or mistakes in learning. The more repetitions of an activity you complete in a given time, the faster you improve at that activity—but only if those reps include mistakes. Errors trigger neuroplasticity, signaling to your nervous system that something needs to change. Without them, your brain doesn’t engage in the rewiring necessary to master a skill.

Put differently, mistakes are literally what helps you learn. Your brain tries something, notes whether it worked, and then uses that feedback to adjust and hone in. The more mistakes you make, the more you can hone in. Learning from your mistakes isn’t just a self-help cliche, it’s the only real way to learn. 

This also explains why visualization and mental practice aren’t as useful as real-world reps. A 2004 study found that visualizing strength training led to a 13-35% increase in strength, but actual training produced a 53% gain. Visualization activates the brain’s motor planning regions but lacks the real-world feedback and mistakes that trigger full adaptation.

Huberman also shared a fascinating ‘trick’ that can increase your rate of learning: using a metronome. 

Let’s say you’re a magician practicing sleight of hand. If you set a metronome that is ticking at a faster pace than your normal practice speed, it will push you to execute more repetitions per unit time, which will lead to more mistakes—and, as we’ve seen, more mistakes mean faster learning. This technique has been shown to boost neuroplasticity and is especially useful for speed training in sports, music, or even cognitive tasks. 

2. Understand Open-Loop vs. Closed-Loop Skills

Not all skills are learned the same way. Huberman explains that understanding whether a skill is open-loop or closed-loop can shape how you practice. 

• Open-loop skills are those where you complete an action and only get feedback after it’s done. Think of throwing a dart or taking a tennis serve—you don’t get to adjust mid-motion.

• Closed-loop skills involve continuous feedback, allowing for real-time adjustments. A runner adjusting their stride or a drummer staying on beat can modify their movements as they go.

For open-loop skills, the key is deliberate repetition, ensuring each rep includes small variations so your brain can refine the motion over time. For closed-loop skills, focusing on real-time adjustments and tuning into feedback—whether it's visual, auditory, or proprioceptive (body awareness)—can accelerate progress.

3. Pay Attention, Don’t Worry Where

When learning a new skill, mistakes naturally guide your attention. If you're stepping on your dance partner’s feet, you’ll focus on foot placement. If your tennis serve keeps hitting the net, you might hone in on wrist angle or ball toss height.

But here’s the surprising part: while attention is essential for learning, the exact thing you focus on might not be as important as simply staying mentally engaged.

Huberman references a study on piano learners who were divided into three groups, each receiving different types of auditory feedback while practicing a sequence of key presses:

1. Accurate feedback – Correct musical notes.

2. Neutral feedback – The same unchanging tone for every key press.

3. Unrelated but consistent feedback – Random, incorrect sounds, but each key always produced the same "wrong" sound.

One interpretation of this study is that the brain doesn’t require perfectly accurate feedback to reinforce motor learning—it just needs consistent feedback that keeps it engaged in the task.

This suggests that while attention is critical, there isn’t always a single “correct” thing to focus on when improving a skill. As long as your focus remains anchored somewhere in the process of execution, your brain will continue refining the skill.

For example, in sports, an athlete might improve a golf swing whether they focus on grip pressure, hip rotation, or follow-through—as long as they are engaged in some relevant aspect of the movement. Similarly, a musician refining a tricky passage might benefit from listening to their sound, watching their fingers, or feeling the weight of the instrument, rather than needing to focus on a single element.

4. The Power of Rest

One of the most overlooked aspects of skill acquisition is what happens immediately after practice. Huberman cites research showing that sitting quietly with your eyes closed for 1-10 minutes right after training helps consolidate what you've just learned. During this time, your brain replays the sequence—first backward, then forward later during sleep—solidifying the motor pattern. Jumping straight into another task or distraction can interfere with this process.

In the early days of Facebook (now Meta), Mark Zuckerberg coined an internal motto for his team:

"Move fast and break things".

This motto emphasized rapid innovation and iteration and acknowledged that mistakes were going to be a necessary part of this process. While Meta no longer uses this as its motto, it no doubt was part of the reason it grew so quickly and effectively. 

It’s not a perfect analogy, but we see a lot of similarities between this attitude and the way Huberman broke down the skill acquisition process: Move fast and prioritize reps, embrace errors, direct your attention deliberately, and allow time for rest and consolidation. 

Understanding these principles empowers you to train smarter and progress faster. 

We hope you enjoyed this email. 

Until next week, 

Benji & Jacob.

P.S. We wanted to let you know that What Counts is evolving. We’ve noticed that the stories you like most (and we enjoy making most) are the personal stories we’ve been sending once a month—where we talk about how we’re implementing the science of self-improvement in our own lives. 

Going forward, we want to spend more of our time and emails focusing on these personal stories. We’ll aim to increase the frequency to two per month. 

We’ll finish this month on the usual schedule, but that new schedule will kick in starting next month. 

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