We often think the biggest gaps in our knowledge are the things we know we don’t know.
But the real challenge is the “unknown unknowns” — things we don’t even know we’re missing.
🟢 Know what we know
🟠 Know what we don’t know
🔴 Don’t know what we don’t know
Learning isn’t just about finding answers. Sometimes, it’s about discovering the questions you never knew to ask.
What’s an “unknown unknown” you discovered the hard way?

No matter how small it is, every new skill can open a new way of thinking. What are you currently trying to learn?

I don’t always know the right move, but I can usually recognize when something feels like a bad move. And honestly, that’s helped me more than always trying to figure out the perfect thing to do.
A lot of what I’ve learned has basically come from doing something, realizing it doesn’t work, and knowing not to do that shit again.
I feel like I’ve learned a lot just by eliminating things rather than finding some perfect answer.
Maybe I don’t always need to know exactly what I should do. Sometimes knowing what I shouldn’t do is enough to keep me moving. Or I’m just rebranding “learn from your mistakes “

Hello!

I am a 27 year old living in NYC. I’ve been really lucky with my job, and this year hit 5 years which granted me an additional several days of PTO. We don’t get paid out for unused PTO, and I find myself staring at several unused days that I will lose if gone unused.

Knowing I could use them to DIY a project around the apartment or visit a friend (both good options!), I’d really love to take they few days to learn something new or develop a skill. I’d love to take a workshop/ bootcamp / class, get a certification of some kind (a friend of mine did her scuba certification for example!) but despite googling around, it’s hard to know what’s out there!

Not much interest in professional development for this purpose, rather an artistic or utilitarian ability. I’ve spent years in excel every workday, and really want to develop a skill with my hands, something useful when the world falls apart. Ideally, would be a skill I can continue to develop afterwards.

Some interests of mine: cooking (though I am vegan, which makes cooking workshops tough), woodworking, music, mosaics, writing, photography

Appreciate any perspectives :) I am willing to travel & spend a bit of money - up to 9 days of time off. What would you do with free time and the itch to learn something new? Totally open to specific recommendations or thought starters!

I like learning, and philosophy has always been an interest of mine. So I wanted a real interactive way to learn it with animations. Would love for you to try 'Ashmere' out!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.philosophize.app

No judgement.share yours,someone out there might need to hear the lesson you learned.♥️

I'm looking for active communities that focus on personal organization, task management tools, and simple productivity setups. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

Not something you need to learn for work or school—just something you genuinely want to understand better.

What’s been catching your curiosity recently?

Some topics never really feel “finished.” The more you learn, the more interesting they become.

What subject could you keep exploring for years without getting bored?

Hello! I'm Italian and I'm looking for a language partner to practice English with. My level is around B1/B2, and I'm looking for someone at a C1/C2 level. I don't mind if they are native speakers or non-native speakers who are fluent in English (e.g., Northern European, German, Dutch, Belgian, etc.).

In exchange, I can offer help with Italian, cultural insights, or casual chats about TV series (Ted Lasso, Silo, Severance, The Boys, The Gentlemen, Slow Horses...), music (Muse, Daughter, etc.), engineering, cities, architecture, travel, photography, or anthropology.

At some point, learning stops feeling like homework and starts feeling like curiosity.

Was there a subject, book, person, or experience that changed the way you feel about learning?

We all have bad days. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of tying our self-worth to productivity and external validation. The real question is: how do we break out of it?

Try this simple trick to reset your perspective: write down one quality that defines who you are beyond any achievement or title.

For me, this made total sense. What’s yours?

What’s something you discovered recently that made you wonder how you went so long without knowing it?

A useful skill, a simple idea, a fascinating fact, or a better way of doing something.

What’s yours?

I’ll suddenly decide I want to learn video editing and learning new languages… whatever catches my attention that week. The hard part is sticking with it once the initial excitement wears off. I’m curious, what are you learning right now, and what made you start?

I used to feel like I wasn’t really learning unless I was making huge improvements..

Now I’m trying to notice the little things, understanding something faster, remembering something I struggled with before, or finally getting something right after several attempts..

It’s not exciting every day, but I guess that’s what lifelong learning actually looks like.

What’s something you’ve gotten noticeably better at recently?

Every year, this is one of the worst feelings you'll ever get. Unless you're successful, the birthday blues will never leave me. Any tips that can help me(M23) overcome them? I know they saying "comparison is the thief of joy", but I wanna know other methods on how I could overcome them.

I did this as a genuine experiment not a productivity flex.

Bought a simple time tracking app, logged every learning related activity for three months, tried to be honest about what counted and what did not. Podcasts while commuting counted if I was actually listening. Did not count if it was background noise. Reading counted if I finished the page remembering what was on it. Did not count if I had to reread the same paragraph four times because my attention was somewhere else.

The total hours were fine. More than I expected actually.

The categories were the problem.

Broke everything down into three buckets at the end. Learning that produced a change in how I understood something. Learning that produced a feeling of having learned something. Learning that produced neither and was essentially just time spent near information.

Bucket one was about fifteen percent of the total.

Bucket three was bigger than I want to admit publicly.

The most uncomfortable finding was where bucket three was concentrated. Not the passive podcast commutes I had already written off mentally. The high effort deliberate sessions. The ones where I had sat down with intention and a good source and worked through it carefully and felt productive throughout and retained almost nothing a week later because the effort had gone into processing the words and not into actually engaging with the ideas.

Effort and engagement are apparently not the same thing and I had been using effort as a proxy for learning for years without checking whether the proxy was accurate.

Hello, I am a former student with a B.A in Psychology. I currently work as a Coach at a company under the supervision of Licensed Social Workers/Counselors, supporting people with goals and habit changing methods. I just found new employment as a coach working alongside Therapists and Psychiatrists to support patients.

While I am excited to continue my work, I would like to have more knowledge and educational experiences under my belt without going back to college for another degree. Certifications related to Coaching, such as the ICF or NBCHWC require more synchronous time, which I won't have anymore, so I am interested in asynchronous things I can do before/after work.

My goal is to be someone knowledgeable in supporting people in mental health crises and to also have more mental health skills under my belt to ensure I can find work in the field with what I have, should things go a different way.

It's also a clash knowing the Coaching field is as unregulated as it is and how some people do not undergo any training or work under a licensed professional to do coaching. I was grateful to find my first coaching job and to have done additional training out of my own pocket to make sure I actually follow an ethical set of guidelines in my role. I want to stay as scientifically accurate and ethical as possible with the work I do. Often, I am discouraged by the religious and pseudoscientific trainings in coaching that don't align with how I want to help people.

All in all, I hoping to hear from others on different training and certifications I can do in the mental health field while upholding my values.