Newsletter 032: Joy, Constraints, and Priorities — A Guide for Making Decisions about Future Learning


The Learning Engine

5 July 2025

Newsletter 032: Joy, Constraints, and Priorities — A Guide for Making Decisions about Future Learning

Greetings and salutations!

I need to make confession: “Hello. My name is Nathan; I am a voracious learner.”

I have over 300 interesting articles — on topics ranging from education and athletics to theology and parenting — in open tabs on my browser.

In a different browser window, I have over 30 interesting videos in open tabs.

A conservative estimate for the total time to read the articles and watch the videos is 50 HOURS, which is a significant chunk of time!

Like you, I want to learn as much knowledge and skills as I can — for personal and professional requirements, plus I love interesting ideas! However, I have personal and professional responsibilities that come first, reducing the amount of time that I have to wander random paths of learning.

With these conditions, how can we figure out what to learn next?

This newsletter touches on three powerful ways to choose: Enjoyment, constraints, and priorities. By using these ways individually and together, we can connect our learning and make progress in our learning journeys!


Ideas

The path to meaningful learning opens when we understand how to make thoughtful choices about where to focus our time and energy, so let’s discuss enjoyment, constraints, and priorities.

Enjoyment

A powerful way to choose an area for learning is through joy.

We have all experienced activities that drain our energy, getting us into a state of grinding through the activities. Though the activities may not be that challenging, we do not connect with the ideas in or the point of the activities.

In contrast, we have all also experienced activities that invigorate us — helping us have a state of learning that allows us to truly feel the word “enjoyment” as joy-into. Time doing the activities seems to go quickly, plus we are excited for the next time we do the activities!

Although we can get short-term learning through either type of activities, long-term learning comes much more easily through joyful activities. We are drawn into the activities, fully immersing ourselves in the activities and finding flow.

Choosing an area with joy creates excellent conditions for strong long-term learning, giving us wisdom through our learning!

Constraints

Another powerful way to choose an area for learning is through constraints.

We typically hear the word constraints as a negative, bringing to mind all the activities we cannot do. As we gain more responsibilities personally and professionally the demands on our time and energy increase, which limits our options for activities.

However, acknowledging our limits can shift our perspective on constraints: From a negative viewpoint on what is lost to a positive viewpoint on what to embrace. Personal and professional responsibilities are gifts, giving us the opportunity to steward the gifts well.

Embracing the constraints and choosing to steward our gifts well gives purpose to the activities, creating a sharp focus during the activities. We know the constraints put pressure on our time and energy, so we give our best effort during the activities.

Combining our best effort for the activities and a deep understanding for how to learn creates strong conditions for learning, helping us turn constraints into strengths!

Priorities

A third powerful way to choose an area for learning comes from our priorities.

Priorities are usually considered in a positive light, but juggling too many competing priorities from your personal and professional life can become overwhelming. We yearn for those (seemingly) simpler days where someone told us what to do in an activity, then we did the activity.

To reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed, we can use the many priorities in our personal and professional life to clarify our next activity. We can connect the activities to deeper meanings in our lives, using this connection to clarify our next activity.

We can also use the pressure from our priorities — combined with our constraints — to learn in new areas, which can lead to surprisingly good shifts in learning that we may not have considered. We can make new connections by applying our knowledge and skills from previous learning to new learning, leading to interesting experiences in the new learning.

Using priorities to guide our choices in learning can lead to new and interesting experiences, helping us gain knowledge and skills in many different areas!


I’ve created a Model for Learning, which explains and predicts parts of the learning process. Work yourself through the model, remembering specifics for each part and the connections in the model. For a much deeper explanation on the process of learning, check out this essay: That’s How Learning Works?!?! A Comprehensive Model for Understanding the Learning Process.


Stories

Here are a couple of stories about choosing my next activities for learning.

Story 1: I’ve always had many different interests, from the humanities to the sciences and many types of athletics. Because I built a strong foundation of knowledge and skills before high school, learning school subjects came relatively easily in high school. I did not have to understand a structured approach to learning in high school, which made learning in college very challenging! In college I chose to major in physics, do physics research, play varsity soccer, and be actively engaged with the Baptist Collegiate Ministries — plus have time with friends. The theoretical physics courses after the first year were very challenging, so I needed to create a structured approach to learning; unfortunately, I did not know how to create this structure approach, nor did I take enough time to brute-force my learning in the physics courses. Although I was frustrated with my results in the theoretical physics courses at the time, my journey with physics was been wonderful: I performed some great research with two professors, plus have made a career out of teaching high school physics! Time passing has given me perspective on the twists and turns in my learning journey, helping me be grateful for all the learning throughout my life.

Story 2: The biggest reason I wrote about constraints and priorities comes from being a father. I have a wonderful wife and two beautiful daughters; we have so much fun together! I want to have time with my wife and daughters, sharing ideas and making memories together. However, these relationships take time and energy, which has made me shift approaches to my learning journey. I have become much more interested in human development and learning, from birth and the early years to becoming a full adult. I also have to be much more focused on what I learn, using my limited time and energy to make progress in my learning journey. I am grateful for my wife and daughters — and am looking forward to continuing to learn with them!


Questions

  1. What are ways you choose the next activity in your learning journey?
  2. How much do you resonate with enjoyment as a way to choose?
  3. How much do you resonate with constraints as a way to choose?
  4. How much do you resonate with priorities as a way to choose?
  5. When have you felt overwhelmed on your learning journey?
  6. When have you felt confident in your learning journey?
  7. What was different about the situations for the previous two questions?

Learning happens when we share what we are thinking, so I would love to hear your answers! Also, you can use these questions as conversations starters with friends and family — hearing their answers and having a conversation would be great!


If this newsletter resonated with you, please share on the socials and with someone who you think would also benefit; I would greatly appreciate any help in spreading these ideas!

Thanks for reading this newsletter — and all the best!

Nathan


Have comments or questions about any part of this newsletter? Please reply and let me know — I respond to every email!

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We teach you the principles of learning, helping you understand and apply the principles of learning in your leading, coaching, and teaching. By using the principles of learning, your leading, coaching, and teaching will be more effective!

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