How To Apply What You Learn

The art of action

Author

Ross Stevenson
August 12th, 2025

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 TODAY’S THOUGHTS ☠️

Hey there 👋,

If you’ve been in workplace learning long enough, you’ll notice cycles and patterns.

Like the same requests from the same people to solve the same problems.

It’s almost like they never learn from anything you do with them, and this, my friend, is a big problem. The biggest downfall of many a performance initiative is not that the engagement score wasn’t high enough, but that people don’t apply what they’ve learnt.

Without that application, nothing will change.

Today, we’re exploring how to help people develop the art of action and apply what they learn.

Get your tea or beverage of choice ready, 🍵.

We've got lots to discuss!

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 IN THIS DROP 📔

  • Why so many forget to take the ultimate step of action

  • Strategies to apply what you’ve learnt

  • The evolution of AI avatars for learning

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 THE BIG THOUGHT 👀

The Art of Action: How to Apply What You Learn

Nervous Anxiety GIF by Sappy Seals

Over the last nearly 20 years (shit, I’m getting old), I’ve seen good, great and crap L&D experiences.

No matter the category they fall into, I’ve always noticed one ingredient that makes or breaks each.

Does the individual put what they’ve learnt into practice?

If they don’t, it defeats the point of doing the thing in the first place. Not paying enough attention to this is why I see so many L&D teams get driven through the 9 levels of Dante’s inferno with “We already did this every 6 months over the last 3 years. How do they still not get it?”.

I’ve been there and feel that pain.

The reality is that you can’t control what happens after a learning experience.

You can influence it, though!

The master of nothing

You may have heard the saying “paralysis by analysis” and I feel a lot of us experience this.

With so much knowledge at our fingertips, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. In today’s world, I feel we have too much knowledge and not enough action.

We can all be guilty of not taking action on the things we keep saying we’ll do. 

Even though we’ve read hundreds of articles, books and YouTube videos, which would probably equate to a PHD level of understanding in most cases. We fail to take the ultimate step – ACTION.

Some of us spend our lives amassing a wealth of knowledge. In fact, amongst my generation (the millennials), it’s become somewhat of a trend. The “I’ve read 100 books this year” post is often a badge of honour on social media, yet it feels like the opposite of what we want to celebrate.

Would you rather read 100 books and still be in the same position you’re now 12 months later, or read 5 books, apply what you’ve learnt and advance in your life?

Hopefully, this is an easy answer!

More is not always better, as the old saying goes. If it were, then data suggests we should all be living our best lives with the knowledge we’re hoarding in that brain of ours.

You either do or you don’t

We want to learn x and do z, but we often get so absorbed by the gathering of information, we don’t make the time or put a plan in place to take action.

A cycle of content madness, if you will.

It’s an odd behavioural black hole we all fall into.

 I’ve worked to combat this in my learning practice.

Last year, I limited myself to reading 2 books specifically focused on one area I wanted to improve my skills to improve.

I would spend the year digesting the most valuable points for me and applying them in my work. I was inspired by a post-learning note-taking system from Matt D’Avella.

My approach doesn’t involve cards.

I used to open up a doc and convert all the highlighted parts of a book, podcast or experience into a set of notes I’ll categorise for future use. 

Nowadays, I use NotebookLM to do this.

Here I have a library of notebooks that track the most useful and important bits I’ve picked up from my experiences. I hate the term second brain, but it is kinda like that.

A lot of my writing comes through small insights I’ve noted and categorised over the years. The action might not always be immediate in some cases, but it’s still here to help me.

How to apply what you learn

For this section, I wanted to reference some really smart people giving some equally smart advice.

Sadly, there was none!

So, what did I do? I asked AI instead.

Here’s what the almighty digital hivemind recommends in the pursuit of action:

  1. Set specific goals
    Have a clear idea of what you’re trying to apply in your work and why. It’ll help you focus on relevant content and avoid getting sidetracked (hopefully).

  2. Choose wisely
    Don’t try to apply everything in one go – this is madness. Choose a few trusted sources which are relevant to your goals and stick to them.

  3. Take notes
    This feels obvious to say, yet I’m still surprised at how many believe they’ll just remember what happened when they tried x.

  4. Reflect on your progress
    Reflect on how you’re applying what you’ve learned often. Be flexible in how you deploy your insights. There is no one way to do it.

Your ultimate reflection question is this: Are you just consuming lots of knowledge to no end, or are you applying it towards something bigger? 

Maybe drop into your local Large Language Model (LLM) and work on a plan to apply what you’ve learnt.

As the wise Bruce Lee said “Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Willing is not enough. We must do.”

Final thoughts

Ok, folks.

This is an often unspoken element of successful performance support in the workplace, but it is one of the most vital.

If you want to break the cycle, you need to lead the way.

→ If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it wherever you hang out online, tag me in and share your thoughts.

Till next time, you stay classy, learning friend!

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 VIDEO THOUGHTS 💾

How to Create AI Avatars in Descript

It’s taken me a long time to get comfortable with AI avatars.

While I’m not sold 100% on them, I am warming to their application in tools that I use daily.

In this video, I take you behind the scenes of my latest experiment using Descript’s new AI avatar features, blending video editing, scripting, and intelligent automation into a single streamlined workflow.

But this isn’t just a tech demo.

You’ll also get a glimpse of how AI avatars could reshape learning and development, and how today’s tools are stepping stones where humans and AI work side-by-side.

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