Teach what you want to learn
The best way to learn anything is to demonstrate and explain it to others, because then you are able to apply it and quickly find out what you do not already know. It may feel daunting to share your knowledge with others if you are not already an expert, but if you have something valuable to share then you both benefit.
Teaching what you want to learn helps you to change your behaviours because you will begin to do what you teach. For example, if you explain the benefits of thinking positively (without preaching!) to a friend, you will be more likely to think positively yourself. While we do not usually think about it consciously, we do many things purely to keep our actions in line with what we say. It is painful to be shown that our own actions do not live up to our standards, and so we try to avoid it at all costs.
[...] like this technique I called Teach what you want to learn. It really is so true that when you teach a topic you will behave in a way that is in-line with [...]
[...] I attended a seminar a couple of years ago where Uncle Bob shared some of the ideas from his book (that JAOO seminar two years ago, and particularly Uncle Bob’s presentation, really got me interested in the professionalism of programming) but reading this tonight was a completely new idea to me. Since I was having trouble getting my head around why a switch statement was so bad I decided to do some further reading and teach what I learned. [...]