Day 10 - Visual Analogies

If you look at the image just above, what do you think about? What do you come up with if you go beyond the obvious fact that it’s a turtle?

Have you ever noticed that you assimilated concepts easier when someones makes comparisons to things you already know?

I frequently provide analogies to help illustrate a concept. This is not by accident. They provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. A good analogy clearly shows those connections. I use something you know and can visualize to illustrate a concept you may have never heard about.

Someone who masters the art of creating analogies is a great teacher. And when you know that you retain ninety percent of what you teach, you realize there’s a lot of value for yourself to learn to craft the right analogy. They are some of the best ways to teach yourself.

The best ones are timely and targeted. This is hard to do in writing unless you’re certain of exactly who your audience is. If you write about sports, making sports analogies makes a lot of sense. If you use an analogy about baking or about butterflies, you may puzzle your audience more than anything.

How to craft the perfect analogy

When you come across new concepts in something you’re learning, try to break it down into components you understand and can associate with something else. Define the properties. A good way to find what properties to look for is to simply Google: “properties to describe x”.

Once you know the properties, compare them with an object or concept you know identifies with that property.

If you’re learning to cook something and the recipe tells you to slow-cook a part of the dish, you can picture a turtle racing to the finish line. Cook it as slow as a turtle racing a rabbit. Slow and steady wins the race! The property here is “speed”. If the recipe mentions fast cooking, you could picture a leopard or a falcon, or a Ferrari, or a bullet train. Again, the important thing is to find an analogy that you can relate to.

For me, I might not associate a Ferrari with speed but with the colour red. Or with being rich.

Remember, an analogy is only effective if you can make the right association.

When it comes to self-education, it’s a lot easier because your audience is yourself. You can visualize the thing you’re comparing to more vividly. And never be afraid to reuse concepts for other concepts. For you, if “slow” equals “turtle”, always use “turtle” when comparing to something that is slow.

How to make it visual

A lot of this can be done in your mind, and it should. But you can also write it down to re-read it. The most effective method, however, is the find the exact image that fits what you’re looking for.

I’m a big fan of this analogy, by Lao Tzu:

It signifies that any ambitious endeavour has to be done in a series of steady, smaller goals. This applies to many areas of life, but I remind myself of this one in everything I try to learn.

I like it because I can easily picture the footsteps in the sand. I can picture a straight line of steady steps that never seem to end.

So, when trying to assimilate a new concept, find an image you can associate the new concept to. Imprint that image in your head (see what I did there?), but also make it “in your face” (see what I did here again?). That could mean adding it as a wallpaper on your computer, or even printing the image and taping it on a wall you’ll frequently see throughout the day.

How to get better at it

It comes down to this:

Creating a bank of images that are intuitive for you
Using them more regularly in your every day life (make it a habit)
Get more exposure to them

You can Google: “Best analogy for x". You don’t need to memorize them, simply look them up once in a while. After a while of training your brain, you’ll start making them naturally.