Believe it or not, I once lost my English skills after eight years of living abroad. As much as I loved living in Germany and speaking the language, my mother tongue underwent linguistic deskilling.

After moving back to an English-speaking country, I managed to improve my speed of expression and word selection.

But two things happened.

I stopped speaking German daily and that skill slowed down to a grind.

Plus, I stopped driving. Soon enough, my brain started deprecating that simple skill.

Even my guitar playing gets rusty if I don’t keep at it at least once a week.

More than just creating embarrassing experiences (especially on old episodes of my podcast), undergoing deskilling was a major wake-up call.

One we all need to heed because as artificial intelligence and automation ramp up, many of us are going to lose the skills we’ve needed for survival.

Including the practice we need to think clearly.

The good news is that deskilling doesn’t necessarily mean your brain has forgotten the skills entirely.

Your brain cells are just waiting for you to bring them back into action.

And in this post, I’ll give you some ideas for how to do just that.

Or if you do need to put some of your hard-earned skills on pause, you’ll discover ways to maintain them just enough so that you can hit the ground running when it’s time to relearn them.

Let’s dive in.

Deskilling can refer to a few things, but generally means a loss or suppression of knowledge in a topic area or skill.

In the business world, deskilling happens when new technologies or processes reduce the skills needed to complete a job.

Usually, whatever a new tool or technique that has arrived on the scene allows for core activities to be done more cheaply or easily.

According to Harry Braverman in Labor and Monopoly Capital, these processes degrade professionals in the workforce because it strips away their personal control and engagement with the world.

This dark outcome is certainly possible, and might be part of what scientists call the Reverse Flynn Effect. That’s the term for a generational decline in intelligence scores around the world.

We also have to factor in the distractions of the Internet. Along with causing digital amnesia, many adults have “forgotten” how to socialize. Meanwhile, many young people aren’t learning good social skills at all.

I was completely floored when I realized that you can actually lose command of your mother tongue. I’m still shocked.

It dawned on me while I was still living in Berlin that I was starting to struggle with recalling very simple English words.

That’s because I almost never used English.

And when I did, it was usually over Skype, a context that robbed my brain of many non-verbal cues that the brain needs to bring spoken communication to life.

When I got to Australia after eight years in Germany, I would sometimes listen back to Magnetic Memory Method Podcast episodes recorded during my years in Berlin.

The struggle was obvious, and the more I spoke English in Australia, the more I felt my English skills come back to life.

Working with many language learners over the years, I’ve realized just how easily bilingualism can be lost.

For example, I often help people who specialize in conference interpreting. Sometimes it’s to help them get into the field.

But often, I’m asked to help interpreters regain skills with languages they’ve watched fall apart through disuse.

As strange as it might seem, your brain is built to forget.

In fact, I’ve covered seven causes of forgetting in detail, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The big picture view is that people are right when they say “use it or lose it.”

The scientific explanation is called synaptic pruning.

When you stop practicing a skill, your brain literally assumes it’s no longer important to you. So it stops spending energy maintaining the neural pathways that support the skill.

First those pathways weaken.

Eventually they disconnect entirely.

Or at least, that’s one theory.

The memory scientist Richard Semon thought it highly unlikely that a complete disconnection takes place.

His theory of engrams and how information is chemically encoded in the brain suggested that traces always remain. With the right ecphory or contextual triggering, he thought it was possible to revive lost memories and old skills.

I believe he was on to something, and highly recommend a book about him called Forgotten Ideas, Neglected Pioneers: Richard Semon and the Story of Memory.

But long before I knew anything about him, I found myself losing my native language, just like the people discussed in this New York Times assessment of how easy it is to lose fluency in your mother tongue.

The question was, how was I going to get my linguistic intelligence back? And keep it?

Here are four ways that have worked for me. People who have contributed to my testimonials page report similar success.

Since we know that deskilling happens when neurons disconnect, strategic reconnection is key.

I’ve practiced a basic ritual to keep my German skills basically intact, primarily through reading and listening.

As an avid fan of philosophy, from Nietzsche to the Advaita Vedanta at the core of The Victorious Mind, I read German books and articles that force me to think in the language.

I also listen to podcasts weekly and at least one video interview with a German author, musician or artist.

This ritual is not about drills in German.

It’s about encounters with meaning.

I could definitely do more to meet and speak with people in German.

But I’ve found that if I just keep reading, writing and listening to the language, I can get back into the flow of speaking the language relatively quickly.

This approach works because of the levels of processing effect, or what I often call the Big Five of Language learning.

Except in this case, I’m only maintaining part of the learning cycle elements. As a result, a sufficient number of connections survive in the brain to make the skill easier and faster to revive later.

Most skills involve movement.

So when I wanted to revive my driving skills, I had to get in a car and drive.

It sounds obvious, but how often do we say “someday,” only to wait until our skills are so atrophied, we’ve completely eliminated the possibility of relearning them?

Just as getting behind the wheel and spending lots of hours driving re-skilled my brain, I often have to make myself play my guitars to physically engage with the instruments.

Sure, I can think intellectually about music.

But to maintain your skills, you can’t just study them on paper.

You have to live them.

Bring them into the physical world.

Here’s the fastest way I know to fight back against losing skills you’ve worked hard to develop:

Create a morning habit stack that combines as many of the skills you want to maintain as possible.

For example, I have a memory coaching client who wants to memorize the football rule guide and maintain fluency in a second language.

By memorizing the rules in that additional language, he could be practicing and maintaining three skills at the same time:

This kind of dual-purpose learning builds grit and resilience while fighting against deskilling.

In other words, one of the best ways to deal with deskilling is to never let it happen in the first place.

As I shared in my list of books on learning, one text in particular talks about “predictive processing.” The principle shows that when we use certain metaphors, we set the course for how we’ll perform in the future.

In other words, if you think positively about your ability to maintain or rebuild lost skills, you’ll help yourself make it happen.

Andy Clark talks a lot about predictive processing in his excellent book, The Experience Machine. I also made it the core of my video about how George Clooney used mental metaphors to reduce his chronic pain:

Finally, Barbara Oakley talks about how thinking can either help you or hinder you in Mindshift:

With intelligence, you see the options, but you also see the barriers. This means that the smarter you are, the easier it can be to talk yourself out of things.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer to talk myself into things, provided they’re good things to do. Like maintaining a language, driving safely, and playing a musical instrument well for life .

To help with that, you can apply metaphors. I’ve done this many times, and started doubling down after Nir Eyal shared how he’s helped people choose better metaphors in this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast.

My favorite example of metaphors leading to fantastic skills-based outcomes was reported in this Duke University Study.

In the controlled experiment, participants were told to think of themselves as art thieves when viewing an exhibition. Those who used this memory metaphor were able to retain information longer compared to those who had no mental metaphor at all.

That’s why I always suggest to students in the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass that they choose a positive metaphor for themselves.

After all, people come to memory training courses like mine because their ability to recall has been deskilled.

So by thinking of their memory in combination with an empowering metaphor, they are able to get back on their feet with techniques like the Memory Palace much faster.

My preferred metaphor is to think of my mind as “Magnetic.”

Sure, it’s the name of my brand.

But its meaning is profound.

Magnets stick things in place so they’re easy to find when you need them.

But magnets also repel. And in the case of my training, I show you how to repel distractions so you remain focused on learning new skills.

Many people email me with questions about why their brains seem to “delete” skills they’ve worked so hard to build.

This list of frequently asked questions and answers will help you understand more about why this happens. And how to fight back with memory improvement routines.

This term refers to either the quick or gradual erosion of your cognitive abilities.

When it comes to languages, “linguistic deskilling” describes the loss of ability in either your mother tongue or another language you’ve learned.

Sometimes scientists call what I went through during my years of speaking very little English in Germany “first language attrition.” This scientific article goes deep on the topic.

When it comes to losing your familiarity with a topic, forgetting happens for similar reasons. Your brain literally lets the neuronal connections decay.

What’s important to understand is that cognitive deskilling is not related to temporary memory blocks.

Deskilling refers specifically to deep structural decline in the brain.

The answer depends on:

In case the idea of context dependent memory is new to you, the basic idea is this:

When first learning a topic, you’re in a particular state. Due to how memory cueing works, any time you’re in that state, you’ll recall the skill or information better.

To give you a concrete example, many people ask me why they can use language learning apps and excel. But whenever they try to speak the language in the real world, they fail.

This is because their state dependence on the app environment has not translated or transferred to the real world.

Although what I’ve said sounds like a detour from the original question, it’s actually the direct answer:

The more you can get yourself in the context or state of original learning, the faster you’ll regain the skill. You just have to make sure that you have developed the skill in the first place.

Sometimes, as in the case of people who use language learning apps, it’s not always the case that the skill was sufficiently learned. Please keep that in mind if you find yourself struggling.

Absolutely, and the decay ranges from writing to critical thinking.

By the same token, you can easily use AI tools to give you critical thinking exercises.

When I was first concerned about the rise of AI, I reached out to Andrew Mayne, host of the OpenAI podcast. In this episode of my show, he shares strategies you can use to make sure you’re keeping your skills sharp.

There’s no need for you to lose them. None at all.

Forgetting specifically involves the failure to retrieve information.

It involves partial forgetting, temporary forgetting or permanent forgetting.

Deskilling, on the other hand, involves the degradation of a skill.

Think of forgetting as not being able to find the handle on a door. It’s still there, but you just can’t find it.

When it comes to deskilling, the handle has been removed. No matter how much you search, you won’t find it. You’ll have to insert a new one (or even build a new one from scratch).

As with my maintenance of German, I suggest that you pause only parts of the skill.

For example, I still read, write and listen to German even though I rarely speak it. This partial engagement with the language helps prevent losing it completely.

Let’s take another example that involves remembering movements.

I also haven’t practiced Systema in a gym for years. But I write and think about Systema often. And about once a year I manage to practice it with a sparring partner.

In other words, I cannot recommend a complete pause. I suggest only partial pauses so that your brain maintains a certain level of connection. That way it will be much easier to restore the skill later.

A few ways:

If you need help with developing well-formed Memory Palaces, feel free to register for this free course:

Completing the four video lessons and three included worksheets will help you stop forgetting things quite so often.

You’ll not only start recalling specific details with greater accuracy.

Soon, your mind will solve problems with greater creativity as well.

Including the problem of removing all the barriers that lead to unwanted deskilling.

You’ll be practicing the cognitive architecture you’ve worked so hard to build, strengthening your mind and memory.

And enjoying a life of learning and continual growth, all based around skills that never fade.

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