What is the trait or skill do you think company bosses want in their employees currently? Is it your experience, degrees, technical skills, or soft skills? Not enough! They need to learn lifelong. Then, the question is “what is the importance of being a lifelong learner and how to learn lifelon?” Have a look! I can guarantee that you become valued and lucrative. But, only if your boss can find any unique soft skill in you. One such skill is your approach and attitude to work with novelty.
If you join an office with the ‘know it all‘ approach, it makes you resistant to explore and experiment. The person having thorough knowledge is right in work. But at times, this knowledge can give rise to prenotions that can be a barrier to take some risks and challenges. So, nowadays, bosses like the ‘learn it all‘ approach from their employees.
Companies are happy to appoint and retain less experienced learners than resource persons. Even two premier companies of the world, Microsoft and Google, also emphasize one’s learnability.
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How to Become a Lifelong Learner – Meaning and Importance of Lifelong Learning
Formal education and degrees, to a certain extent, are something needed in everyone’s life. However, the knowledge that seeps into your system is not the ultimate. The unique quality of knowledge is in that it has no limit. Education-derived knowledge is just like few drops of the vast ocean of knowledge that waits beyond formal education.
One can grasp the many fascinating parts of life only by continuous, lifelong learning. Why is it important to be a lifelong learner? Because, you will improve yourself bit by bit, every day. Once you engage in continuous learning, you will recognize the joy and feeling of accomplishment. Also, you will see continuous growth within yourself. This positivity will propel you to learn more and improve.
Knowledge and skills can be acquired and developed anytime and anywhere. If you have an interest and a curious mind, learning happens automatically all the time. Lifelong learner must has a positive attitude towards learning something new for both personal and professional development. Learning is a deliberate and voluntary act. It is important to be a lifelong learner. They always remain motivated to learn, explore and excel.
Benefits and Importance of Being a Lifelong Learner
Mainly two reasons for which persons must engage in lifelong learning are:
1. Personal development
Learning can be developed into a habit, a pastime to avoid boredom and revitalize oneself. Learning can be more fun. Extensive reading habits ranging from stories journals to professional studies can strengthen the mind, improve memory and self-confidence.
2. Professional development
According to Jin Rohn, “Income seldom exceeds personal development” .
Learning from a professional perspective has become more crucial. Currently, modern careers are like non-stop boilers. They need to keep going, and learning continues to remain relevant and adaptable.
Being an expert in one skill does not guarantee satisfactory long-term employment. Thanks to increased digitalization and an uprising gig economy for which shelf life of skills deplete every year. So by focusing on lifelong learning, one may remain a valuable asset to the company.
5 Very Important Tips To Be a Lifelong Learner
Lifelong skill learning requires embracing the opportunities to learn and make the best use of them. Nurturing your passion and drive for learning is what will help you enrich and grow in life.
Below underlying a few ways by which one can be a lifelong learner.
1. Read to Learn Lifelong
Engaging in daily reading can enrich you to the fullest. Books or any reading material can be your best companion to expand your knowledge fuel your brain.
Due to technological advances, one can peruse through multiple reading sources like journals, e-books, articles, and blogs.
If one does not prefer a visual learning style, podcasts and audiobooks cater to those who love to learn by hearing.
Skilled readers no longer need to read most words letter-by-letter but recognize them directly. This visual route to reading is also vital for reading irregular words, such as yacht. Because, here a phonological approach would not be helpful.
2. Prioritize learning to Learn Lifelong
In the words of Canadian business honcho Don Tapscott “knowledge is exploding, so you need to commit yourself to a plan for lifelong learning. “
You need to execute a to-do list every day. This must include at least half an hour or more as per the convenience of your learning time.
Prioritize your daily schedule. It should cover activities that need your attention and provide time and energy to learn or build a new skill.
You can create a bucket list to learn yearly or quarterly. Such a bucket list helps you stay focused on learning rather than wasting time.
3. Smart networking
Building up a network of go-to experts and engaging in relevant discussions can be the right way.
What is the importance of being a lifelong learner?
Being with wise and expert people drives you to learn more. It fuels your curious mind and develops your creativity.
The key to smart networking is creating worth for others. It’s about helping them to succeed in their work or life.
Networking can help you gain influence, widen your expertise and achieve your goal if done correctly.
It is being said that smart networking is one of the most dominant accelerators of success. When one assist others in becoming more successful, you make yourself indispensable to them, and that’s what real success is.
a. Teaching others to learn lifelong
Teaching others act as a real test of your learning and knowledge. Also, teaching always helps to consolidate and reinforce our knowledge. Coaching and mentoring, or just showing others what you know, is rewarding. It shows your grasp of the topic. This, in turn, encourages you to learn more.
b. Learning by doing
Learning becomes sedentary and useless unless we practically apply it in real life. The best way to learn something is learning by doing.
Constant practice and repeating what we acquire new are critical to consolidating the entire learning abstract in our memory. Lifelong learning involves periodically testing your learned things by thoroughly applying them in real life.
c. Observe others to learn lifelong
Observational learning is a type of social learning. It takes many forms and is elicited by observing others.
Simply reading or hearing something may not always lead to learning. Even minutely observing a thing process or somebody can also be a great way to learn something useful.
Being a reasonable observer requires a very sharp eye and a lot of patience. To become a lifelong learner never leave any scope to learn something new. They remain ever vigilant to any cue that can be an essential source of valuable information.
4. Healthy lifestyle
According to John F Kennedy “physical fitness is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”
Our body and brain need a nutritious diet. They also need good sleep and balanced physical activity. These things are essential for survival and flourishing.
Why is healthy lifestyle Important to be a lifelong learner?
For keeping your mind gliding always, you must sincerely take care of your body.
Avoiding a sedentary lifestyle is very much needed to boost the brain and eventually other cognitive abilities.
5. Leave your comfort zone to learn lifelong
Judith Bardwick defines the term in his book “Danger in the Comfort Zone” as a “behavioral state where a person operates in an anxiety-neutral position.” according to him. We assume that we have everything under control and have access to all that we need.
Settling within the comfort zone seldom urges us to break out and jump-start something challenging.
But leaving our comfort zone is what gears us to learn something new. Taking risks out of your comfort zones either will lead to success or failure. Whatever the results are, we learn something new at the end.
The compelling fact about the vast ocean of knowledge that lays ahead of us are-
- The facts we don’t know and want to know
- The facts that we don’t have any idea and incidentally come to know.
Follow these above steps. These are the reasons and importance to be a lifelong learner and open yourself to the captivating world of knowledge.
Also Read: The Importance Of Communication In Advertising
Featured Image by Jan Vašek