The importance of continuous learning
Many successful people warn us that continuous learning is a requirement for success, but what does that mean? How do professionals determine what to focus on to build a body of knowledge that will make a tangible difference in their lives? And why is continuous learning beneficial for someone?
The answer is simple. They have to know where they are going in life to properly invest their time and energy.
How to decide what to focus on
To decide what to learn, you need a Continuous Learning Development Plan. But before you can create any plans, you need to ask yourself the following questions and be completely honest. You are more likely to achieve your goals if they sincerely meet your needs and if you are passionate and enthusiastic about them.
- What is your mission in life?
- What are your core values in life?
- In the next three years, where would you like to be in your personal and professional life?
- Are you committed to achieving your personal and professional goals listed above in the next three years?
- Make sure your personal and professional goals align with your life mission and core values.
- Why are those goals important to you?
- Set a realistic timeline for achieving those goals
- Make sure some of your goals add value and fill a social need
- In the past, what has prevented you from achieving your personal and professional goals?
- What steps can you take to remove barriers to achieving your goals?
- What knowledge do you need to acquire to achieve your personal and professional goals?
- What steps must be taken to acquire that knowledge?
- Who are the experts?
- what have they written
- How can you access the information?
Use your answers to the questions to develop a simple one-page Lifelong Learning Development Plan and take action every day to build continuum in your life.
Benefits of continuous learning
Professionals who are strategic about continuous learning will reap several life-transforming benefits. They will do it:
- Stay up to date with trends and developments in your industry.
- Stimulate their mind and keep them from getting into a rut.
- Build a body of knowledge that they can easily use to solve problems and generate great ideas.
- They make better decisions because they have more and better information to work with
- think harder
- Make connections between seemingly unrelated data
- Build verbal power
- Become recession proof
ways to learn
- go shopping
- Attend conferences, workshops and seminars.
- Observing and talking with others: Customers, competitors and colleagues
How to apply what you have learned
Learning for learning’s sake is pointless and highly unproductive, especially in lives that are overloaded. Practical ways to apply learning and get more out of that new knowledge:
- Form a club of friends where you exchange ideas between club members
- Write articles about what you know.
- Develop online courses.
- Teach others what you have learned and spread the knowledge.
Continuous learning is critical for professionals who want to navigate flat corporate structures, but the key is to strategically plan your learning goals. As Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” Will any place be good enough for you?
