A lot of people are under the impression that learning stops as you get older and leave education because, as the saying goes: you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This, however, couldn’t be further from the truth. You have the capacity to continue learning your whole life; all you need is the motivation to grow and learn. So keep reading to learn more.
Life-Long Learning Explained
A life-long learner is exactly as it sounds; it is someone who simply never stops putting in the effort to learn new things. They look for new opportunities to expand their knowledge base and their skillset. This could be through reading books or going to lectures or workshops, or through taking online courses like the ones available from oktopi.
Becoming a Life-Long Learner
As mentioned above, there are a lot of avenues that you can pursue to become a lifelong learner. You first need to think about the areas in which you are lacking or things you want to know more about or get better at. If that doesn’t work for you, you should try to find something that interests you or that you are passionate about and start there.
After you have done this, you might want to think about creating a study schedule to keep your efforts organized. This is especially important if you want to follow a more regimented routine of learning, for example, if you want to go back to school or gain more qualifications.
When trying to learn something new, your surroundings matter. You want to try to limit your possible distractions to ensure that you are getting the most out of your efforts. Think about creating a dedicated space in your home to study in. Put your phone on silent and leave it in another room to remove temptation.
Recognize opportunities to learn. Everyone encounters learning opportunities every single day. When you encounter something new that you aren’t too sure of. Make the effort to learn more by asking questions. There is absolutely no such thing as a stupid question. You might be surprised by how much you can learn simply by asking for clarification when you don’t understand something.
Finally, to become a life-long learner, you need to be proactive. You need to do your best to remain motivated and hold yourself accountable for your own learning. If this is something that you struggle with, you might want to try setting goals for yourself or coming up with deadlines; you can then use these to track your progress.
To Sum Up
Learning can easily become a life-long effort simply because there is so much knowledge out there to acquire. That being said, it is impossible to learn everything, which is why you should consider your own areas of interest of gaps in your knowledge and try to fill them.
Luckily, there are so many different ways that you could go about learning, depending on whether you want to keep your efforts more casual with YouTube videos or online resources. Or whether you want to make your efforts stricter and gain qualifications through courses or workshops. Think about your end goals and make a plan.
