I have
learnt a lot of life lessons just growing up as part of a wonderful family. One of the instances has remained with me and still reflects in my actions. I had to do a book review in school, and my dad insisted that I do it about one of his favorite and insightful book – The Final Diagnosis by Arthur Hailey. For years, being a sound and later TV engineer,
my father has always been a continuous learner and kept himself updated on
the latest technological shifts in the industry. This is a practice he
realised the importance of, on reading that book and I took that to heart.
My mother, though a home maker, for years now has been learning new things and adding them to her repertoire. Be it weaving a woolen sweater,cooking new things, naturopathy treatments or even learning how to paint at
an age of more than 50, she has always been enthusiastic about new experiences.
So, today, I thought I would talk about just how important it is to be open to learning new skills and experiences. While it is important to have a level of expertise in some areas of life, with some I think it is great to know at least the basics. Trust me, being Jack of all trades and master of one or two works just fine.
What does Continuous Learning mean?
Continuous learning is about the thirst to learn and then making the efforts to do it. Continuous learning can help you go deep and go wide. Confused?
Suppose you are an engineer, who has now been working for some time. You can let your knowledge pool remain stagnant happy with what you know and applying it to your work. You could also choose to continue enhancing it over time, learning about the latest innovations and technologies in your field and going deeper into it. Another possibility in today’s digital world is that you could sign up for some courses that could help you learn some allied technical sciences related to your field. To me, that is going deep with your learning.
On the other hand, suppose you have always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. You do your research about some classes, take those and have a basic knowledge of it, to help you play the instrument time to time. After that, you realize, that you also like photography. You decide to take a class or some digital lessons and start experimenting with the pictures you click. After a trip that you have taken, you get the urge to learn French and go ahead to do it. This, in my mind, is the wide version of continuous learning.
Both have their own place in our lives. Deep continuous learning keeps us in good stead in our professional lives whereas the wide continuous learning expands our horizons and helps with developing a range of new skills.
Benefits of Continuous Learning
As you can probably guess from my long introduction, I am a fan of continuous learning. To me, learning new things brings about
freshness in the mundane aspects of life. There are quite a few benefits to being
a continuous learner:
Brain elasticity
As Daniel Kahneman said in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, our brain has two sides to it – the instinctive faster one and the deliberate yet lazy slower one. When we are used to doing some things, it’s generally the faster one which get activated for it. However, when we encounter something new and unknown, the slower part gets activated.
When you learn something new, ever noticed the initial rebellion that your brain sometimes puts up? That’s the creaking sound your rusty slow brain is making, as it is trudging through the thinking process. This is a hugely beneficial thing
to keeping the brain active, elastic and younger. In some ways, it’s like working out. When you don’t exercise,
the muscles in those limbs start getting impacted. The brain is no different
and often needs the challenge of charting new, unknown territory.
Social skills
This is a benefit I am beginning to realize only recently. As mentioned
earlier, I am now in an investment
counselling role where I end
up meeting 2-3 new clients
everyday. While we do talk investments and business,
a lot of my longer chats have happened on something
ancilliary or an
unexpected aspect like fitness or history or even writing.
When you choose to be a continuous learner, you will see an upswing in your social skills as your repertoire of being able to connect to another individual is just going to go up. There will be enough threads that you can pick up in almost any conversation to strike a feeling of relatability.
Better competence and creativity
This one is pretty obvious right? If you are a deep continuous leader, you are bound to be more competent at your work. On the other hand, if you go wide, you would have experienced a wide variety of things. Creativity is often resulted by sparking of various random thoughts or experiences in the forgotten corners of our brain. By learning continuously, you will realise the improvement in almost any creativity as well.
Starting steps to being a continuous learner
Now, that I hopefully have you on board with the idea of being a continuous learner, you might be thinking how to apply it to your life.
Firstly, figure out what area do you want to start learning in. Is it your professional field or is it a skill you have always wanted to acquire?
Second, understand how do you learn better. Would you rather sit in the convenience of your home and take an online course like Coursera or do you need to make a commitment to going to a classroom where you end up absorbing more?
Third, as Nike puts it best – Just do it. Stop over thinking and dive even if it is straight to the deep end. Know that eventually, you will learn to swim and enjoy it for the experience.
Are you a continuous learner? What’s the most fun experience it has led you to? Let me know in the comments below.
P.S. Just realised I myself will have to learn something new real quick – the Gutenberg blocks in WordPress :-/
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