Always Learning
Lifelong learning will help you adapt to unexpected changes in the world. For example, no one expected COVID19 to happen, causing the world to be remote and quarantined, right? By continuing to learn, you’ll more easily step out of your comfort zone and take on new tasks and challenges with ease. Tom Clancy said it best: “Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die.”
Anyone who stopped learning within the last few years is missing out on the latest technology (Fire TV Stick? FitBit? GoPro? 3D printers?). Our perspectives, tastes, tolerance, world views and understanding can never be broadened if we stop being open to learning.
Here are the top ten proven benefits to learning something new. Consider what it would mean to you if you could achieve one or more of these benefits just because you made a choice to learn.
- Learners are earners. People who continually learn (whether or not they have advanced degrees) will earn more money than those who rely on a narrow set of skills and experiences.
- There is a link between education level and life expectancy. Those who are better educated are healthier.
- Parents who value learning for themselves have children who stay in school longer, have lower rates of crime, and aspire to higher paying jobs.
- People who seek adult learning opportunities are more socially connected, more involved in their communities and more likely to be politically active.
- A research report from The Center for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning indicates that “personal soft skills such as self-regulation, behavioral management, and social and communication skills are developed in educational settings.”
- The rate of depression is lower for adults who are actively involved in learning activities.
- People in learning environments have a wider and more diverse social circle.
- Those who learn readily and continually are better able to pass along what they have learned and act as teachers to their children and to their peers.
- When people learn, they gain confidence for trying new things and stretching themselves.
- Continual learning contributes to higher levels of resilience and self-efficacy in completing a task or tackling a challenge.
Rather than focusing on the reasons not to learn, look at these benefits of learning. Then find the method of learning that suits you best. Where there is a will to learn, you will find the right way – for you – to learn.