Continuously learning something new comes with great benefits for our professional and personal development and our overall health. Discover 4 benefits of lifelong learning and how to be a straight-A student of life.
For most of us as children and teens in grade school, we couldn't wait to get out of school. Even continuing into post-secondary school, we couldn't wait to graduate and be done with lectures, assignments and exams.
We wanted the freedom of our adult lives, free from assessments and grade point averages. Then as we enter the work world, we realize that there are new performance assessments and performance scoring to worry about. Classes in "real life" were now in session.
The reality is that learning is lifelong for everyone whether we do it willingly or begrudgingly.
Adopting a lifelong learning mindset is beneficial for us to learn, grow and adapt at all levels of our lives.
Functionally: Helps us cope with daily life and the fast-changing world.
Financially: Provides us with career growth opportunities and diverse career options.
Physiologically: Improves overall mental, emotional and physical health.
Philosophically: Help us find life enrichment and fulfillment.
We need to learn new skills in the different stages of our lives to function in life. We need to learn everyday life skills like driving, cooking, managing our finances and how to be a parent. We need to learn as we enter our profession, especially when the job is new and when we want to grow and advance our careers.
A lifelong learning mindset is about creating and maintaining a positive attitude to learning for personal and professional development.
Lifelong learners seek out learning opportunities and are motivated by learning. They enjoy the process of enhancing their knowledge of the world around them. They understand that learning can lead to opportunities that improve the quality of life.
You would think that everyone would naturally have a lifelong learning mindset since it's a necessary part of life. But not everyone does. Many people are resistant to change and learning once they have established their comfort zone in their adult lives. Many people are perfectly satisfied to stay rigidly set in their ways.
Unfortunately, the world does not stand still. In fact, the pace of advancements in technology is moving us forward faster and faster. If you don't like change and evolution, you may like becoming extinct even less.
It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
Claude Bernard
Lifelong learning requires a mindset that is open to challenging old ways of thinking, outdated information and social norms. It requires unlearning in order to relearn. Not surprisingly, many people prefer the safety of their comfort zone and being good at what they know instead of risking failure in the process of learning something new.
Studies show that lifelong learning is good for our overall health. Being a lifelong learner has lifelong benefits. So let's dive into the 4 benefits of lifelong learning and how to be a straight-A student of life.
Benefit #1: Help Your Brain Stay Healthy
"Learning programs the brain. It is nature’s way to create simultaneously both 'hardware' and 'software' for the brain."
Dr. William R. Klemm
Many studies show that learning stimulates our brain cells to work at optimum levels and may help slow cognitive and memory decline as we age.
In his article "How Does Learning Change the Brain?" in Psychology Today, Dr. William R. Klemm, a senior professor of Neuroscience at Texas A&M University, explains how the adult brain responds to learning.
"The aging brain responds to learning the same way a child’s brain does: It grows new task-specific synapses that can be recruited for other uses... The learning effect is manifest in the growth of existing synapses and the formation of new synapses."
The growth and formation of new synapses are important because they typically shrink and degenerate as our brain ages. Dr. Klemm further explains that these synapses shrink when there is a lack of mental stimulation and over time can lead to degeneration and brain shrinkage. Moreover, reduced synaptic density is also a characteristic of neurological diseases like dementia.
So just as we need exercise to keep our bodies healthy, we need to exercise our brains with active learning consistently too.
To get an A for brain health, try the following:
Read daily for a minimum of 10 minutes a day.
Learn a second or a third language.
Learn a new hobby.
Learn to play a musical instrument.
Learn to cook a new recipe.
All of these learning activities help to stimulate and exercise your brain to keep those synapses growing because they are complex activities that challenge the brain to do something new.
Benefit #2: Grow Your Self-Motivation and Self-Esteem
"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso
Do you remember the last time you learned a new skill? What was it and how did you go about learning it? How did you feel once you acquired that new skill?
Most of the time in our lives, we learn new skills out of necessity and sometimes out of curiosity and interest. Regardless of why you learn the skill, the outcome of mastering a new ability is the same. You feel a sense of accomplishment that builds your self-esteem and self-motivation.
In his book "The Psychology of Self-Esteem", Dr. Nathaniel Branden says the following:
"Self-esteem has two interrelated aspects: it entails a sense of personal efficacy and a sense of personal worth. It is the integrated sum of self-confidence and self-respect."
Dr. Branden says that "Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves." This description of self-esteem accurately captures how we build our self-esteem.
When we master new skills and achieve goals, we gain a sense of self-efficacy (belief in our capabilities). The sense of self-efficacy encourages us to believe that if we learn and work hard, we can succeed in mastering new skills. The confidence of self-efficacy helps us to accept challenges and growth.
In short, when we grow our capabilities, we grow our self-confidence, which improves self-motivation and builds our self-esteem.
To get an A for growing self-motivation and self-esteem, try the following when you are learning something new:
Set goals, track progress and celebrate your achievements big or small.
Show self-compassion and be kind to yourself if there are setbacks or mistakes as it's part of the learning process.
Keep your commitment to yourself and achieve your goals with integrity and don't undermine your self-esteem by cheating or acting dishonestly.
Be your own best cheerleader and use positive self-talk.
Self-motivation and self-esteem start with the self. They will grow as you grow your capabilities.
Benefit #3: Expand and Lengthen Your Career
"We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn."
Peter Drucker
For most people, their professional lives are where they experience the most learning and new skill development and usually at the beginning of their careers. As they get settled into their trade, the learning curve straightens and it's all about getting the job done.
So what happens when that job changes or disappears altogether?
McKinsey Global Institute's 2021, The Future of Work After COVID‑19 report, estimates that "more than 100 million workers in the eight countries may need to switch occupations by 2030." This is driven by automation and shifts in the mix of occupations worldwide.
Needless to say, 2020 and 2021 threw the world into a very altered state of work trends. Think of how much you have learned in new skills for remote work and how to work during our pandemic times.
In Korn Ferry's Future or Work Trends 2022 report, they identified Reinvention as the #1 work trend for 2022.
"The last two years have just been about surviving. Change was forced, extreme, reactive. But out of all this disruptive change came something incredible. We learned to work in an entirely different way. We collaborated, innovated, were agile and flexible."
Korn Ferry's suggestions to organizations on how to approach reinvention show how a lifelong learner mindset will give you an advantage.
Stop thinking about work in terms of jobs and start thinking in terms of capabilities instead.
Ensure learning agility is a ‘must-have’ for everyone in the organization (not just leaders).
Be creative about talent acquisition and talent management strategies to secure the niche, in-demand skills you need to succeed.
Invest in upskilling and reskilling.
To get an A for expanding and lengthening your career, adopt a lifelong learning mindset and habits that can broaden your skill sets so that you are more employable for today and the future.
Benefit #4: Engage More Fully in Your Life
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
Mahatma Gandhi
A lifelong learning mindset is about creating and maintaining a positive attitude to learning.
When you enjoy learning, you open your mind to gain wisdom that connects you more deeply to the people and the world around you. The process of learning can lead you to meet new people, learn new technologies and new ideas that help you stay engaged and active in the changing world.
In John Coleman's HBR article, Lifelong Learning Is Good for Your Health, Your Wallet, and Your Social Life, he describes how important learning is to us as humans.
"Our capacity for learning is a cornerstone of human flourishing and motivation. We are uniquely endowed with the capacity for learning, creation, and intellectual advancement... These experiences can be electrifying. And even if education had no impact on health, prosperity, or social standing, it would be entirely worthwhile as an expression of what makes every person so special and unique."
To get an A and engage more fully in your life, remember the following:
Be open-minded and don't pass judgment before actually trying something out.
Don’t be quick to state you can’t develop a certain skill because it seems too hard.
Give yourself some time to learn and progress.
Take your time and set realistic goals for learning.
Enjoy the process and the learning journey.
Lifelong learning helps us to understand more of the world we live in, makes us more connected to it and makes us aware of the impact that we have on the world. The more we learn the more we understand ourselves and how we can find fulfillment and purpose.
Learning Keeps Us Young
My own personal journey with lifelong learning started in my mid-20s with the first professional development course that I attended as a new manager. The I worked for hired an external training company to conduct a course on sales and communications. We were then coached on how to cascade the training to our teams.
This experience showed me how mind-expanding and life-expanding adult learning could be. Although the course was titled sales and communications, it touched on psychology and consumer behaviour and even introduced me to adult learning concepts as I learned how to train my team. I was hooked!
I think this is how my passion for helping others to grow started. After many career pivots, I found the most fulfillment in the field of learning and development which allowed me to use my love of lifelong learning as an essential skill.
The benefits in my own life as a lifelong learner are abundant:
Made my career interesting with many career pivots leading me to find fulfilling life's work along the way.
Connected me with diverse people from personal interest classes that I have taken and led to rich friendships.
Helped me to connect deeply with my young adult sons throughout their lives.
Keeps me young and current as I keep up with new knowledge, technologies and skills.
I can honestly say that being a lifelong learner has made my life A+.
Here are some great articles with additional insights on lifelong learning:
Advantages of Lifelong Learning for the Younger Generations - Online Article - hurix.com
The Value of Lifelong Learning, Professional Training and Personal Development - Online Article - linkedin.com
Make Learning a Lifelong Habit - Online Article - HBR.org
I would love to hear your comments!
When was the last time you mastered a new skill? What was it?
How has learning as an adult benefited your life?
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