Life-Long Learner Becomes Life-Long Achiever
If you want to become an achiever for the long-term, become a life-long learner. Your knowledge, skill and work ethic is what determines your worth in the marketplace. In the light of our current situation, Warren Buffet gave this advice,
“The best protection against inflation, though, still is your own personal earning bar," Buffett said. "If you play the violin very well, you will do reasonably well during inflation. I mean, play it better than other people, people will pay you for doing that. All kinds of things. So, your skills will not be taken away, and your money may be.”
There is not much you can control about inflation, but you can directly control your knowledge, skill, and work ethic. First, make a commitment to learning.
What do you mean by learning?
Learning defined is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans and animals. One of our great capacities is the ability (and urge) to learn. Unfortunately, most of us stop actively learning once our formal education stops. We allow ourselves to remain stagnant in our careers and personal lives.
Why is it important to learn?
I don’t believe that the status quo is possible for a human being to maintain in anything. You are either going forward or backward, growing, or declining, getting better or worse. In relation to learning, you are either acquiring knowledge and skills or you are losing them.
“The only way to ensure that you maintain success long term is to consistently be learning for the long term.”
What are the best ways to learn?
A thought starting question:
How much of your week do you dedicate to learning?
It really doesn’t matter whether or not there are highly effective ways to learn if you don’t have a real desire to learn.
For this process to be successful it requires:
A commitment to continuous learning.
Consistent dedicated time to learning.
Acquire and maintain the urge to learn.
Pew Research Center reports,
“Roughly a quarter of American adults say they haven’t read a full book in whole or in part in the last year.”
Even though we have a capacity, and I would say a need to learn, it is not common or normal for adults, who are past formal education, to be highly motivated to invest substantial amounts of time learning or studying.
The three common ways to learn are,
visual
auditory
kinesthetic
It is important to know which type of learning you are most comfortable with. Generally, people tend to favor one learning style more than another, but most are a mix of two or maybe even three different styles. Use your strengths so you can be the most successful student you can be. This article at thoughtco.com will help you.
I want to address three areas common to business that are not traditional learning methods. I know that if you take advantage of each of these you will create momentum with your learning.
Identify experienced and successful companies and or people that possess the same values you do and study them.
Best-selling author and leadership expert, John Maxwell wrote,
“Everyone we meet has the potential to teach us something. Of all the sources of knowledge available to us in the Digital Age, the richest repository of wisdom still resides in the hearts of the people we interact with each day. The Internet can help us track down information, but life’s deepest truths are best learned in the context of relationships, from people who have lived and breathed them.”
Find those people that have succeeded in areas of life and business that you are in as well. Investigate them to confirm their success and be sure their values are close enough to yours that you are comfortable with listening to them and working with them.
Spend time with them.
This may not be in person. It could be that you read what they’ve written, or you listen to interviews or presentations they’ve done.
Ask valuable questions.
The best way to do this is to ask them for their time. Reach out in a very respectful way, understanding you are asking them for an irreplaceable resource, their time.
Offer your assistance to them.
Ask them how you can be of assistance. Edify them in your community and network. Become valuable to them.
2. If you try, you will fail. Learn from your failures.
Fran Tarkenton, the legendary NFL QB said,
“My biggest failures have led to my biggest successes. Most of the things I’ve tried in my life don’t work, but I learn from those, and I get closer to something that will work.”
If you don’t want to fail, then don’t start. If you don’t try, you will not fail. However, if you start and try, you will experience failure. Failure is not a loss unless you don’t learn from it. Here is what you need to do to make sure you learn from your failures.
Be intentional about learning from your failures.
Therefore, it’s important to keep records and know your numbers.
Be honest with yourself. Don’t allow yourself to justify what you did or didn’t do.
3. Study best practices
Be a thief - in a good way. Take what others have done to be successful and steal them away by learning to do what they’ve done.
Your company and or industry publications publish this type of information consistently.
Be intentional about filing these for easy access.
Make this part of your consistent learning.
In Conclusion - Get started
Get started - Every day I learn.
As you set the priorities for what you need to accomplish each day in your life, be sure to include learning in that list.
Every day you learn by reading, researching, and staying committed to being a student.
Make the commitment to Never Stop Learning.
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Expect to Win!
#xp2win