The Importance of Continuous Learning

Too many people graduate from college or high school and think that their time of learning is over. They get a 9-5 job and then go about their day to day lives outside of it.

They do the status quo, and as a result they have a status quo life. They have a difficult time progressing in their career because their knowledge base is built solely off of their limited experiences. 

The antidote is continuously seeking knowledge, continuously learning. When you constantly seek out knowledge from others you are broadening your knowledge base from only your experiences, to the experiences of everyone you are learning from.

Today I will go through some of the benefits of continuous learning as well as some of the ways I have continued my learning after schooling.

Benefits of Continuous Learning

We have all heard the old adage if you aren’t getting better, you’re falling behind. Part of the reason this is true is because we forget things over time, we become more specialized, we only know the tiny amount of information required for our line of work.

This is extremely dangerous because it pigeonholes us into one job. What happens if your company goes out of business, or you get laid off, or your job gets replaced by automation.

Continuous learning protects you from these because if you have constantly been learning and growing you will be much more capable of finding a way to survive and thrive in uncertain times due to your increased knowledge base.

This will allow you to transition to another job or potentially start your own business.

Continuous learning is also useful in the fact that it will make you more interesting. You will be able to relate to more people because you can speak intelligently on more topics.  

Ways to Continue Learning

Some people hear continuous learning and they think they have to go take a formal class, but I am here to tell you that this is actually one of the least effective ways to go about your continued education.

Classes are slow, clunky, and often times being taught by someone who was never an actual expert in the industry.

I have found that books and online courses from people that have succeeded in the industry are the best ways of acquiring new knowledge.

Books provide a wealth of knowledge in a compact and economic format.  

You can simply read fiction books that are related to your area of expertise or an area you think you may pursue in the future, giving you a leg up on all of your coworkers who don’t spend any time on self-improvement (which is likely to be most of them).  

The average CEO reads about 50 books a year, and while that sounds like an impossible amount, it translates into about an hour of reading a day.

Really you don’t even need to read this much, if you read for 30 minutes a day, and finish about 20 books in a year, you will be acquiring some serious knowledge.

The average American reads just 3 non-fiction books a year! You can make one simple change to your day, cut just 30 minutes of time out of things like YouTube, TV, or social media, and you can learn nearly 7 times as much as the average person.

On top of that, if you read three books on a particular subject, you will know more on that subject than 95% of the population. That’s pretty dang impressive, think about it, you could read three good books on a subject or topic that may be in demand and you would know more than 95% of people. That is powerful.

Online courses from businessmen/women are another great way to learn new skills. This is a method that I have begun to utilize in the last couple months and have discovered that it can be a great way to learn a significant amount of practical information in a short period of time.

There are courses on everything imaginable on the internet where you can go and gain more in-depth knowledge than from a book by working with a community, potentially get access to the creator of the course to ask questions, and practice your new skills.

These courses are going to be more expensive than a book, but the value is definitely there. The courses will hold you accountable to actually use the information you learn and apply it to your life, where with a book, you may read it, set it down, and never think about it again.

Continuous learning is necessary for anyone who wants to make the most out of their life. Go out, decide what you want to learn about, and go crush it.