Once you stop learning, you start dying.
Albert Einstein
It’s a well-worn cliche, but if ever true, it is true of the brain. “Use it, or lose it!”
And if ever there is a time when entertaining screen time gobbles up precious opportunities to grow and learn, it is now. Whether hours scrolling social media, or binging on Netflix series, for many people, screen time replaces reading good books or professional journals, or listening to educational podcasts. Or watching educational YouTube videos. While the Internet can be a valuable learning resource, it can be equally distracting, or even misleading, when content is not based on established facts or truth.
That said, there has never been an easier or cheaper time to pursue the self-mastery skill of lifelong learning. One of the benefits of the Covid pandemic has been that many sought-after conference speakers and authors have put tons of their content on-line, often for free.
Benefits of lifelong learning
As with all the self-mastery skills in our 40 Weeks of Increase, the habit of lifelong learning and childlike curiosity has proven benefits for your mental and physical health. So, for example, staying on top of scientific discoveries about a healthy lifestyle, helps prevent illness and promote physical health. Learning about the effects of childhood trauma may help you to reflect on your own life, and seek professional help for your own unresolved trauma.
In the brain, lifelong learning helps continually create new synapses, or linkages between neurons, as new learning and memory gets processed and stored in long-term memory. This helps prevent memory loss and dementia.
Curiosity and learning new skills also provides the brain with novelty, which is known to help prevent depression. This also helps both halves (hemispheres) of the brain to integrate and work together more effectively. Both the logic and language of the left brain, and the visuals and interpersonal skills of the right brain, work better together. This left and right brain integration is now proven to be a significant marker of well-being, as well as finding creative solutions to life’s challenges.
Lifelong learning is an important spiritual discipline as well, with study of Scripture and memorization of key passages that gives your life meaning and purpose. On-line spiritual resources are endless. One just needs to curate carefully to avoid potential misdirected fervor.
And, don’t forget the pocketbook! It is well known that lifelong learners, no matter their profession or career, will have better earning capacity as they grow the knowledge and skill of their chosen craft. You will be more employable, be more likely chosen for promotion and career advancement, and feel more on top of your field. This latter point, feeling well equipped for your job is a key in employment satisfaction and burnout prevention.
Here’s the unsettling truth: If your brain isn’t learning, it is shrinking.
Traits of lifelong learners
Lifelong learners are invariably curious by nature. They don’t allow their childhood curiosity to fade. In his book Mastery, Robert Green writes that both masters from history, such as Einstein or Mozart, as well as modern masters, kept their childhood wonderment alive, not only into adulthood, but elderhood as well.
So ask questions. Be willing to explore. See how principles in one field of study likely inform other fields or professional disciplines.
The other trait of a lifelong learner is humility. They are never know-it-alls, and are ready to learn from generations ahead or behind them. Humble lifelong learners have learned to listen before they speak. They are gracious to allow others to voice their perspective without judgement or cutting them off.
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Any who keeps learning stays young.
Henry Ford
Grow your mind
Here are some practical steps to growing your mind:
- Know your learning style – are you a reader, or do you prefer audio books? Or are you visual where pictures and diagrams are worth a “thousand words?” Learn with your own style and at your own pace.
- Shut off the TV and take a social media fast.
- Start a “book club” or “journal club” with colleagues at work or with a group of friends, or a faith community small group.
- Sign up for a great online course.
- Take notes (circle, underline, write in the margins, keep a separate note book).
- Take a speed reading course (you can learn to get 80% of a book’s content by reading only 20% of it).
- Find a mentor and become an “apprentice.”
- Volunteer to teach (a great way to learn is to prepare a talk or a teach on a new subject).
- Learn a new skill such as a new hobby or musical instrument.
- Join ToastMasters to improve your speaking and meeting chairing skills.
Balance
As with any of the self-mastery skills, it is possible to become unbalanced. Reading books, even good books, or podcasts, can become addictive and a means of escape. Most of us reach saturation points in the information that we can absorb. So, balance your learning with the other 19 self-mastery skills. Keep your circles balanced.
Further reading on the benefits of lifelong learning
Harvard Business Review: Lifelong Learning Is Good for Your Health, Your Wallet, and Your Social Life
The Economist: Lifelong Learning is Becoming an Economic Imperative
Harvard Business Review: Make Learning a Lifelong Habit
Compassionately,
