15 Steps to Cultivate Lifelong Learning
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” - Marcel Proust“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” - Abraham Lincoln
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain
Assuming the public school system hasn’t crushed your soul, learning is a great activity. It expands your viewpoint. It gives you new knowledge you can use to improve your life. Even if you discount the worldly benefits, the act of learning can be a source of enjoyment.
But in a busy world, it can often be hard to fit in time to learn anything that isn’t essential. The only things learned are those that need to be. Everything beyond that is considered frivolous. Even those who do appreciate the practice of lifelong learning, can find it difficult to make the effort.
Here are some tips for installing the habit of lifelong learning:
1) Always have a book.
It doesn’t matter if it takes you a year or a week to read a book. Always strive to have a book that you are reading through, and take it with you so you can read it when you have time. Just by shaving off a few minutes in-between activities in my day I can read about a book per week. That’s at least fifty each year.
2) Keep a “To-Learn” List
We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish. Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates you, write it down.
3) Get More Intellectual Friends
Start spending more time with people who think. Not just people who are smart. But people who actually invest much of their time in learning new skills. Their habits will rub off on you. Even better, they will probably share some of their knowledge with you.
4) Guided Thinking
Albert Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Simply studying the wisdom of others isn’t enough, you have to think through ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating or contemplating over ideas you have learned.
5) Put it Into Practice
Skill based learning is useless if it isn’t applied. Reading a book on C++ isn’t the same thing as writing a program. Studying painting isn’t the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied, put it into practice.
6) Teach Others
You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet of communicating ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend.
7) Clean Your Input
Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance. I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But every few months I realize I’m collecting posts from blogs that I am simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and focus on what counts.
8 ) Learn in Groups
Lifelong learning doesn’t mean condemning yourself to a stack of dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and group learning events can make educating yourself a fun, social experience.
9) Unlearn Assumptions
You can’t add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts your worldview.
10) Find Jobs that Encourage Learning
Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn’t have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don’t spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn’t challenge you.
11) Start a Project
Set out to do something you don’t know how. Forced learning in this way can be fun and challenging. If you don’t know anything about computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible artist, try a painting.
12) Follow Your Intuition
Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You can’t be sure what to expect and there isn’t always an end goal in mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely logical decisions, that making choices on a whim has been stamped out.
13) The Morning Fifteen
Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a short time. Just don’t put it off later in the day where urgent activities will push it out of the way.
14) Reap the Rewards
Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of programming allows me to handle projects that other people would require outside help. Meeting a situation that makes use of your educational efforts can be a source of pride.
15) Make it a Priority
Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life.
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Comments
Jim Samuel says on July 31st, 2007 at 11:46 am
To Scott H. Young:
This starts off with a mindless assumption that destroys the credibility of the entire article. Can we just stop this generalization that all public schools are bad things. Here’s a news flash: There are some very good public schools out there and I am getting very tired of ignorant people who make general statements that they are all bad. If you don’t like the public schools in your area, get involved and fix them. But stop making general statements that only show your ignorance.
Secondly, you CAN add water to a full cup. It just displaces some of what is already there.
Eugene says on July 31st, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Well, I’ll say the majority of public schools are crap so the generalization is pretty accurate. The good public schools are few and far between, I’m having to sell my house now so I can try to find a decent school system and move into its district.
Exactly how are you going to fix them? Everyone says fix them but no one has yet come up with a plan to fix them. The best way to fix them is to make them non public, go back in history before public schools were forced upon us and let the kids that want to learn go learn which the ones that don’t can go do whatever they want. Forcing the ones that don’t want to learn to sit n a shcool doesn’t help them and hurts my kids in the process.
Janel says on July 31st, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Opinions are everywhere — as are over-generalizations. Like everything else, we get what we put into things.
My husband, son and I are all products of the public school system. Each of us have gained from opportunities not available from the private school alternatives available in the respective geographic area. My husband has two masters degrees and is a principal of a middle school currently. I am finishing my masters and am a CPA. Our son starts college in the fall.
At no time have any of us felt that the public school system “crushed” our “soul.” On the contrary, we are grateful for all of those committed educators who invest so much day in and day out.
So much for my 2 cents!
Janel
Serrin says on July 31st, 2007 at 2:06 pm
I’d add this tip: Schedule time for focused reading / learning often. It is very difficult to find time for non-urgent but important things if you live in a whirlwind of urgent activities. Unless you schedule time, you’ll end up with a magnificent “to-learn” list that will simply make you feel terribly depressed when you reach middle age.
Fred Meyer says on July 31st, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I went to public school for thirteen years. When analyzing my public school experience (apart from my home life), I am appalled.
1. Almost everyone did not care about academics. The VERY FEW that did were looked at as nerds, made fun of, ridiculed, and abused. There was a HIGH price to pay to care about learning. Being academically average or below average was viewed as cool.
2. The teachers were horrible. They were worn out and defeated. They appeared to have given up years ago. I had a couple of teachers in thirteen years that actually reached out to me as a person and tried to help me.
3. A combination of the two points above led to pathetically low academic standards and expectations. I now learn more in one night of self-study than I learned in several weeks of public school.
4. I could go on for days because this issue is so important to me, but I will wrap it up. Many students in the U.S. public school system are in a prison of low standards, low expectations, a culture of perversion and destruction, hopelessness, busywork, and mind-destroying foolishness. Sadly, many of them will not even know it until they are out of it can see clearly again.
Sam says on July 31st, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I emphatically agree with everything Fred Myer said.
Baiscally, the white, rich people can get a good education if their parents are actively involved, but everyone else has to deal with scraps.
I did go to a high school in a decently wealthy area which also has many middle and poor people too (small town). I has classes in regular, honors, and Advanced Placement classes. The Advanced Placement classes are fine, but everything else (even many of the honors classes) are pathetic compared to what is possible and what is being done in Europe. It goes to show you that if you have money, THEN you can get a decent education. Everyone else gets scraps.
Tyler says on July 31st, 2007 at 9:28 pm
This article wasn’t written to criticize the public school system or other forms of formal education. It’s about maintaining a lifetime pattern of learning new skills, developing ideas, and keeping a healthy mind. If you’re looking for an audience to rant or rave about public schools, try your local school board, city council, or Op/Ed section of the newspaper.
Matt says on August 1st, 2007 at 10:52 am
I’d be interested in hearing what the offended readers consider to be a ‘good’ public school education. My guess is that it would be a school where people graduate literate and not covered with gang tattoos.
Even the better schools spend 13 years to turn out semi-presentable and literate pre-workers. Colleges routinely spend the first year (or two) playing catch-up. Entry level jobs start on the assumption that the person is about as educated as a monkey. Critical thinking is a myth.
However, I went through 9 years of Catholic school, and got the same thing. So its not a public-school problem. Its a problem with how we approach education and child-rearing in general.
Kali says on August 3rd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
*****
Homaid says on August 4th, 2007 at 3:01 am
This is an excellent article, thank you very much.
Joe says on August 5th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
The american public school debate aside; I belive that points 4-6, & 9 are the most important points raised in this post. Perhaps, the authour could do with reading point 9 himself
Matthew Cornell says on August 22nd, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Wow - terrific list! Much appreciated.
mirc says on January 12th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
thanks best regards
mirc says on March 4th, 2008 at 9:28 am
thanx for artichle