Learning is not exclusive to the classroom.

Whether currently enrolled in an official educational institution or not, we all remain lifelong students.

For the rest of our life, we will continue to learn and experience new things.

However, even though lifelong learning is something we will all experience, it’s up to you to actively pursue it.

It’s common to take on the minimum, in fact, that’s what we see commonly done. A choice only you can make is to actively develop your ability to learn.

And that is a liberating choice indeed.

After all, if learning is something you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life, it’s in your best interest to optimizing that skill and grow in aptitude and ability.

I’ve included three steps below to help you continue learning, but also develop your skills to become a better learner.

• Self Audit. Do some introspection to analyze how you learn. Are you a visual learner? Do you prefer a hands-on, immersive learning style, where you are actively practicing the concepts? There are unique learning preferences to you that you need to identify.  Even beyond learning styles, there are also environments. Find where you are most productive. Look for any areas to optimize your strength to become an increasingly efficient learner.

 

• Explore. There are lifetimes of information available to you. Go and explore those options, try some and discard some. Most importantly never stop exploring.

 

• Allow yourself to continuously transform. Regardless of what you’re learning, seek to get better at it.

Learning has a cycle, there’s a great TEDx talk here that breaks down a learning cycle, you experience the check, the experience, and the experiment. The check is where you become aware of what you’re doing right now. Then you have the experience, be open to possibilities, try new things out. The experiment, take something from the new experience and apply it to your routine.

Remember, there are few skills as valuable as developing the art of learning, it’s worthwhile to start right now.