Lifelong learning is the learning which occurs beyond the classroom or college/work. At the core level, lifelong learning essentially involves selective skill building in the areas of interest of an individual or on what they want to explore & discover, maybe as a challenge or hobby.
As the name suggests, lifelong learning means — learning constantly, growing, progressing in a continuum. Learning is paramount in today’s world. Learning not only happens at schools, but it happens every day in the form of knowledge that we consume.
Although we don’t realise it, we are all learning every day. We’re learning how the world works; we are learning about new tech that’s being developed. We start learning right from the day we are born. We learn how to talk; we learn how to walk and then how to read. Well, you get the point. To put it bluntly, we are all learning every day until we die.
Or it could be vice versa.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” -Henry Ford
Learning is not restricted to education. Our learning doesn’t stop once we graduate from school/ college. If you have thought you don’t have to worry about learning once you graduate, you’ll be in for a surprise. With the world around us constantly evolving, it’s a necessity for you to learn and adapt just to survive in the 21st century.
Reading was the most underrated ability in the world. With the ability to read you open up the vaults of knowledge that smarter people than you and me have learnt and put it down on books. This way all the people coming after them can benefit from it.
Although most of us can read in today’s world, you don’t have to necessarily read to gain knowledge. You can watch videos, listen to podcasts, listen to audiobooks and so on.
Everything these days from reading books to doing chores while listening to a podcast and even reading a blog online, will add to the journey of lifelong learning! Every day we learn something new that gives us an edge over the competition. From business to sales, from sports to medicine, and from the arts to politics, the ability to learn new things quickly has always been an advantage. Every day we learn something new that gives us an edge over the competition. From business to sales, from sports to medicine, and from the arts to politics, the ability to learn new things quickly has always been an advantage.
We never stop learning. As knowledge expands, so does our understanding of the world. The further we progress, the deeper our exploration of the world becomes. The more we learn, the more we need to unlearn.
You could call lifelong learning a journey within a lifetime. It’s an ongoing process. It reflects our increasing capacity to understand the world and ourselves. It reflects our growing curiosity, our growing capacity for empathy; our increasing capacity for creativity; our growing capacity to understand and care. It reflects our growing ability to adapt.
Learning becomes incomplete the moment we decide that we are done with a particular subject. In reality, being done equates to forgetting and leaving it behind as soon as you get your qualification.
Why do we call life learning the path towards ultimate success?
Becoming incredibly successful is often about getting lucky. Now, don’t feel dejected. What if luck isn’t as random as you think it is? What if there’s a way to “get lucky”? Getting lucky is about trying things for a long time. Keep putting in your efforts.
I’ll give you an example to explain what I mean. Let’s say you try starting up. Chances are,you are going to fail in your first attempt. And there’s no point denying the fact that most startups fail. But you understand how the game works, you don’t stop when you fail. You just keep going at different problems one after the other, and you do this 100 times. Do you really think you won’t succeed once in those 100 attempts?
The same goes with learning, all that you learn might not end up being useful. But the reward that one concept or insight will give you will make up for all the things that weren’t of use to you. There are always new things to learn. And if you are really determined to succeed, you will find new ways to make your education lifelong.
And that’s how you rig the odds in your favour. Keep on learning and one fine day you’ll be at the right place and right time. Preparedness will meet opportunity, one day when you least expect it. And when that happens it will give you asymmetrical rewards. And that’s why we think lifelong learning is the path towards ultimate success.
Our capacity for learning grows as we grow. Our capacity to understand and to think is limitless. We can discover and invent anything we can dream about. We can find the answers to any question. We can know anything we can dream about.
This knowledge is out there. It’s all around us. All we need to do is look.
Now I think we are on the same page and hopefully agree that lifelong learning is the path towards ultimate success. Remind yourself what you wanted to learn and try learning it. It should take no more than 30 minutes to learn something new and putting it into practice and making use of the skills you’re gaining will help you become more productive and efficient. But when it comes to discussing an idea, it is even more important to concentrate on executing the idea. We have agreed (hopefully) that lifelong learning is the path to ultimate success, but we haven’t looked into how to execute this idea effectively.
Are we learning in a way that will benefit us the most? Are we using technology as leverage to learn new things?
Digital learning gave us even customized and personalized learning that catered to our needs. It charted out areas we were lagging at and provided easy ways to retain what we have learned. We have gone through a real technological revolution. This caused a shift in how we learn and process information.
In this post-modern 21st century, the mundane form of learning, that is, the ability to read and write does not hold value anymore. It is more about whether you possess the capability to unlearn and relearn your knowledge. The progression in technology has enabled all types of individuals to tap into the knowledge of the greatest minds throughout time and space via their smartphones.
But somewhere along the way, it got a little too much for even the internet. Information overload has costs. It reduces our ability to quickly process things. It makes us less productive, and it costs us money.
The most important cost is that information overload erodes our confidence. When everything seems possible but everything is hard, it becomes harder to do the right thing. There’s just so much information out there that it clouds our thinking, efficiency and productivity.
Now to answer the question “Are we learning in a way that will benefit us the most? Are we using technology as leverage to learn new things? “
To be honest, most of us aren’t. We are stuck somewhere between trying to use technology the right way and not bothering at all. Not many of us are particularly conscious of the practices we use to learn.
The taming process needs some structure. We have to break it down into manageable chunks. We have to figure out ways to keep track of it. We have to find ways to distil and prioritize it. We can’t do any of that without the technology that enables it.
But maybe it’s not all your fault. Perhaps you weren’t shown a good tech-enabled platform that would help you in the long term. Maybe you haven’t been shown the tools that are in your best interests. You don’t have to worry anymore; we’re here to solve your problems.
But are you a lifelong learner already? Have you been looking for a solution to succeed online but not finding the right answers?
We have the tools that will help you elevate your game to greater levels.
Learning and organising your thoughts helps you connect the dots better. And yet, there was no platform to help you with it. We wanted to solve that exact problem for you. At Zuperly, we strive to make your learning experience the best it can be. You can be more efficient, productive and learn anything on the Internet with Zuperly.
We are all about making it easy for you to learn what you need when you need it. With Zuperly, you can easily consume good content from blogs, magazines, websites, videos, and podcasts conveniently and efficiently. You can also save time in the process of compiling and collecting great sources of information. Build clean, consistent learning habits that sustain for the long term.
And there’s simply no better platform that will help you in your lifelong learning journey.
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Varun, Content Writer
