Anyone can benefit from learning. It doesn’t matter how fast or long it takes. Information is value. Learning makes you smarter, can increase you income, and can make your life easier. Once you start seeing the benefits of learning you will become addicted. Learning and sucking in valuable information can change your life. Here are three things life-long learners do differently to stay motivated to learn.
1. They know why they are learning.
Your brain always needs a motive to learn something before it will actually do it. Learning actually has so many possible benefits that everyone should make it a top priority. You can learn how to be successful, you can learn from the mistakes of others, you can learn new useful skills, and you can learn how to live a healthier lifestyle. Don’t just take my word for it, many great men and women throughout history endorsed learning.
Albert Einstein said “Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
Henry Ford said “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
Earl Nightingale said “The minute a man stops learning, our world will begin to pass him by. He will be left a lonely and disconsolate figure in its wake.”
Abraham Lincoln said “All I have learned, I learned from books.”
John Adams said “I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough…the more one reads the more one sees we have to read”.
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Winston Churchill, Bruce Lee, Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo da Vinci, Confucius, Socrates, and more. All of these people had something positive to say about learning. Learning is how you move up in life, and expand your awareness to new ideas.
2. They form a habit of learning.
This is crucial. True life-long learners know they have a lot to learn, and that the more time spent learning the better. They cut down on distractions like television, radio, video games, and social media to free up more time for learning. They listen to audiobooks during commute. They read everyday. You don’t have to go to the extreme with this.
However imagine if you just made a habit of spending an hour a day reading. Over the course of a year that would add up to 365 hours spent reading! Don’t fall into the pessimistic trap of thinking you have to give up your life or spend hours everyday reading for it to have any effect. Just make small changes, slightly adjust your habits in favor of learning, and watch how your life will start to change with all the new knowledge being poured into your brain.
As Mahatma Gandhi put it “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
3. They surround themselves with like minded people who support them.
Meet up with people who are experts in your topic of study. Go to classes, seminars, courses, live events, and network with the people there. Keep friends around who understand and see the benefit of life-long learning. Tell your friends and family what you plan to learn and get them to run accountability checks on you.
Life-long learners learn from a multitude of sources, especially when they really want to master a subject. Books, audiobooks, courses, seminars, other people, and mentors. These are all fair game for self-education and a life-long learner. Expect success and be confident that you will learn whatever it is you are trying to learn as this will make it easier for you to learn it! All of this will motivate you to stay focused on your goals and learn. Learning truly is a lifestyle.
Featured photo credit: Markgraf Ave via mrg.bz
