How To Become A Lifelong Learner

Start with your attitude.

Lifelong learning begins with a heart that desires change, wisdom, and application.

“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz

Ask questions.

Learners ask good questions. They possess an insatiable curiosity - a longing to know, discover, inquire. Ask questions that get below the surface.

“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever” Chinese Proverbs

Join Others.

Collaborative learning - in classes, small groups, with friends and colleagues - allow us to benefit from diverse perspectives and approaches. People are a gold mine of learning that is tapped through conversation.

“It's not enough to have a dream unless I'm willing to pursue it. It's not enough to know what's right unless I'm strong enough to do it. It's not enough to join the crowd, to be acknowledged and accepted. I must be true to my ideals, even if I'm excluded and rejected. It's not enough to learn the truth unless I also learn to live it. It's not enough to reach for love unless I care enough to give it.”

Check out the other side.

Take time to examine and understand another point of view, even if it radically contradicts yours. You may see things in a new light, or you may have your old convictions strengthened. Personal convictions that have been tested remain flabby.

“Getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them.” Norman Vincent Peale

Read broadly.

Include a diversity of books, authors, and topics. Resist the temtation to read only those books that reinforce what you already believe.

“The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them” Mark Twain

“Don't just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.”

Keep a journal.
Recording what we learn captures our growth in wisdom.

“Journal writing is a voyage to the interior"

Experiment.
Try new approaches and ideas. Age does not affect your ability to learn. An eighty-year-old can learn to surf the net like an eighteen-year-old.

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Apply what you know.

Our depth of understanding is often directly related to our ability to apply what we've learned. Application takes knowledge from the head to the heart.

“The results you achieve will be in direct proportion to the effort you apply.” Denis Waitley

“Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.” Brian Tracy