“Those who will succeed in the 21st century are not those who can read & write, but who can unlearn, learn and re-learn, again and again” – Alvin Toffler
We live in times when breathtaking technological changes; dramatic business paradigm shifts are occurring all around us. If we are out of touch with things for a week, we begin to feel several steps behind. If we are not aware of the changes around and not able to adapt & change as necessary, we will be slowly dropping out of the race. Hence, we must keep learning to be successful professionally.
The steps in lifelong learning are:
- Learn to learn
- Learn to apply
- Learn to teach
- Teach to learn
There will be sure some roadblocks for us in lifelong learning as this requires some amount of dedication. Few challenges to overcome in lifelong learning are:
- Making time to learn
- Deciding what to learn
- Getting over personal ego
- Not having inclusiveness
- Organizational or managerial blocks
We humans always have many misconceptions. It may have been passed on from our parents, relatives, friends, colleagues, etc, but we never do a research and find what actually happened or why it is thought so. We also follow the same misconceptions and pass it on to others.
The various misconceptions about lifelong learning are:
- Learning is optional and can be done only if one gets free time
- Learning means attending classes and getting a certificate of some sort
- Un-monitored learning is not fruitful
- Learning can be acquired only from professional teachers or people with a lot of experience
Remember, learning involves not just what we do, but how we take it and apply it to our life, how it changes our life and the lives of others. Finally, the quality of our life depends directly on the quality of lifelong learning.