6 Extremely Important Reasons Why You Should Be Committed To Lifelong Learning

Many people wonder what they can do to become well-rounded and competitive while increasing their rate of success in life. An often overlooked yet simple way to improve is to increase your knowledge by being a self-starter.

Traditional and structured education can be important and helpful, but to be truly successful you have to dedicate yourself to the concept of lifelong learning. These individuals prioritize  the idea of educating themselves daily regardless of how busy they are. These individuals understand the importance of creating plentiful opportunities in all spheres of life.

In this post, I will share with you 6 extremely important reasons why you should be committed to lifelong learning:

1. You’ll Earn More

Fifty or sixty years ago, you could finish college and you’d have all the education you needed for the rest of your life. You don’t have that luxury in today’s job market. Skills that were cutting edge five years ago are likely out of date, and the jobs that we will perform in the next decade or two probably don’t even exist yet. If you want to stay competitive in today’s world and potentially earn more money, you need to become a daily learner.

Not only can will becoming a lifelong learner help you earn more money in traditional employment, but it’s also the key to finding success in your own businesses. If you’re looking to increase your salary, your job might not be your problem. Instead you might be missing out on opportunities because your education isn’t up to date.

2. Lifelong Learning Will Help You Cultivate Vision

Some people face the problem of being confused on what direction to take. They don’t really know which way they want to go in life, so they just wander aimlessly and soon become stagnant and stale. However, that isn’t the way to live.

The solution to this problem is having fresh vision. Vision gives us direction and motivates us to pursue a better reality. But where does vision come from? What is the optimum environment in which vision is spawned? Vision comes from a mind that is exposed to new ideas and learning about new happenings.

3. Lifelong Learning Keeps Your Brain Healthy

Henry Ford said, “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.” Nearly 100 years later, science is continue to validate Henry Ford’s wise words.

Education seems to be an elixir that can bring us a healthy body and mind throughout adulthood and even extend peoples lives. Learning new things can also help stave off old-age ailments like dementia and Alzheimer’s. One study has shown that older folks who stay cognitively active and curious about the world around them are 2.6 times less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s than those who let their minds lie fallow.

4. Lifelong Learning Will Keep You Current

The rate of change in society has dramatically increased. During the agricultural age, paradigm shifts occurred over thousands of years. The industrial age produced paradigm shifts, first in a century and then in a generation. At the start of the information age, paradigms appeared to shift at the rate of three per lifetime. It suggests that beginning in the year 2000, paradigm shifts have begun to occur at the rate of seven to ten per lifetime.

This rapid rate of change makes lifelong learning essential because if you’re not growing and learning, you will quickly become antiquated and obsolete. It is more difficult to excel in life than ever before. In every area of life, the bar is being raised. Yesterday’s best is today’s norm. Today’s norm will soon be subpar. Individuals and organizations will find competing increasingly difficult and it’s going to be almost impossible to survive. Ongoing success will come from ongoing learning.

5. You’ll Feel More Satisfied With Life 

When you’re constantly learning, you get to decide what you’re going to learn about. Instead of being a passive consumer of knowledge, you’re actively choosing what you’re learning. In other words, you’re autonomous. As you learn new skills, you’ll enjoy the positive feeling that comes with mastery.

The satisfaction that comes with lifelong learning doesn’t stop there. The more you know about the world, the deeper you can plunge into it and the more levels of it you can experience. Whether you’re traveling, conversing, visiting a museum, watching a movie, or reading a book, your library of knowledge helps you make connections that you would never have otherwise perceived.

6. Lifelong Learning Is Enjoyable

The main reason we should be lifelong learners is for the sheer joy of it. The world is a fascinating place that provides innumerable areas to investigate and explore. Consider the areas of study offered by a major university: anthropology, chemistry, psychology, music, journalism, biology, history, art, architecture, and others. If you want to learn about those things, you can pursue formal education or informal education.

The World Wide Web gives us instant, current access to most of the world’s knowledge. With lifelong learning, you aren’t tied to pursue topics and ideas that you aren’t interested in. You can follow things that you’re passionate about and that will make learning fun, instead of tedious.

Conclusion

Learning should not stop after you have finished a degree or achieved success. They say that the only thing that is constant is change. To be able to cope with all the changes that take place, one must engage himself or herself in lifelong learning. In this post, I shared with you 6 extremely important reasons why you should be committed to lifelong learning.