#01 Decide What To Learn
The Start Of The Personal Learning Journey
Once the realisation of the need for continuous learning has sunk in, the personal learning journey can begin in earnest. The next step step is to decide what to learn.
With so many tools, techniques and technologies to choose from it can pose a serious dilemma when deciding how to invest your precious time. Here are a few questions and pointers that may help you decide.
Follow Your Interests / Passions
What goal or objective do you want to achieve?
What are you interested in or already passionate about?
What do you want to be famous for?
The answers to these questions might be a clue as to what you should pursue to learn more about. Following our interests and passions is half the battle of gaining the motivation to learn. Seeing ourselves making progress fuels the continued commitment.
Objective Learning
Making learning a secondary objective compared to the achievement of a primary goal or objective might help you identify what you should learn.
Learning something for the sake of learning might not provide enough motivation to turn your intention into an achievement but working towards a specific goal or objective for which learning is a necessary step (call it a side effect) might prove just the ticket to both learning and success.
Role Model Ambitions
Is there someone in a role whose footsteps you'd like to follow?
Perhaps there is a different role that you have always wanted to embrace. Why not speak to someone already in that role and find out how they got started in it so that you gain some helpful advice to get started in it for yourself? Don't just ask one person, ask several as each will have a different story of the journey they took. There's nothing like ambition to drive an enthusiasm for learning.
Build On Your Existing Strengths
What are your existing strengths?
It may well be that you already possess a vast body of knowledge or a number of well-honed technical skills that you can build upon further. You don't need to go back to "square one".
Become A Subject Matter Expert (SME)
To grow in our jobs requires that we keep on growing and learning long after our formal schooling is done. The more we’re able to know and the more skills we acquire, the more value we can offer to our employers. Employers often make it very plain where they see their business heading and the skills they will likely need to get there. Why not become part of that plan?
Becoming a SME is one way that you can gain recognition and respect from your colleagues as well as reward from your employer but this isn't something you can achieve overnight. It will likely take months and maybe even years but it's a guaranteed way to stand out from the crowd whilst following your interests / passion.
Never Too Late To Change Direction
In making a decision on what to learn it's never too late to change direction. You can always change your mind and learn something else if what you chose turns out not to be what you expected.
Try to be realistic about the journey you are about to embark on and set yourself up with the right support and people around you to give yourself every opportunity for success. For some people it's just a matter of making the time for the journey in order to fulfil their potential.
Good luck with whatever you choose to learn and remember to have fun along the way.
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Tim Simpson
#OldDogNewTrick