Never Stop Learning!

When you graduated from college, or even from your masteral or doctorate degrees, you thought your job to learn ends there. This may sound already a little cliché, but learning doesn’t stop from graduation. In fact, graduation is just the start of another journey towards new learning, whatever it will come to you or whatever you are curious about.

We are all naturally curious. We wanted to try things we have never done in our lives. We have different reasons to learn something that just came across or we’re required to do so, and whatever our reasons are always yields experience, no matter how positive or negative they are.

From my observations, and even from my experiences, sadly, we only wanted to learn things if we are required to. There is already no sense of curiosity nor challenge to it. The reason is simple: we’re afraid to take risks and even afraid of taking hard challenges. As I have said in my previous posts, there is no such thing as an easy task, and the more we step backwards to a challenge, the more we let go of our goals in life: to become more than what we are now.

Learning things is like breeding a domesticated animal, let’s say a cow. You have it, you want to have it socialized with fellow cows, and the more it gets accustomed with fellow cows, the more it learns to be with them and eventually, mate with one of them to multiply, and the result? You’ll have a good market. So imagine if you’re currently studying about something just because you’re curious about it, and then all of a sudden you came across a certain topic or item that sparked your interest, and then you’ll realize that you’re starting to open multiple tabs on your desktop or smartphone to find out more about that topic, or even see yourself in a library researching over that topic — without any teacher or boss telling you that you have to do it. It’s your curiosity that kicked in, and that’s a great thing. It might become overwhelming in the end, but at least you’re able to learn something new — and even applied it to your everyday task. This may sound like what writers do to come up with a good material to write, but this doesn’t apply to writers alone.

Investing in learning something will work surprisingly on your resume or online portfolio, especially nowadays that most jobs will require you to have an experience over something. So even if you haven’t been in a certain job or it wasn’t a line of your expertise, at least you have some kind of certification or training that you have done it, and you can proudly add that to your resume. You’ll never know that those are the requirements those recruiters need to hire you.

Now, you will ask, “How can I learn those things? I’ve never tried that before!” The best answer should start with you, if you are motivated enough to take up the challenges and try things you haven’t done simply by studying them. How will you acquire those new skills and knowledge that you’re curious to know and learn? There are a lot of ways that you can try.

• Browse. You have your computer. You have your smartphone. You have some books at home, or if none, you have means to go to the nearest library and even buy a book if you can afford one. Curiosity starts with searching for a topic and checking the links one my one (Disclaimer: you’re responsible for the content you’re reading, so if you’re not comfortable reading it in full due to some topics that you find too sensitive, you’re free to close the tab right away and move on to the next).
• Ask. Don’t be afraid to ask for a second — or even, a third opinion. If you’re unsure of their answers, expect more people who can answer your question, no matter how strange it may sound to them. At least you’ve tried and learned something, right?
• Invest in tutorials and trainings. Virtual trainings and self-study videos are a thing nowadays for those who wanted to learn some tasks or they simply just want to learn more. Most online classes are paid if you want to get quality training from the experts, but if you’re only the curious type or has no budget to get into online classes, YouTube will be your best friend in learning stuff. Udemy has a variety of courses that you can enroll in, but they are mostly paid, but I recommend it since they cover a lot of topics that you can choose from which can help improve your CV — plus they give you certifications after finishing each course.
• Do the practicum. Whether your teacher or employer will require you or not, better do it while studying. Applying the skills will give you hands-on experience on how experts or hired employees do it — now that’s another experience you can add up to your CV. Most companies offer on-the-job trainings for students, especially within the food and hotel industry, mass communication, business and medical fields. Most companies also give new hires extensive training before putting them in the production floor. Same goes with virtual assistants, where some of their clients will provide them training and enough materials to master some skills needed for the required task.
• DON’T STOP LEARNING. As mentioned earlier, learning doesn’t stop in graduation from college or from a certain course. Processes and ideas change and grow from time to time. No one is stuck to a certain knowledge only. Continue to learn or you’ll end up knowing only what you believe and read without thinking of the consequences that you might miscalculate or misread just one word or figure.

The key for you to keep on learning is to keep the flame of curiosity alive within you. It may seem to be a chore at first, but remember that your curiosity and drive to learn new things will be your weapon against PROCRASTINATION. You can’t just rely on stock knowledge alone, since ideas born and multiply every second. By continuously learning, who knows if suddenly, an idea will pop up in your mind and you can’t wait to share it to anyone who also wants to learn from you.