Embarking on a journey of lifelong learning? Discover how to seamlessly integrate educational habits into your daily routine. Unearth ten practical strategies that can transform your life into a thriving hub of continuous learning and personal growth.
Learning is more than waking up one day and deciding you want to pick up something new. It’s a path with many steps towards the summit.
To help us achieve our goals in life and at work, learning must be purposeful
- When learning is at the center of your mindset, you’ll have the foundations and motivation to build positive learning habits
- Learn something small and put it into action every day
Design With Simplicity
Set a simple goal of reading one article a week and practicing its tenets deeply.
- Take your learning in short bites. Focus on one thing at a time. Get it right. Then, move on to the next thing.
- For example, read one entire book and implement what you’ve learned from it.
Start with phases and sprints
Once you have your theme for the month, break it down into even smaller phases of learning opportunities.
- Work in short sprints (five to seven days at the most) to identify what does and does not work and make small changes as you go.
Share your learnings with others
When someone else is aware of your goals and aspirations, you tend to be far more successful.
- Not only that, collaborative learning is often more fun. Everyone knows that learning alone is hard to maintain – the fun and social nature creates more momentum.
Steps to build a daily learning habit
Motivation opens the door to learning, but it doesn’t make learning happen
- Plan for implementation is what makes the process effective
- Use these ten simple steps to help you adopt the behaviors you need to give yourself an edge
Embed Learning in Your Daily Routine
Design all of your learning so it fits around your daily routine
- Don’t try and create a new way of living your life, design habits so they fit around your lifestyle
- Use whatever tool, medium, or process fits the most simplistic use-case
Create a master timeline of your goals
What do you want to learn and achieve by each point in time? What’s your vision?
- Block your timeline into chunks such as months or categories, then decide what series of skills you need to acquired along the way to meet your goals
Make each habit do-able in sequential steps
Choose actions you can complete in five minutes
- Build upon one topic at a time with knowledge that relates to a previous piece of information
- Keep your learning habit under five minutes and then take on longer bits of information when you’ve got into the rhythm of learning in short sharp bursts
Reflection and continuous re-design
Once you take action every single day, you will have a more positive mindset and psychologically be in a better place, allowing you to then execute on what you want to learn
- The macro longer term aspiration will still be in motion – you must not forget.
So how can you start?
Reading this article is a sign that you’re at least in the pre-contemplative stage of making change.
Don’t try to create more than 3 new habits at one time
A habit is the result of intentional and deliberate action performed repeatedly, with purpose, until it becomes a standard behavior.
- Focus on just three, master them, then start on the next set of habits to develop.
Visualize Your Process Working
Define your timeline and visualize what you are working towards
- Visualize specific skills and habits that will lead you to your goals
- Create actions that will build those skills
- What it will look like in your day-to-day life
Get going and learn
It isn’t enough to get excited and buy the books and courses when you’re motivated. It’s about the action.
