Last article we wrote about how you should go through difficult situations to progress. One of these areas is learning when you are not obliged to do it anymore. When you start your first job you will continue to learn at work, but why not do something extra and continue to learn at home? This doesn’t have to be boring and neither does it have to affect your work instantly. Find something that you enjoy learning and that will potentially either help you in your current job, in a future job or at home. The best example for this is learning a new language that could be usefull in the future. While others are focussing on maintaining you are adding something extra which will help immensely in the future.
Can learning become your new hobby? If someone asks you at a job interview or even at a bar what your hobbies are you will never answer: “learning”. Unless you want to show off it will not be your response. Unlike what you tell other people it can for you personally feel as a hobby, something you love spending time at and you focus on. It can be constantly improving a language, playing an instrument, playing a sport and so on. Or you can find new activities to improve a small part of your life. For example learning to juggle for a couple of weeks will improve your hand-eye coordination, increase your eye sight and even increase your reflexes. Some of the benefits even remain after a long time. After 2 years my reflexes have stayed the same after learning to juggle for only a couple of weeks.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. – Mahatma Gandhi
There are mainly two reasons why you wouldn’t continue to learn. You either have no motivation to push it through untill it has benefits or you believe it wont have benefits. If you are only willing to put a short amount of time into learning most information is not as helpfull. However there is always something that will help you. Even if it only allows you to listen to others speaking about it, understanding them and continue learning from what they tell you. For example you can read up on how to improve your health. Without having to push it too much you can learn a decent amount by focussing on it for a couple of weeks. Afterwards you will understand nearly everything that fitness enthusiasts talk about. If it is not the case they will gladly explain it and therefore you are learning something new without spending too much time on it.
Back in the day when going to school studying wasn’t cool, everyone tried to avoid learning as much as possible. The earlier you get to appreciate the struggle the faster you will receive the benefits from them. Both the benefits you expect as those you didn’t know existed. Learning how to play an instrument will add a fun element, it will relax you, have a great time with friends playing music. Aside from these you will enable rare benefits: improved mental health, better connection with music, appreciation of timing.