Lifelong Learning, Why it’s Important to Me
“The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.” — Brian Herbert
Do you ever feel like you are learning so much or doing so much that your brain is swimming with information and you don’t know what to do with all it? That is how I am feeling right now!
The past two weeks have been filled with recording guest speaker interviews and organizing all the behind the scenes details. Just today I scheduled one of the last interviews and managed to schedule it at the exact same time that I have a haircut appointment! How does that happen? I try to be organized, but sometimes I epically fail! My to do list feels like it goes on forever. I’ll admit that are a couple things on my list that I do not have a clue what I am doing so I keep pushing them to the bottom of the list. At some point I am going to have to face them head on and get them done. In fact, one of them needs to be tackled NOW! But I decided to write today’s blog post instead!
As I was brainstorming ideas to name my business I was thinking about what is most important to me and what do I want to promote in others? I kept coming back to the adage, lifelong learning. For me personally I want to keep learning and growing as a person until the day I take my last breath. Learning For Life is a very personal name for me. It speaks to who I am as an individual and what I want to help others accomplish.
One of the reasons this idea of learning for life is so impactful for me is because of several experiences that I had working with teachers across the United States. For now, I’ll focus on the first time this situation happened. I was in Denver, Colorado doing a one day teacher training on guided reading (guided reading is teaching reading to a small group of students, usually about six). At the beginning of the training, there is a question posed to the audience that asks them to think back on a time they learned something new and how did that make them feel? The next question was what was the role of the person teaching you? Out of approximately 50 teachers, only two people could think of something new that they had recently learned how to do. That realization was startling to me. It made me pause and ask myself why do people stop pursuing new things to learn? And also ask, what is different about people that keep pursuing new things to try and learn? I still have A LOT of things on my bucket list that I want to learn. Scuba diving is one. I still have a deep desire to get my doctorate degree in education as well, but time is ticking away on that one. Maybe that is why I am crazy enough to want to start a new business at this stage of my life.
I challenge you to pause for a moment and ask yourself this, what is the last new thing I learned? If you were able to come up with something recently, congratulations! If it’s been a while for you, I challenge you to take some time and think about something that you would like to learn and then take the necessary steps to make it happen! Don’t let today pass you by without doing or learning something new!
If you would like more information about the FREE Learning For Life Summit Event, please click the link below and get on my email list.
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass
The joy is in the journey!
Blessings and Peace,
Mary
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