Why you should (and how to) make learning a priority in 2020

« The key to success is dedication to life-long learning. » — Stephen Covey

Picture yourself a few years down the road. What would you like to have accomplished, where would you like to be? Whether you have a clear picture or not, one thing is sure: your actions of today will determine your life of tomorrow. In this post, I will dive into why you should (and mostly how you can) make learning a priority in 2020.

Why you should make learning a priority in 2020

Although we often overestimate what we can do in a day, we always greatly underestimate the number of things we can achieve in 10 years. By dedicating your life to learning something new every day, you can become an expert in any field in 10 years, or you can be rich your choice 🤷🏾‍♂️. Making learning a priority in your life today is the best way to design your life of tomorrow.

Dream

But don’t just take my word for it, find the « why » for yourself. Why would you rather learn how to dance or code this year? What is ideally your end goal? And do you do it for yourself or because you feel like you have to? As Friedrich Nietzsche nicely puts it: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”.

How to make learning a priority in 2020

In 2020, with the Internet and all the other resources available to us, finding resources to feed your curiosity is not the most difficult. The hardest part is rather to build the right systems, the right habits to make sure you’re learning every day, whether you want it or not. Here are a few habits that will put you on the path to success.

Define what you want to learn

Learning how to cook, how to play an instrument, how to code, or even how to speak in public, there is literally no limit to what you can learn this year... as long as you decide clearly what you want to learn.

But don’t just decide like that on a hunch, experiment! Choose a field, and see how it goes, if you like learning it if you find the time or the right resources to do so. And when you found it, just go all in!

Build the right systems

The headrest thing about dedicating your life to something is actually to... find the time to do so. No one will just hand you time to play with, most likely you will still have to go to school or have a daily job to pay the bills. And that’s okay. With the right system, you can still make sure you progress every day. I will dive into this more in upcoming posts, but I’d personally suggest you to:

• Build a morning routine (read and discover mine here),
• Make the most out of the empty or slow slots in your day by always having a book (or whatever you use to learn) on you,
• Find like-minded people who also want to learn and can keep you accountable,
• Keep a journal of your accomplishments.

Learning Together

Find the right resources and don’t be afraid to invest

Sometimes learning requires investing not just money, but time and energy also. As soon as you’re clear with what you want to learn, don’t be afraid to invest. Take it as a mark of faith from your present self to your future self.

Read books

Read books to learn faster

Through books is the way humanity chose to transmit knowledge, so if you want to learn, to really dive into a subject, then there is most definitely a book out there waiting for you, whatever the field!

I want to emphasize the fact that... you don’t have to read a textbook, or a boring 900 pages manual about your field. No, you can find bits of knowledge pretty much everywhere. I would personally suggest biographies of celebrities who inspire you. Or find fictional books that can inspire you while broadening your vision. If a book so much inspires you to learn more about what you read, then it has accomplished its purpose.

How do I personally implement it into my life? I’ll read a few pages from a Self-Help or Science book every morning and read fiction for the rest of the day. Either way, I open myself to learn and get my mind widened with everything I read.

Find an online community

The last tip, find an online community! Whatever you’re trying to learn, even in the niche-est field, there is a strong likelihood that a community about it already exists online. So, find it!

Find your community

Finding your community is amazing on quite a lot of levels. First, you’ll have the sense that you’re not alone on your path, that you’re not the only one struggling at times, etc. Then you’ll also and mostly have hands-on access to many other resources tried and shared by other community members. Practical, isn’t it? Here are a few places (but not the only ones) to start looking for your community:

• Stack Overflow
• Medium

Let’s chat

Here, that’s all for me this week. I hope that you enjoyed this post! Now, what are your tips and tricks to prioritize learning in your everyday life? Is it something that you value or would you rather go with the flow?