Be a Life-Long Student: 4 Tips

Sparkplugging is starting a new tradition called ?Spark an Idea Thursday?. Each week we?ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to?grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired! The theme of this week’s Spark an Idea Thursday is Spark an Idea About Being a Lifetime Learner.
_____________________________

I’m incurably curious.  Maybe it’s a sickness, maybe I’m a little “off” or maybe it helps me learn something new almost everyday.

Ok, ok, I did love school.

I loved it!  I loved learning, being in class and expanding my mind.  I also loved being an exchange student my entire senior year in high school.  I spent the year abroad in a remote small town in Japan.  Talk about expanding this small town girl’s mind!  I also think it’s what helped me want to learn more about the world around me.

How can you become a life-long learner?

Read like there’s no tomorrow.
There is so much information out there to learn and enjoy between the first and last pages of a book -  and I don’t just mean business-related books!  Have you read “Pride & Prejudice”?  “Anna Karenina”?  Oscar Wilde?  Thoreau?  “Memoirs of a Geisha”?
Over the past year, I decided I needed to expand my reading outside of business books into fiction and the classics.  I am so glad I did!  Give it a try and get reading or listening to audiobooks.  You’ll never be able to read all the great literature out there in a lifetime, but you can sure give it your best shot!

Satisfy your curiousity.
Want to learn how to knit?  Buy a book or join a knitting group.  Never made a killer homemade chocolate cake before? Try this recipe.  If you’re curious about something and want to learn more, ask questions.  Don’t worry about feeling foolish because you don’t know the answer.  You might be surprised what you learn when you’re curious about the world around you.

Listen more, talk less.
A person I admire once said to me, “Wise people talk very little.”  Think of someone you know who has an incredible amount of knowledge and wisdom.  Are they talkers or listeners?  I’ve found them to be listeners.

Learning is stretching.
There’s so much to learn in our world, and with the universal body of knowledge multiplying every second there’s no way to learn it all!  A good place to start is an area in your life or business you feel unsure about.  Gain a skill in that area, even if it’s a stretch.  Go beyond your comfort level and expand your mind.   Think of it like stretching: the more you do it, the easier it becomes.  (Trust me, learning Japanese was, and is, a real mind bender.  It was also well worth it.)

Are you a life-long learner?  What do you want to know more about?