Back in August of 2021 I wrote about the importance of continuous learning. This means actively doing things to learn and grow as an individual. This can mean reading books, taking online courses, practicing your existing skills, and learning new skills.
I now believe that you need to do more than just continuous learning. I think you need to be international about your learning.
In his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, John C. Maxwell teaches 15 things we can do to actively learn and grow. The first lesson in his book, and the one that I think is the most important, is that you need to be intentional with your learning and have a plan for your learning. After reading about this important law of growth, I thought about how I could be intentional in my learning and I decided to write this blog article to share how I have decided to be intentional with my learning.
To be intentional with my learning, I have decided to do something every day to learn and grow, and the first thing I will do is take John Maxwell’s advice by focusing on learning from one chapter of his book a week. This means I will be reading from The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth every week for 15 weeks, and doing my best to apply the lessons it teaches. I already read the book cover to cover but now I will focus on reading one chapter each week for the next 15 weeks, reading through each week’s chapter every morning that week. This will help me to absorb the lessons for that chapter and will help me put the lessons from each chapter into practice.
The second thing I will do is to have a plan for my learning. I will do this by creating a learning plan for the coming week every Sunday. On Sunday evening I will decide which book(s) I will read that week and what training videos I will watch on LinkedIn Learning that week. This will ensure I am learning something new every week. I will also choose each week which personal projects to work on to practice my skills and to develop new skills.
I have also incorporated into my learning plan a monthly overview where I will decide what areas of focus I will learn from for each month. For example, this month my focus is on learning from the The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, learning project management, and learning Python programming. By focusing on a small set of topics to learn from each month I will be sure not to overwhelm myself and each week I will choose approaches to learn in each area of focus I have selected for that month.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I strongly recommend continuous learning. Not only that, I encourage you to be intentional with your learning.
Choose each month which areas you are going to learn and grow in. Create weekly learning plans where you identify how you are going to learn in those areas. Then carry out those plans to learn and grow.
If you feel really ambitious, do something every day to learn and grow. I also recommend reading The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth to be inspired and to find valuable strategies for learning and growing.