Cultivating the most important skill in life

A few years ago, whilst I was in an L&D leadership role at a large organisation, a graduate approached me in the kitchen.

She got straight to the point, “I’ve been here for nine months and I haven’t had any learning” she said. I asked what she meant. What transpired was she hadn’t been sent on an internal training course since her induction.

She was, however, being put through her accountancy qualification. I asked about that course, what she was learning and how she was bringing it back into her daily work.

“That’s different”, she responded, “I’ve got to do that”.

Which brings me to the question; does any formal learning institution really teach us the most important skill in life; how to learn? How to direct, curate, create and apply our own sense of learning adventure on an ongoing basis, and not just as a one-off event?

To me, a learning mindset comes down to four things; intention, attention, creation and reflection.

Intention – or deciding what you want to learn

I use the word ‘want’ on purpose. Possibly because I’m still scarred from many years of going through, and subjugating others to, ‘mandatory’ learning. But I truly believe that the best learning you will do, will be the topics that pique your interest. And because you’ll be interested, you’ll be more inclined to disappear down the rabbit hole to go deeper, and broader into the area.

Now of course, there will always be skills that you *should* learn. The ones that will make a difference for your future career or life ambitions. In which case, start with the one that interests you most. The one that jumps out and bites you on the nose. You’ll likely find that this is the easy entry point to many of the others.

At a micro level, set your learning intent for each project you get to work on, each day you get to enjoy and each meeting you get to endure. Go into all of them with something you want to observe, practice or get feedback on. The old adage of ‘every day is a school day’ might just have some truth to it. We just need to plan the lessons.

Attention – or looking around you

When deciding what to learn, you’d do well to be nosey. Look at people who you admire, what do they do well? Even better, talk to them. How did they develop those skills? Why did they choose to invest their learning time in one skill over another? What are they learning at the moment? They may also give you useful insights about your particular industry or role and what they see as important emerging skills.

Level up: go out of your way to find out what you might be wrong about. If you’re 100% sure that the font Comic Sans will never go out of fashion on websites, find someone who disagrees. If you don’t think auditors, or lawyers, or surgeons, can ever be replaced by technology (or a new blend of technology + human), find someone who’s already assuming that’s the case.

Creation – or think beyond the course

Before I go on, I’m not against courses. I have done many, am currently doing one, and will continue to do more. However, there is so much more to learning than just signing up for your next official piece of paper.

How could you make every day more … learny … by turning your daily activities into learning moments? For example …

• Practice the skills of deep listening and asking better questions by listening to an interview podcast and thinking about what question you would ask the interviewee next
• Improve your video confidence and presentation skills by sending video messages to friends instead of text messages / emails
• Build creative thinking by coming up with analogies for simple problems you face during the day
• Ask to shadow someone for an hour to observe how they work (shadowing is such a powerful but underused learning tool)
• Get better at synthesising and communicating ideas by telling a friend about the key ideas from a book/article you’ve recently read

Level up: brainstorm 20 ways you could learn your desired skill that doesn’t involve going on a course.

Reflection – or learn about your learning

This is where the magic happens. Reflection (and then application or practice) of what you’ve learnt will help to cement the ideas, commit them to memory and bring them to life. This can be both individual (journaling / keeping a video or audio learning diary of your progress and practice) and social (I recommend finding a learning friend or two).

You might start a book club with a colleague, plan debates together with your sister to expand critical thinking, build empathetic questioning skills with your intolerable aunt and join an improv group with a childhood friend to stretch your cognitive flexibility. It doesn’t need to be the same friend for all your learning, and you don’t even need to be learning the same thing to help each other learn.

Level up: teach. Teaching not only embeds what you’ve learnt but tests it in new ways as the other person asks questions and challenges your thinking. There are multiple ways you can do this, but importantly it doesn’t need to be a formal setting. The other person doesn’t even need to apply any of the lessons. If you’re already getting social with your learning, try teaching each other. Don’t forget, you don’t need to be an expert to teach something, you just need to know a little bit more than the other person.

Regardless of what you ‘have’ to learn, try something new. If you’re lucky enough to work for an organisation that does provide learning experiences, dip your toes a little bit further outside of the set curriculum. Lead yourself through learning. And of course, don’t feel constrained by ‘work’ topics. Cultivate the mindset of learning in all and every facet of your life. Pick up a new language, learn to cook dumplings, become a yoga instructor.

And whatever you do, don’t stop learning.

Author

Steph Clarke is a facilitator, podcaster, bookworm and lifelong learner. You can find her posting on LinkedIn and Instagram and talking about books on Steph’s Business Bookshelf. As of right now (late 2020) she’s immersing herself in a graphic design course to enhance her visual communication and visual problem-solving skillsets.

Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash