The Journey to Learning - Any New Skill

Learning is a Journey

The Treasure is in the Journey

Do you remember the old saying " The Journey is the Treasure"?  - Lloyd Alexander

We - as professionals - never stop learning for countless reasons. One of which is that the market is a dynamic place and whatever your area of work is, there will be something new every day – plus, you have competitors who are upgrading constantly to win the market. For some, learning is an enjoyable process, for others – like me – they keep learning as they trust that Knowledge is Power.

Many people – professionals included – have queries that pop up in their mind once they are exposed to learning a new thing or skill – call it a need to learn a new thing. Examples of these common queries and questions are:

• 
  Is it hard to start learning “X”? 
  

• Do I need to be smart to start learning “X”?

• Do I need to be young to learn a new skill ?

• Do I need a college/university degree?

• Is it expensive?

• will learning new skills be profitable?

And some more …

Our brains are designed for safety and comfort, accordingly; once your brain intuits the start of an innovative approach, it sends an alarm for hardness, discomfort, or even danger. It’s God’s design to keep you alive anyway. But, it’s up to you to give up or move on. Start small and divide what you learn into chunks. Keep it simple in the beginning and simultaneously new challenges will come up to the surface. Now that we know why and how we feel hardness and stress, first query is covered:

"It is NOT hard to start learning, it is just your brain who gives you this illusion"

People who designed space rockets are normal people like you and me. They only had passion, determination, perseverance, readiness to practice and practice till it hurts, and overall, they accept failure as a one step forward on the road towards success. The legendary iconic Muhammad Ali when asked "When do you start counting the sit-ups?", he said: "I don't count the sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting because they're the only ones that count. That's what makes you a champion.".

 Some psychologists – such as Dr. Jordan P. Peterson – believe that IQ is a myth. I highly tend to go with this statement since skills remain skills, and skills – any skills – are learnable. Since any new skill can be acquired and learned, then we have covered the second concern with a simple answer: “No, you don’t need to be smart to start learning”

We see some astonishing examples for people over 70 years old who started learning new skills and built a career for their own. Some people even graduated from college after their 60th birthday anniversary. The connection some people established between learning and age is also a myth. We have live examples of people in their sixties or seventies who learned to code, and got a job in web development agencies and they are doing very well and established a new career. So, simply, the answer for the third query is: "Never too old to start learning. You don't have to be young to learn anything."

In our modern world, skills and experience pay off. We cannot underestimate college/university degrees for sure, these are people who worked hard and even paid to get a degree, but the market needs people who have practical skills – with or without a college certificate. Elon Musk said: "A college degree isn't required for a job at Tesla — and Apple, Google, and Netflix don't require employees to have 4-year degrees either". Giant companies like Google and Apple are hiring employees who have the skills required to get jobs done, with or without a degree. (Akhtar, 2020) . With that being said, the answer for the fourth query is: “No, you don’t need a college/university degree to start learning”

Learning has sources, options and tools that you can use. The good news is, most of the tools are free when it comes to learning a new skill. Still, it's up to you to pick up the finest tools or to get a private mentor to pay for in order to learn something. Keep in mind, even paid tools and apps are different, so the options are up to you. There are countless groups on social media, websites, or forums for people who share your interest where they post tutorials, Q&As, samples, videos, and discussions, so join them - for free. There are also cheap sites for courses where you can speed up your learning through a mentor who designs a course based on special criteria and dedicates a section to reply to your queries. That illustrates the fifth common concern as: "With available modern tools, learning is not expensive and there are free tools to use. In the end of the day, it's up to you to decide to pick up the paid ones."

Since starting a new process of learning is based originally on a need or a specific necessity, it can be developed to be an extendable career or even a new one. As I mentioned earlier, some people started learning coding and programming out of a specific need, and ended up with a whole new career. That needs extra focus on the process to develop - I can say incorporate - a commercial approach to be tanged with your new skills. If we take learning VBA for excel as a way to develop your financial analytical reports at work, if you focus to enhance and enlarge these skills, you can make your own solutions based on market needs. So, the good news is: "Yes, learning new skills can be profitable when you develop the skills commercially to meet the market needs"

To summarize, NEVER stop learning whether you are a professional employee or as a person. Be always hungry for knowing new things and developing your skills as you go. You never know when you will need a specific skill, and the more you wait, the greater the regret will be. Age is just a number, so do not bound yourself to the idea of getting old - your mind will eventually act the way you tell it to act. All you need to start with is passion to learn. Once you start with passion, I promise you, you will NEVER stop. People used to say " Practice makes perfect", I say " Practice makes Permanent". Make it a habit to learn new things, make it a habit to practice daily. After all, habits become permanent, so learn to construct good habits. It's consistency entangled with passion that will get you to the champions line. 

Remember, you will not like it when you are 60 and looking back to your life with regret on things you wish you would have - at least - tried out.