In a fast changing world, there is a limited shelf life to your entrepreneurial knowledge and expertise.
If you are not learning, improving, and achieving better results, you will eventually become irrelevant and redundant.
Make learning a vital, integral and habitual part of your life.
Walk the journey of learning, growth, and continuos improvements with your team mates.
If you are not motivated to learn, all the best trainers, trainings and training resources will have no impact on your life.
However, if you are keen to learn, there are lessons at every given moment of your life.
There are also an infinite number of teachers waiting to teach you in many different ways.
1. Learning Plan
To ensure optimal learning, you need to develop a learning plan.
Determine the gap between current and desired competencies. Then look at ways to bridge it in an efficient way.
Treat your daily life as a classroom to learn, improve, and achieve better results.
By doing that, you will be in a better position to achieve your learning goals and outcomes.
There are many doors to this 24/7 classroom of life. Please don’t limit yourself to any particular way to get access to the classroom.
Please allow me to list some of the learning pathways.
2. Learning Environment
You are the result of the people you interact with and the environment you choose to live in.
Choose your friends carefully, including friends on the Internet.
As they say, if you want to fly with eagles, don’t mix around with turkeys.
Ensure that the environment around you is conducive to learning and improvements.
Do not, for example, join a club or be involved in an online community that can only have a negative influence on your life.
3. Learning Community
To enhance your learning experience, join different networks of people who share similar vision, values and lifestyle.
Commit to inspire and motivate one another to achieve respective dream and goals.
Share with each other knowledge, information, and ideas.
Help each other develop the appropriate knowledge and skill set to achieve success.
Fine tune each other’s aspirations and line of actions and watch over each other on the journey of life.
4. Formal Learning
This is a form of learning that you should be familiar with.
Typically, it involves interactions between a teacher and a student in a formal educational setting, eg. a classroom.
Keep up to date by attending credible seminars and conferences.
Participate in programmes that will help you achieve your desired outcomes and results.
5. Informal Learning
There are many useful lessons that can be harnessed from daily observations and interactions. These learning modes can be conducted on a personal basis or in a group.
Make it a point to proactively meet people in gatherings, clubs, workshops, and exhibitions.
Seek out great leaders and initiate discussions with them so as to tap on their wealth of knowledge. These discussions can also be done through forums on the Internet.
By asking the right questions and listening carefully, it can propel you to a higher level of learning, improvement and growth.
6. Inspired Learning
When you learn from experts in their respective fields, they will inspire you to do a deeper study of their work and the areas of their expertise.
They motivate you to widen your knowledge and become a wiser leader.
7. Reflective Learning
Critical self reflection is a key to unlock the door of improvement and growth.
Therefore, devote sufficient time to reflect on your daily activities and learn from them. Be mindful of how you invest your time during the day.
Review the activities and evaluate your performance against desired results. Be honest in reviewing how you have failed and not just how you have succeeded.
Look for ways to improve your strengths and ring fence yourself against any downsides. Develop action steps to improve the results.
8. Effective Learning: Learning By Training Others
Learners are also trainers. Train yourself first and then commit to training others.
When you inspire others to learn, you are also enhancing your learning experience.
As you motivate others to change their lives, you’ll be more motivated to change your life too.
The more you train others to be better than you, the more you will learn and improve too.
7. Effective Learning: Learning Through Feedback
Every learning outcome will be tested again and again in the “examinations of life”.
Be disciplined enough to be accountable, take responsibility, and be corrected.
Corrections can be turnaround paths to bring you back to the highway of success. They can be tough and rocky paths too.
To make learning work, be courageous enough to admit your failures and mistakes. Subject yourself to penalties if necessary so as to learn the lessons deeply.
Just as importantly, be committed to offer compensation and restitution to resolve a wrongdoing. Don’t run away without learning
how to set things right.
In the final analysis, learning is not just about who you have learned from and what you have learned. It is about whether the learning experience has transformed you for good.
Developing and implementing an effective learning plan can improve every major area of your life and make you a wiser and better person.
The best place and time to start learning is from where you are and right now.
The best way to do it is to take the first step – sign up for a learning programme that will help you at this point in your life.
As you continue to take more steps, learning will eventually become a habit and a vital and desired part of your lifestyle. You and your team mates will be on your way to become great entrepreneurial leaders.
