Armed with future skills

There is a Chinese saying: ‘Live to old age’. Learn until you are old.

What the saying translates to is: you are never too old to learn. However, learning is a choice. No one can force you to learn, not even your employer, spouse, or family. Without learning, we become stagnant and eventually stasis and inertia set in.

However, there is a universal belief that as one ages, the ability to learn declines with disinterest and fear. My impromptu surveys, with the mature working population, give this impression: They want to learn something useful for their future, but they don’t know where to start.

Learning is an attitude. Either you like to learn or you don’t. Redundancy is the safe way to go if we refuse to change for the better, and learning is one way to stay relevant. Here are some ways to get you thinking if you have concerns about learning.

1) Age is not a disease; stop using age as an excuse to learn.
2) Explore and research what skills would be useful for your future.
3) If you enjoy your profession, identify how your skills can be upgraded and improved.
4) Move your mindset from skills to capabilities: What skills will keep you employable in the future?
5) What are your fears about learning and improving? Are you above learning?
6) Apply what has been learned; otherwise it’s just textbook knowledge (or book knowledge).
7) Review which of your skills can continue to add value to you. If it matters to your organization/industry, it has value.
8) When in doubt, ask; check what you don’t know.
9) If you say you already know, then you haven’t learned yet. Knowledge is intuitive, while skills are demonstrated and expressed with results.
10) Surround yourself with motivated, supportive and skilled people. Learn from them constantly.

When I meet weekend athletes and endurance athletes, who are between the ages of 40 and 70, I am deeply impressed by their dedication to learning. Hobbies and sports give us the opportunity to learn new things and thus give us new knowledge and skills. Age may just be a way of thinking, embedded in a sense of maturity and expectation.

Henry Ford said: ‘Whether you think you can, or you can’t, you’re right.