From one lifelong learner to another, I see you. I understand the expansive emotions felt when we engage with ideas, concepts, models, and information that help us gain clarity and insight into our environment. There’s joy and fulfillment from taking it all in and synthesizing the data in our minds in such a way that it makes sense for our context. As Dan Newby and Curtis Watkins outline in their book The Field Guide to Emotions, the emotion of joy “opens us” and tells us there is something to “celebrate.” Put simply, we love learning because it opens us to possibility in the present moment!
That’s true. But first, a distinction. That distinction is between consuming information and learning. We think that learning is the same as consuming and remembering new information and ideas. We declare ourselves to be lifelong learners because we read books, watch Ted Talks, attend webinars and seminars, and listen to motivational speakers or fascinating podcasts. But if that’s where it ends for us, perhaps a term more accurate than lifelong learner, is lifelong entertainment junkie.
The truth is that becoming a learner goes so much deeper than hearing or even knowing. True learning happens when information, inspiration, insight, and ideas are integrated into our way of being in such a way that it changes us. The changes may be subtle, and they seldom come by striving, but they must occur if we are to declare ourselves learners. How does that happen?
We change when we’re open to it, when we invite it, and we allow it.
It begins with opening ourselves to an expanded way of seeing the world, some might say, at a higher level of consciousness and it’s evidenced in part by, counterintuitively perhaps, a greater awareness of, and comfort with, what we don’t know and in not knowing.
After all, “declaring that we already know” is one of a dozen or so, of what author and ontological thought leader, Alan Sieler so elegantly calls “Some Enemies of Learning,” in his book, 1Coaching to the Human Soul (vol I, II & vol III, pp 285-287). It’s a fascinating list of the declarations, mindsets, and emotions that prevent us from learning. The good news, for those committed to growing their capacity to learn, Sieler also offers “Some Allies of Learning.”
Some Enemies of Learning
- Declaring inability to learn: “I can’t/couldn’t do that.”
- Unwilling to declare our ignorance and admit that we do not know.
- Arrogance: “I don’t need to know this; nothing new for me to learn here.”
- Impatience: “How long is this going to take?”
Some Allies of Learning
- Declaration of being a learner – “I don’t know, and I want to learn” (declaring oneself a “beginner”).
- Courage
- Curiosity and wonder
- Determination and persistence
Understanding these allies and enemies and the stages of learning from beginner to mastery is critical to becoming an effective learner. When we are willing to declare ourselves a beginner in a particular domain, we open ourselves to the possibility for learning in that domain.
From one lifelong learner to another, yes, own your identity as such and cultivate a way of being that supports you as you learn, integrate, and change into the fullness of who you already are and what you’re becoming.