Why you're wrong if you think you have nothing left to learn

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In life, we all understand the importance of education. This is something that’s drilled into us from school, and it’s a belief that we take with us into higher education and, eventually, the workplace. At some stage, though, many of us consider that there will be a time when learning can finally come to an end.

If you’re at the top of your company or are just generally working in your dream role right now, for example, then you might consider that you’ve done all of the learning necessary. But, is that true?

Don’t get us wrong, there’s certainly a place for utilising the knowledge you have (otherwise what would be the point in acquiring it?!) but this ‘nothing left to learn’ mentality can also be damaging in ways that you might not expect. To prove as much, we’re going to consider precisely why you’re wrong when you assume that you know everything you could need.

# 1 - Self-development means exploring new avenues
As humans, we constantly seeking advancement. As such, staying happy in even your dream role is all about ensuring that you’re keeping your ideas fresh and approach exciting. That’s never going to happen if you stick too avidly with the same skill set you had back when you started ten years ago. Instead, that satisfaction of self-development is reliant on the exploration of new avenues even within your position. This needn’t be anything groundbreaking, but something as simple as an organisational course to learn how to be more productive with your time and space, or even seeking something like training in a new managerial approach can all help to invigorate you and, in most cases, your team.

Image credit: Per Lööv from Unsplash

# 2 - There’s always room for improvement
It’s also important to note that there’s always room for improvement, especially when it comes to our approaches to work. Most notably in recent years, it’s become obvious that the handling of things like mental health is sorely lacking, meaning that even the best-educated manager or employee could still benefit from taking something like a mental health first aid course. Equally, the longer you’ve been out of the classroom, the more likely you are to forget crucial pieces of information about what you do, meaning that refresher courses are almost always welcome for helping you to be better at your job. ​

# 3 - Knowledge is an advancing issue
Note, too, that knowledge isn’t static. The speed with which technology has become imperative in nearly everything that we do especially means teachings today look very different from even ten years ago. By resting on your laurels, you therefore risk falling behind in terms of the knowledge that even individuals working under you hold, with everyday software and the like very quickly becoming untenable until you accept that you could benefit from an educational upgrade. 

Learning is no one time thing, and these reminders should be all you need to get back to the classroom, or at least accept that you might need to one day, before it’s too late. ​