Investing in your own executive vitality is the best investment you will ever make. As we have been discussing for many years, there are various components of vitality. Today we focus on the benefits of lifelong learning (LLL).
The title of John Coleman’s valuable article in Harvard Business Review says it all: HBR.org: Lifelong Learning Is Good for Your Health, Wallet and Social Life.
The benefits of continued learning, education, and training to your career, job performance, and skills-sharpening (and your wallet!) are clear. We know from our decades of work in the field of executive coaching that commitment to self-improvement as a leader is the number one predictor of success. Less obvious are the benefits to your health and well-being. Much is being written about the profound and unexpected outcomes of engaging in LLL (e.g., UK Gov. Office for Science: What are the wider benefits of learning across the life course? and Elsevier: Benefits of Lifelong Learning).
From the research…some of the benefits of lifelong learning
There are SO many ways to continue learning
Jeff Haden went looking for the single best investment successful entrepreneurs say they’ve ever made, and in an article in Inc., says this about learning:
“…knowledge, once gained, is the one thing that can never be taken away. And is the one thing you can apply to the rest of your life. Investing in yourself will produce better long-term results than any other investment you can make. If only because it’s the one investment outcome you can almost totally control.” Inc.com: Single Best Investment.
What lifelong learning should you be engaged in that you are not? What types of benefits would you be most interested in gaining from lifelong learning?
