Learning = Living

I believe learning = living. We learn to live, learn from life, and life is so important in our learning. Lifelong learning is vastly more pervasive than students enrolled in university courses or employees attending training sessions.

The love of learning is my fourth signature strength and the second last profile of my five signature strengths derived from the VIA Signature Strength Inventory at www.authentichappiness.org.

The love of learning is defined as: mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether independently or formally. Learning is often defined as a change resulting from experience and I love experiences that I learn from and that change me.

Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian thinker, once said: In the future, we will not earn a living we will learn a living. That future is now.

Learning contributes to my overall happiness, fosters my engagement, and is a huge strength I bring to my work. Here are a few examples:

I love to learn and often take on projects, consultations, or teaching because I know that I will be motivated by how much I will learn from the work.

I have been a university and corporate educator for over 25 years. One of my biggest rewards is learning the material to be able to teach it. I also am energized by learning about my participants and learning from my participants.

I teach in the (CACE) Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education program for 4 Canadian Universities. I wrote and developed two courses. (1) Adult Learning and Development and (2) Advising and Counselling Adult Learners. I love to teach and coach other people involved in fostering adult learning

In addition I am hooked on books. I never met a book I didn’t like. Last week the librarian at Louis Riel Library, my local library in the Winnipeg Public Library system, declared that I have taken out 6701 books since they started to track borrowing on their computers.

I like blogs and learning from them. If you have not visited some of the blogs referenced on the right hand side of the page I encourage you to click into them. You never know what you might learn. For example, I have learned about blogging communities from Rosa Say, enterprise dashboards from the dashboard spy; leadership story telling from Stephen Denning; great resources from Phil Gerbyshak; and the inside on Dilbert from Scott Adams. I could keep going as there are so many wonderful writers and posts on the variety of blogs I continually monitor.

Learning is pervasive and I learn from experiences, stories, reflection, action, errors, and failures. I gather strength from learning and learning is a strength.

What is your fourth signature strength?

What have you learned by engaging in your strength?

What do you need to learn to foster your strength?

Take the time and effort to outline your strength like I did above. This reflective practice will help you to appreciate your strength, be more focused on your strength, and determine additional action you can engage in to leverage your strength at work and home.

Next issue: Spirituality: A Sense of Purpose.

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