Jobhop Jobhop's blog : New Year, New Skills
A new year can feel like a fresh start, the perfect opportunity to learn something new, make a change or break a habit.
Perhaps that's why so many people make resolutions at this time every year.
One of the most common New Year's resolutions out there is to 'learn something new', and for good reason. Among all those goals to minimise or quit the things that we know are bad for us, it's nice to think about the positive things we can add to our lives too.
With a shiny new year upon us, there are plenty of new things to learn and lots of ways to go about learning them.
People learn new skills for a variety of reasons. Sometimes you need new skills for your current job to take advantage of newly developed techniques or to keep up with technological advances.
When you learn a new skill, it has benefits that go way beyond the actual skill learned. Here are some of the biggest benefits of learning new skills, no matter what that skill may be...
You adapt better to change
When you learn something new, your mind and perceptions change, which then makes it easier to adapt to the inevitable changes life will always bring. Adapting to change is a skill in itself, and the more varied your life experience is, the easier it will be to adapt to change.
You become a more interesting person
Well-rounded people have an easier time relating to others and end up having more things in common with them. Being a more interesting person will simply draw others to you and improve the quality of your life as your relationships deepen and improve.
Increases your marketability
Learning new skills can only help increase the chances of landing the perfect job - a job that is highly fulfilling and well paid. It helps to keep you in demand, especially in an increasingly competitive working environment. Only make sure that you learn and sharpen those that are easily transferable from one career to another such as computer tech skills or communication skills and you are well on your way.
You make connections between skill areas
Part of learning a new skill is connecting that skill to skills and information that you already know. Prior knowledge helps people relate to new information and build their existing knowledge, which makes it easier to learn even more new skills.
It fights boredom
Learning new things keeps your interest levels high so you don't get bored as easily. Doing the same thing over and over can quickly become monotonous, but learning new skills breaks that cycle of continuity and prevents boredom from setting in.
Keeps you up to date
Having new research and information on any skill keeps you up to date on what is happening in time. Outdated techniques are pointed out and then new techniques are made available and relevant for use as companies are forever exploring new ways to better meet their goals.
Your learning speed increases
Learning a new skill helps you to learn things faster over time. By stimulating neurons in the brain, more neural pathways are formed as a result and electrical impulses travel quicker across them as you attempt to process new information. The more pathways that are formed, the faster the impulses can travel.
Improves your knowledge
Think of how confident you felt when you graduated from university. That feeling of confidence and what you can do and what you can offer only keeps increasing when you improve on the basic knowledge you got from university. Learning should be a lifelong thing which will always make you relevant no matter your age.
So there you have it, some of the benefits of learning new skills. Adding new activities to your life will help invigorate you and help you harness new skills. It's so important to always be learning and growing. Trying new activities will help you build confidence and your new skills will translate to so many other areas of your life.
JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.
- Random