Have you ever made an effort to learn something, but forgot everything a few months after? Sadly, acquired skills and knowledge fade away over time unless used on a daily basis.

There’s nothing you can do about it but keep going at it, day in, day out. To be at the top of your game in business, you have to be hungry for information — read the news — have an understanding of where the industry is headed, and how to position yourself for success.

In other words, you must be in a relentless pursuit of excellence and growth.

So, in an effort to help you with that part of the process, I’ve prepared a little reading material.

Why Growth Matters?

Why do we need to push ourselves in the first place? Isn’t it enough to just have a degree in hand?

Well, we are living in a time where everything is changing all the time! What was yesterday does not work tomorrow.

So, you’ve got to be on the edge of your seat — learn about your industry so you’re familiar with the latest and greatest trends — gain hands on experience with the latest tech, software, and equipment.

When you accumulate enough experience, you go up a level. You become a tougher business opponent for others to take out.

But, you’re doing this for yourself, not others. It’s about personal growth and how you develop as a person.

7 Ways To Learn New Skills

There is more than one way to learn new things. Personally, when I want to learn anything, I think about HOW I want to do it. Am I in the mood for reading a book or do I fancy watching a course on my laptop? Or… would I rather go out and attend a seminar?!

In other words, you have multiple options and mediums for how you can learn. Let’s take a moment to explore just a few of them:

Books – books are a concise, snappy, and practical way to learn new things. Authors have condensed years and years of experience into something you can pick up in your hand and read wherever. Books are the perfect medium if you want to kick back and do sweet nothing.

Audiobooks – If you can’t (for whatever reason) bring yourself to read a book… how about listening to it on your headphones? This way you can save time and go through the whole book in 3 hours or less.

Podcasts – podcasts are the new radio, you can listen to them as you please. I would use them as a tool to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in your industry.

Online Courses – online courses are another popular option. They’re a superb choice for learning the ropes of getting closer to mastery. What I like about video courses is that they can quickly help you build up any skills you desire to learn.

Webinars – think about webinars as pre-recorded lectures and presentations that happen online at some specific time. When you join the webinar you can chat and interact with other students who’ve come to watch the same lecture.

Seminars/Workshops – the seminars are different from any other medium — normally they’re held for groups of 12 to 15 people — and they happen on site. So, you get to meet lots of awesome new people who (if you weren’t a participant) you wouldn’t normally meet.

Hands-On Experience – sometimes you can’t learn a hard skill from a book or a video clip, you can only learn it from doing it, being down in the trenches, and learning from your mistakes.

How To Keep Your Skills Forever!

However, it’s one thing to learn a skill and quite another to keep it. So, the question becomes how can we remember what we’ve learned?

I can’t speak for everyone, so I’m going to speak for myself: practice is what helps me remember what I’ve taught myself. It really is.

I’ve found out that skills don’t come without practice. You basically have to dedicate yourself to it. Don’t worry if you can’t give it your 100%, do it as often as you can.

What’s important is that you make time for working on your growth. Because that’s the key! If you do something long enough and often enough, you’ll become good at it. It’s just the way things work.

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