Directing Your Own Learning

"I am the captain of my soul. I am the master of my fate". This is a very striking line from a famous literary work "Faustus" which was written by an author whose name I forgot now.

Each of us dream of becoming a successful individual. But dreaming alone will not make you realize that dream. One must work on attaining that dream, because you alone can make it be realized.

Be the master of your fate. Steer your life to success. if you want to be a successful student, then you have to learn to study effectively. Learn the techniques and develop proper study habits. Read on topics that are related to your subjects. Do not limit yourself.

If you want to be a successful manager, don't just sit there and wait till somebody teaches you how to become one. You will never become one if you entrust your own development to other people. Learning is very effective when you do it yourself and when you do it hands on.

There are a lot of ways wherein people will learn. One may learn by just merely listening. But nowadays, listening is a forgotten skill. One may learn also through reading. The one thing with reading is that we sometimes get bored. But self- discipline is the key in order to absorb what you are reading.

Success on the job can never be attained if you don't program it. Sweet success could never be attained if you have not experienced failures. Failure, they said, are stepping stones to success. No matter how many talents or credentials one has brought to their careers at the beginning, you won't remain successful in an organization, unless you continuously refine your skills.

One has to find ways to quickly become knowledgeable about everything. From technologies which are fast changing to new paradigms of teaching. Never wait for a packaged learning especially designed for you, because if you would do so, you would be left behind.

It is not easy to become a self-directed learner. Though most of us have spent many years as students, we have very limited capabilities as learners. The traditional approaches to learning usually focus on a teacher-centered style and a reactive structure. This results to maintenance learning. This means that we acquire the prescribed tasks for dealing with predictable situations.

Renowned author and futurist Alvin Toffler said that the curriculum of our society is similar in terms of three "hidden agenda". These are punctuality, obedience and repetitive work. These three encourages standardization and limits innovation. These are not the kind of skills that the present or future is all about. Then, we may be asked, "how must one learn differently?". This is the learning dilemma of adults.

As adults, each one is faced with the same limitations. They have spent a lifetime of internalizing the rules of parents, teachers, and religious institutions. Then, because of these, it is assumed that by the time one becomes an adult, they know the answers.