Guest blogger: From demands for lifelong and continuous learning to possibilities for life design

• Do we need to learn constantly, or should we think about how we could live as good a life as possible by learning?

I have pondered this topic intensely in recent years because I have ended up in or reached a kind of crossroads in my life where I have solved how I can work to live and how to work to experience my life as being meaningful and happy.

Possibility for something new

The direction of my own educational journey and my growth took a completely new turn with a stroke of luck that came in June 2016. I had worked for more than 30 years in commerce and focused on becoming the best.

My visit to a vocational psychologist opened my eyes, and I understood that while I had been on a path of continuous learning, I was stuck in a bubble of narrowness, focused mainly on learning technical things. Pursuing a career had kept me from thinking very much, and what I had learned was largely focused on satisfying the motivations and requirements of my employers, and not so much on what inspired me in learning.

An opportunity opened for me to evaluate how I could expand my thinking by learning surprising and completely new things. To think how learning would bring joy both to my work and to my life and how I could combine my experiences with learning new things and turn it into completely new kinds of skills and knowledge.

• Finding a new direction with the help of learning often does not start without the boost of a momentous experience.

The goal of an educational journey

As I worked on a suitable and deeper learning path, I listed my own skills and strengths from a softer point of view. As I formed a broader image of myself both as an employee and as a person as well as a learner, I asked for views from people who I had met in connection with my work and my free time.

At a crossroads of many options, both my natural tendencies and my desire to help and to do meaningful work were factors assigning value to my educational choices. I want to implement my ikigai, my reason to exist, now and in the future. I believe that seeking and finding ikigai, as defined by the Japanese, brings meaning and happiness, and with these, health and success to my life, as well as a possibility to keep myself at work as long as I want.

Through my inquiries, and the definition of my values I selected the most suitable and necessary directions for my studies to develop my skills: service design, brain-based coaching, and experience expertise. With the help of my experiences, I designed a way of thinking of a new kind, based on combining life design and self-efficacy by linking together the methods of service design and coaching.

Studying while searching for a job opened an unexpected door for me and made it possible for me to become a self-employed entrepreneur. I sincerely hope that this door will not later be closed to job-seekers, and that they would be encouraged more vigorously than before to engage in learning that opens the doors to opportunities. It might often be the only route to a new career and sufficiently good life, in which finances are also in order.

• By combining learning and experiences that differ completely from each other, it is possible to design new ways of thinking.
• The expansion of a person's self-image shows different types of possibilities for growth (learning).

The crutches of coping

My educational journey both in employing myself and in designing my life requires plenty of resources. Occasionally I felt uncomfortable and stressed because I did not know how to study. I really had to learn study and learning techniques. I also had the realisation that the most important skill to develop on my path to learning was self-regulation - how to confront and guide my emptions in difficult learning situations.

I got energy from many different sources, such as positive feedback from successes, which I gathered to use as crutches on difficult days. The core of my coping ability was formed of a new kind of thinking in which the discomfort zone transformed into a possibility zone and resistance to change turned into a growth medium. I directed my thinking to a more open direction and I even started to see stumbles as opportunities for growth. The most important part of studying many kinds of content in learning and completing them is that they awaken great enthusiasm inside you.

• As guides on the journey of learning, fellow thinkers are needed to give encouragement when the steps you take in your studies occasionally weigh you down and when you feel blocked.

Study journey insights

I have pondered if it is possible to encourage people to take a more positive attitude toward lifelong and/or continuous learning by renaming the concept “life design”. Then each one of us could find it easier to see possibilities to design and plan suitable ways and means on to grow our own journeys as employees and as people that suit our natural inclinations.

Learning could more accurately be a desire to grow. I hope that learning could become a natural part of our lives: sometimes we learn more and sometimes less. I encourage a new kind of thinking where the expectation is not to classify the levels, methods, or content of learning as better or worse, but where all learning is sufficient.

• Learning is possible for everyone - the main thing is that it increases joy and well-being.

Tarja Holmgren
Entrepreneur, MiraiTa
growth fellow traveller, neuroscience-based coach, expert in service design, and experience expert