Why Learning Makes Us Happier
I was recently interviewed on the podcast, @PassionLovePursuit, with Erica Lippy. The podcast’s goal is to empower you to step into your vibrant authentic self so that you can live more passionately and purposefully. Erica and I had an awesome conversation about learning, growing, discovery, and happiness.
Key reasons that learning makes us happier:
1. Increases Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy. We feel pleasant emotions such as contentment, pride, and joy when we have learned something new. Our confidence grows and we perceive ourselves in a new way. Self-Perception Theory studies show that we have a perception of our self just as we have perceptions of other people in our lives. Whether it be learning to rock climb, play a new instrument, speak a new language, or learn a new subject or technology, learning makes us feel better about ourselves.
2. Enter a state of “flow”. When we are learning something that is interesting to us and aligns with our passions and goals, we can enter a state of complete presence. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the positive psychologist who wrote the book, Flow, and is the expert on the subject. His famous investigations on “optimal experience” have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of deep flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life.
3. It moves us towards our desired future. One exercise to determine what you want to learn is to write down a personal or professional goal that you have. It could be a career title, a new skill, an art, or starting your side dream business. Next, brainstorm and list the skills, technology, training that you will need in order to reach that goal. Look at the list and circle the one or two items that bring you excitement and will move you towards obtaining your goal. Another exercise is to write down a list of how you want to feel. This could be words such as CALM, ENERGIZED, RESILIENT, POWERFUL. Circle the word that is the most attractive to you and write down a list of things that you could learn to increase the feeling in your life both personally and professionally.
4. Knowing that you are never stuck. After being in the same industry and career for fifteen years, I felt completely “stuck” to a job title, salary, job perks, annual bonus structure, and industry network. Once I started studying Positive Psychology (The Science of Happiness), I began to see new possibilities and new opportunities. I very quickly realized that we are never stuck. At any time, you can evaluate your priorities in your life and assess how you want to live. Education and learning creates new neural pathways in your brain and allows you to see different possibilities for yourself and your life.
What are you learning in 2020?