How To Learn New Skills to Meet Career Success

Date:

December 1, 2022

Author:

Milan Kordestani

Entrepreneur, writer, and founder of 3 purpose-driven companies oriented toward giving individuals control over their own discourse and creation. Milan works to produce socially positive externalities through a mindset of social architecture.

Milan Kordestani

December 1, 2022

Milan Kordestani Profile Image

Milan Kordestani

Hi! I'm Milan, an LA based founder and writer, architecting impact-first businesses.

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How to learn new skills has always been one of the most popular questions during all the courses of time.

However, it gained more popularity due to the entry of novelties and new industry demands.

Learning new skills is an enriching, rewarding experience that shouldn't be confined to universities or corporate training sessions.

Being a skilled person means having a large toolkit of various skills. That allows you to solve a wider variety of problems in your life than someone with just one or two very specific skills.

But accumulating new skills is difficult. You can't just read a book, implement and repeat. That won't make you good at anything, or let you hold your own in the long term.

According to research, 80% of people agreed new skills to learn would make them more engaged. Despite this figure, only 56% of people actually go out and make the effort to learn new skills.

You can improve the quality of your life and career by learning new skills.  Read on to find out how to get started and keep building upon the new skills to learn.

The Importance Of Learning New Skills

Whether you’re looking for a job or trying to advance in your career, the skills that you have are what set you apart from your fellow employees. 

Not changing with the times is fatal for any sort of work. Of course, we're all given skills training at universities. But it's not enough to have taken a course in spreadsheet programming.

It is a lifelong learning experience. How to learn new skills? Surely, you have seen that new programs are coming along every day, so you have to know how to use each one.

If you focus on new skills to learn that are the most useful for your growth, you can impress potential employers and build a strong resumé.

Let’s say you want to be a graphic designer; by taking an online learning course to learn how to use Photoshop, you open yourself up to higher-quality graphic design jobs.

New skills and knowledge open doors to many different career possibilities. 

For instance, if you take a programming class and discover that you have a knack for IT work, you can use this information to your advantage when looking for jobs.

new skills to learn

How To Learn New Skills Quickly

Trying to learn everything at once can be overwhelming. In order to start the journey of new skills to learn quickly and completely, build a strategy to do so. Follow these tips on how to learn  new skills quickly and effectively:

1. Set goals for yourself

To move forward, you need to know where you’re going.  Ask yourself what your goals are.  A promotion at work?  A change of career?  Increased social connections? 

Once you have a sense of what it is you’re trying to achieve, you’ll be able to identify the new skills that will get you there. 

For example, if your goal is to get promoted to a management position, then you may want to take online courses that help you gain the soft skills needed to excel in that position, such as time management and conflict resolution.

2. Identify the skills you already have

While we may want to be good at everything, it usually doesn’t work that way.  It’s better to build upon our strengths instead of focusing solely on our weaknesses. 

A great way to identify useful skills to learn is to ask yourself which skills you already have. 

Are you good at working with people?  Skilled with technology?  Talented with language?  

For instance, if you have excellent people skills and want a position that requires managing other people, what other skills do you need? 

Maybe you have the people skills down but lack some of the technical knowledge required for the position. Online courses or training can help you become a perfect candidate for your desired position.

3. Break down new skills

It can also help to break down big skills into little skills. If you want to be more disciplined, break down your goal into smaller skills. 

Time management, motivation, and accountability are all useful skills that will help you achieve your larger goal.

Once you have identified the smaller skills that make up the larger skill of discipline, you can focus on learning each of them one at a time.

4. Make a list of obstacles and benefits

Before thinking on how to learn new skills, you need to know that learning is challenging. There will always be an obstacle standing in your way. 

It may be money, or time, or simply a lack of willingness. Whatever the obstacle is, you need to identify it.  You must overcome it if you ever want to learn the skill in question.

For each new skill you want to learn, write a list of the obstacles in your way. Maybe you want to learn to speak Spanish, but you have no extra money for classes and little free time to learn. 

To help yourself overcome these barriers, write out another list of all the benefits you’ll receive from the new skill.

Maybe learning Spanish will help you take on even more clients at work or take that trip to Spain you always dreamed of. Look at this list for inspiration whenever an obstacle is convincing you to give up.

5. Set up a rewards system

A great way to stay motivated while learning new skills is to set up a rewards system for yourself.

When you've successfully gained a new skill, how will you celebrate? It can be as big as taking a trip abroad or as small as going out to a favorite restaurant. 

Rewarding yourself for your efforts can help you create a positive association between learning and rewards.

how to learn new skills

How to Learn New Skills Quickly| 5 Tips

Once you've gotten started learning new skills, it takes time, patience, and determination to keep going. Here are some suggestions for mastering new abilities:

1. Be realistic

You won’t become a master overnight.  Be realistic with what you hope to accomplish and give yourself a break if you’re moving slower than expected. 

As long as you stay consistent, none of your efforts will have been wasted.

2. Check your progress

Getting better at a new skill is hard, but it can be even harder when you don't have the right motivation. Take a moment to check your progress at regular checkpoints.

  What have you been doing lately to learn new skills?  What have you accomplished?  How far have you come? 

This will help you remember the effort you’ve put into learning something new and encourage you not to give up.

3. Keep practicing the skills you learn

The path of new skills to learn is an ongoing process, with some skills you learn once and that’s it, but others require practice to grow.

Keep practicing the skills you’ve learned and find new ways to incorporate them into your life. This will keep you sharp, and you’ll go from novice to master with time.

4. Find fellow learners

When you define new skills to learn with other people, you get a lot of benefits you wouldn’t get when learning alone. If you take an online course, reach out to the other people in your class to connect.

You can tap into a wealth of advice and opportunities by connecting with other learners in the same boat as you. They can provide invaluable feedback that will help you improve even more!

5. Seek out resources

While most skills are learned through trial and error, it can be helpful to take classes or join a group dedicated to teaching that skill.

If you like the idea of continuous learning, here are tips for online learning to help you boost your potential. 

Look for resources that teach some of the skills you’re interested in acquiring. For instance, if you want to become a web developer, research coding bootcamps and other online courses in that field.

You can even attend conferences dedicated to programming to network with other people in the industry.

Why Adopt Learning New Skills In Your Life?

If you’re trying to learn new skills, an online learning platform makes learning easy and convenient. I created Audo to help Gen Z and Millennials gain career-relevant skills to set them up for success.

Unlike other online learning platforms, Audo takes into account your skills, experience, and passion to help you find which courses best suit your needs. 

Now that you know the most effective strategies to learn new skills, there’s no reason not to get started.

Following these tips will help you get started on this learning journey, and don’t forget to stop every once in a while to appreciate all of the useful new skills you’ve acquired to make your life better.