Investing In Yourself - Why Training Should Never Stop

You spend years in school wishing you were somewhere else only to turn around and spend another four years or more in college or university wondering if you will ever reach the real world and be able to do things on your own without an instructor over your shoulder.  The good news is that for most of us, we will make it out of college and move on to good careers.  The bad news is that if you want to stay competitive in your chosen field, that nagging instructor needs to stick around.

Our high school diplomas or college degrees are something we should be proud of but the truth is that they date us.  The things my parents learned in high school for instance were nowhere near as advanced as those that I learned because the world is always changing, and we discover new and better ways of doing things every day.  That degree was great when you got it in 1990 but how much has changed in the industry since then? 

Chances are that a lot has changed since you were in school which is why training and re-training yourself can never stop.  Learning is something that starts the day we are born and it shouldn’t end until our life does.  Some of the top executives in the world set aside a percentage of their income for the express purpose of continuing their own education.  If it is good enough for them, that’s good enough for me.

I’m not saying that you have to go back to college – although in some cases taking a few courses here and there definitely couldn’t hurt.  There are training seminars, conferences and even online study courses that can help keep you up to date in your chosen field and no matter how much you know, there’s always something that you don’t.