Topics Covered This Week
The connection between constant learning and stronger mental health is now well known. Physical fitness is promoted much more often than mental wellbeing.
Ideas for how you can use your brain, access free training and resources.
Stave off dementia
Reading
Online Courses and Resources
Pinterest Boards
PODCAST SERVICE
If you can’t find my podcast in your usual service, you will find the links here:
https://midlifeisntacrisis.libsyn.com/website
Links mentioned in the show
NO MORE EXCUSES Teachable course
The book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
The book Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
If You Prefer To Read Your Content
Hi Christie Adams here on the 14th of September recording, episode five, can you believe it already?
This one is about why we should never stop learning.
The reason I wanted to do this subject this week is because I’ve been doing quite a bit of learning this week. I’ve got a certificate from HubSpot to do with Inbound Marketing, which obviously I need for my business.
I’ve done quite a bit on my website and had various geeky problems, which I’ve had to go and resolve. I’ve also started to embrace digital planning, which if you’ve not heard of it is basically moving your diary and your scheduler into Goodnotes or a similar app within your iPad. You can use your ipencil, and install it on your phone. It’s with you all the time.
I used to be a Filofax addict and it’s like a digital Filofax. That sort of reminded me really of how much I enjoyed learning in my forties.
I did a degree and that’s another ‘constant learning’.
To get back to you, the reason I think you should continue learning, I’ve got a few reasons.
The medical benefits of constant learning, virtually proven now, having done a bit of research about dementia and education and how it matters.
Everybody agrees on it, that ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it all’ philosophy.
You have something called a cognitive reserve in your brain, which helps your ability to cope with any damage that happens.
If your brain is likely to suffer dementia, by building your cognitive reserve through education and constant use and learning, it might just help fight it off a little bit.
So a really good reason to continue learning new things, constantly learning and doing personal development. You might find that you’ve got a new skill that you actually want to use.
It might be for the benefit of others.
It might be to grow your business.
It could be to just get more skilful at a hobby that you’ve got.
It might be promotion. There’s various reasons why constant learning is a good idea.
Definitely think about each week, scheduling something into your planner, whether it’s a digital planner or whether it’s a Filofax.
Whether it’s just on your phone or a piece of paper on the fridge, try and schedule in some time every week to learn something.
It doesn’t have to be academic.
It can be, in the UK, you’ve got Open University, although the prices are going up and up and up for education, there are a massive amount of free resources.
The course I’ve just done, ‘Inbound Marketing’ was with HubSpot Academy online. I’m not affiliated with them yet, maybe I should be because I really liked them.
[That’s something I will add to my, to do list, but they’ve got loads of online courses about marketing, about sales and about geeky things basically.]
Have a look on there.
You’ve also got opportunities to read.
You know, I’m a book addict, definitely get the books out, study books etc.
It can be on sales. It can be on science, on biology, on crafting anything at all.
If you’re learning something new, the two books I would highly highly recommend, and I will put these in my links is Sapiens and Homo Deus by, I can’t remember the author, but I’ll put it in the link.
They are mind blowing books and they really educate your brain.
It’s all about the human race, how we’ve got here and how we’re now going to develop alongside [AI] artificial intelligence, which is just fascinating.
I would definitely recommend those two books for further education of your brain. It’s not a specific topic, but it is definitely educational.
You can take an online course. There’s a huge volume of online courses. I’ve just mentioned after the HubSpot one, I actually have a couple of online courses.
One of them’s FREE about finding your new path in your life.
Another one’s about starting writing that’s called No More Excuses.
Again, I’ll put the links in the show notes, but do something that educates your brain.
Everybody sort of obsesses about going to the gym. I mean, lately with the virus, people have not been able to go to the gym and they found other ways of getting out in the fresh air, doing hiking, static bikes, obviously Peloton and making an absolute fortune out of static bikes.
But exercising the body has become, you know, it’s on Instagram all the time with celebrities, it’s massive. You must look after your body, your muscles, your body, but they seem to miss out the academic brain side of it.
I’m here on a mission to get you using your brain and learning stuff.
When I changed my website this week, one of the things was just a tick box, but it was in the wrong place.
Instead of giving up and just thinking, Oh, I just don’t have to fix this. I’ve gone online, I’ve done my research. Ultimately I actually joined the Facebook community, asked the question, and my problem was solved within five minutes.
It was a tiny little thing, just one tick box, but I’ve made a new connection.
I’ve learnt a new skill.
I’ve learned something simple that I can pass on to other people to help them.
I’ve also managed to improve my website at the same time and made my job easier by finding out that little thing. It’s saved me hours and hours of extra work in the future, there’s always benefits to learning.
You can do e-learning, which is the easiest way nowadays, just get online.
I think I’ve covered everything.
The last thing as well is if you’re on Pinterest, (if you’re not on Pinterest, you should be because it’s an amazing resource.)
It’s the third biggest search engine, I think after Google and YouTube.
You can create a Pinterest board for yourself. It’s like a virtual scrapbook.
If you’ve not used Pinterest before, it’s just where you make scrapbooks, like back in the day, but these are digital ones.
Why not create your own educational learning scrapbook or Pinterest board where you’re dropping links that you see to see nearly every sort of study course that you’ll see nowadays.
Every social media post will have some sort of share facility on it so you should be able to share it to Pinterest by pinning one of the images.
Most websites, if you hover over the image, will have a Pinterest save button on it, have a look.
If you see something, drop it on your Pinterest board, and then you can come back to it later.
Maybe if you going on holiday, you can have a look at your Pinterest board and think, ‘Oh, while I’m away, I could do that.’
I know holidays are difficult at the moment, but you know, even if you’ve got an hour’s downtime rather than trolling and scrolling the doom and gloom of the internet, look on your Pinterest board, grab an online course and start studying or read a book that’s educational, not just a fiction book.
I think you can be convinced that I’m into positive education and definitely learning.
Have a look at the courses online, like I say, I’ll drop the links on my website. I always put some show notes on there, come over to the Facebook group. If that interests you and join the community and start using your brain.
Okay. I’d love to hear more about what you’re doing, how you’re increasing your brain power and stay well, stay safe.