What is learning, really?

The renowned management thinker Peter Drucker described the 21st century as the age of using knowledge. By this he meant taking knowledge from the right sources, processing it and turning it into products and services that meet people’s needs. People who use knowledge well feed their brains with carefully selected information; they learn with purpose. They do not try to absorb everything and end up ‘information obese’.

That is why one of the most important skills we can develop is learning how to learn. Unfortunately, studying is not the same as learning, however many people may think so. Nor is learning confined to our school years.

Think of it this way: if we live to 80, roughly a quarter of our life is spent at school and the other three quarters in the school of life. At school, success is measured by how well we answer questions about what we have been taught. In the school of life, success depends on how we respond to what nobody has taught us. Our ability to learn therefore shapes how successful we are in life, and how free we are to live the life we want.

To put it simply, imagine the world we live in as the territory and our mind as the map. Learning is the process of updating the map so that it matches the territory. Once we accept that the territory is always changing, and that the only constant in life is change itself, we understand just how essential this updating is.

Learning is the process of adapting to changing conditions in life.