Some people never stop learning. Others were so glad when they got out of high school that they thought they never wanted to learn anything new again. If you feel like you are closer to the latter category than you want to be, the good news is that you can change. As an adult, learning is often much different from how it was when you were a kid. Here are five ways you can turn it to your advantage.

Embrace the Chase
Young children have a thirst for knowledge that is hard to quench. It might not be too easy to think back to when you were a preschooler, constantly asking questions of your parents. But that kind of drive is still accessible to you as an adult, and it may be easier to find the solution now. If you are driven to achieve a goal, like getting your contractor license, then you may have all the motivation you need to get started. Start figuring out what it is that you want to know, and let that pursuit build momentum that will help take you as far as you want to go.

Shop Around for Learning Opportunities
Although your capacity for learning is dependent heavily on your own personality, the teacher also makes a big difference. As a student, you can probably remember the difference in experiences based on the way that the teacher presented it to you. Teachers who are really engaged with the material and excited to teach will help you feel more excited about it as well. You may also have an easier time picking up new skills and retaining them. The good news is that as an adult, you can shop around for the best learning opportunities. If you take a class with a teacher, and you don’t notice a big result, you can feel free to look elsewhere.

Use Your Adult Experience
As you get older, you may realize that knowledge is something that builds upon itself. In order to learn how to do basic addition, you first had to learn how to count. It keeps working just like that. Even if you are not actively studying the subject, it’s likely that you are building knowledge and experience that you can apply later on. So feel free to use it. Learning about the best practices of a particular construction task may be a lot easier to master and remember if you can apply it to similar tasks you’ve done in the recent past. You might be surprised how quickly you pick it up, compared to younger students.

Take Advantage of Focus
Learning as an adult is similar in approach to learning as a kid, but it’s significantly different in scope. We teach young students how to learn, as well as a broad range of subjects that they will need in their daily lives as adults. Once you cross that hurdle, learning becomes something that you do as a way to achieve a specific goal. As such, you can limit your studies to the items that you really need in order to get your contractor license. This means that you may be able to get to the finish line much sooner than you could when you were studying to get out of high school.

Rely on Patience
Lifelong learning can earn you a variety of benefits that you may not have been able to use as a kid, and patience is definitely one of them. By now, you probably know that much of adulthood includes waiting: waiting for your paycheck to arrive, waiting until you have accumulated the right amount of experience to take the contractor licensing exam, and more. Patience is a hard skill to learn, and it takes kids years to develop it. As an adult, you’ve had much more practice. That allows you to take the time to master the skills you need to do well on the exam, without worrying that your peers might somehow be able to do it more quickly than you.

Keeping your brain ready to learn will help you adapt your business for the challenging demands of the future. To get started, contact CSLS today!