Putting time and effort into learning something completely new might seem like a bit of a daunting prospect at first, especially if you don’t have a clue where to start, or you’re already really struggling to find spare time in your day.
However, even if you can only spare a few minutes every so often, there are a lot of potential benefits to learning something new. It’s fun to learn a new skill and can add so much to your career advancement and earning potential.
Here are some of the cool advantages of learning a new skill.
Hobbies or New Skills can Earn Extra Income
Depending on the sort of skill you are trying to learn, you might find that it’s something you want to keep doing in your day to day life too once you get the hang of it. Learning some skills might be just for fun, and learning other skills might be purely for the sake of furthering your career. However, if you pick the right skill to learn, you might find that it could very well be a way to bring in some extra money in your spare time.
For example, in the spur of the moment, you might think to yourself whether or not there is a bartending school near me. If there is, what starts out as a bit of fun might turn into a new-found love of cocktail making, which would be a great way to impress your friends and throw great parties all year round.
You might look into something crafts related, such as painting or knitting, and then selling the things you create, either in person or through an online marketplace. Or you might consider learning an instrument, which would let you spend some of your spare time busking and performing in popular, busy locations near you.
Learning new skills in general can be a fantastic way to fill up any of your spare time with something fulfilling that you enjoy doing. Even if it’s something that takes a while to learn, the satisfaction you will get once you start to get the hang of everything will make the effort worthwhile.
It might be that you’re saving up for something big like an important repair around the home, or you’re saving up to treat yourself on a special occasion. Or maybe you don’t have anything specific in mind and you’d just like a little extra cash in your pocket in general.
Improves your CV/Portfolio
In addition to something you do for fun, you might look for skills that help you work more effectively, or help you learn new employability skills. It could be that you start trying to earn a qualification in operating a new piece of software in your industry. You could then use your new found knowledge as a sort of bargaining chip in your company, as you’ll be more skilled than other people in your department might be at the time.
Or you might learn something completely different in order to up skill and move in to a new industry, which could help you switch careers more smoothly. You might try to learn more about accountancy, for example, in order to move into a role as a trainee bookkeeper. Once you’ve landed the new job, you’ll be able to continually learn and advance through the career ladder, and it’ll all have been made possible by your initial decision to learn something new in the first place.
While learning a new skill from scratch can and will take time, putting in the effort will help you become a better person, make you look more attractive to potential headhunters, and help provide you with a range of fulfilling ways to spend your spare time.
Leadership and Management Skills
As you learn new skills and more importantly learn how to make use of them, either as a side gig or just for self-improvement or self-satisfaction, you gain one of the most important skills on-the-go and often unknowingly! Leadership and management skills. It’s almost like running your own business. You manage your time, your energy and use your skills to make money. There you go – you’re a solopreneur.
So be it for any of the above reasons or any other, you’ll always benefit from learning a new skill. Ask yourself today, what new skill did you learn this year and what new skill could benefit your career progression next year? Don’t feel let down if one thing did not work for you, failures only show you a different path, all you’ve to do is to be positive enough to see it. All the best!