It’s already obvious to even the most inert people that getting an education once and for all in the 21st century is utopia. All professions evolve, change, and require us to continually add to our luggage of knowledge. But if you’re not 18, but 30/40/50 – energy and strength to learn is much less, and with time just a disaster! When do you have time to study if you have work, kids, and everyday life?
5 Real Reasons Why It’s Hard for Adults to Study
Adults often enthusiastically take on learning something new, but quit halfway through. Why?
Lack of Motivation
If you decide, for example, to take a course to change your profession, or to improve your skills to advance in your career, at first you are motivated. It seems that to change your life for the better, you are ready to move mountains, to “study” at night, to make every effort…
Remind Yourself of the Goal Is the Best Motivation
But as soon as the first difficulties begin – not enough time, “not learning”, fatigue – it turns out that this study is “not so necessary”. A student receiving his first education knows that without education in general – nowhere and nowhere at all. And you already have a crust, and you already have a job, even if it’s not your dream job. That’s where the “saving” thought creeps in: “But do I really need this additional education?”
Age Discrimination
Even worse, when doubts overtake not because of the difficulties, and they inspire close, or even not very close people. “Why do you need it?”, “It won’t work anyway,” “Who needs us at our age?” and other “friendly” remarks can kill all the desire to work hard, turning a motivating goal from a guiding star into a pale spot.
Difficulty Concentrating and Remembering
Doing the dishes and listening to a lecture: you seem to have heard and understood everything, but you can’t remember anything at the test. Sound familiar?
You wouldn’t believe it: it’s no easier for young students to concentrate on their studies than it is for you. Even if they don’t have a family, children, or everyday problems, they have their own difficulties and distractions. If your mind drifts away from the subject, and you tend to write it off to age, maybe you’re just looking for an excuse to give up.
As for memory, it does deteriorate with age. But not so much as to interfere with learning and mastering new material. If you can still remember the plots of your favorite movies, you can cope with more important information, too.
Discomfortable Position
Many adults feel uncomfortable as a student. They are embarrassed to ask questions, not knowing something seems embarrassing to them. Some take the “they taught differently in our time, and now it’s all wrong” position.
This problem almost does not arise when adults study remotely: they watch recordings of lectures, attend online webinars, and ask questions in the chat room, preserving “anonymity”.
Financial Issue
The lower a person’s income, the more he wants to change his life, the higher his motivation to study may be. But the opportunities to receive additional education, unfortunately, are less. It’s not just the price of courses – expensive programs are often offered in installments, and this is a solution to the problem. But lower income means less time: you have to work more, there’s no time to play live dealer poker online or spend it with kids, less household tasks can be delegated to professionals or at least modern technology.
The only way to solve this problem is to have a strong motivation. If study is really your priority, then both the time for it and the opportunity to make installments will be found.
10 Tricks to Help Adults Learn
- Exert yourself and overcome the first stage. At first it will be the hardest: prepare for it, find those who will support you and motivate you, if necessary. This can be relatives, colleagues or new comrades in the student group.
- Organize the process properly. For example, make a plan, allocate hours for classes and strictly stick to it.
- Make small steps. Regular, of course. Too global tasks can scare you, and a heavy workload can force you to quit. Sometimes “the quieter the ride, the farther away you’ll be.”
- Use the knowledge you already have. Years are not only a burden, but also an experience. Almost all new knowledge will add to the information in your head in some way: look for those connections and use them to memorize.
- Write by hand. It’s important not to save the article, but to let it flow through you. To do this, take notes, make abstracts.
- Share information. Sometimes you won’t understand the material until you explain it to someone else. And what is told is better absorbed in the head, as if it has already been applied in practice.
- Apply it. But if you can immediately put the knowledge into practice, do it. It’s much more effective.
- Don’t forget to rest. No matter how motivated you are, allow yourself a rest. By driving yourself like a horse, you deprive your brain of the ability to work properly.
- Switch between different activities. Doing practical assignments after cramming, reading after writing exercises – this is also a way to get some rest. But it doesn’t cancel out a full-fledged rest!
- Fight laziness. Don’t believe it if the inner voice has found a reason to postpone classes. Fend off its lunge by saying that you can’t fall behind the plan.