Why Self-Education and Upskilling Are Essential For Success

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one learned in school” — Albert Einstein.

Lifelong learning fuels the success of every organisation and individual. Just as food nourishes our body, continued self-education nurtures the growth of our minds.

Now the ability to learn new skills is at everyone’s fingertips, with the internet as a vast library of resources, along with bespoke online courses allowing you to challenge this knowledge and earn recognition for your hard work.

But it's your choice whether to grab such an opportunity by the scruff of the neck. In this article, we explore the following ways upskilling and self-education are a recipe for success:

• Investing in self-education helps boost your professional profile
• Courses help businesses nurture and identify talent
• Learning helps you network and meet like-minded people

Read on as we outline why self-education and upskilling are essential for personal and business success.

Investing in self-education helps boost your professional profile

Are you casting your CV out into the job market and not getting many bites? You often come up against stiff competition while job searching, so it’s handy having an ace up your sleeve to impress prospective employers.

Whether you’ve just graduated from university, you're vying for a promotion or you're looking further afield for brand new opportunities, when you’re always learning, you’ll keep improving your skills and grow in your career.

The odds are you won’t stay in the same role forever; it’s human nature to make the next big step in life, but often our professional profiles won’t reflect the same ambition and can appear a little bare in comparison.

Not only does investment in self-education boost your skills as a professional, it also serves as a visual indicator of your drive and determination for colleagues and employers.

LinkedIn provides their opinions on continuous learning by saying it helps people:

• Remain relevant in an evolving jobs market
• Prepare for unexpected changes in their roles
• Improve competence and confidence
• Spark new ideas
• Embrace changes in perspective

Having a curious mind is vital for achieving success in your career, but it also helps if you can communicate this so it reaches the right places.

Many online courses award certificates of completion, which are great to place on your CV – and even if you’ve self-taught yourself something like coding without the aid of a course, make sure to jot it all down, because showing a willingness to learn new skills reflects your ambition and boosts your professional profile.

Online courses help businesses nurture and identify talent

Training and development play a major role in identifying, hiring and retaining applicants.

Business leaders not only understand it's important to nurture people with the drive to learn, but also know it's more cost-effective to train potential rather than hire the ready-made article right out of the gate.

Employee turnover is a costly problem faced by many businesses, but by encouraging self-education and investing in upskilling, you can uncover promising talent while protecting your bottom line.

Upskilling existing employees and junior/trainee hires can:

• Uncover new leaders and useful talents
• Prevent having to make significant organisational changes
• Make your business more appealing to applicants

Previously, most training programs were strictly in-house and leveraged the knowledge of senior staff members, but as the digital world evolves, valuable training can now be delivered online at a much larger scale.

For example, let’s perform a quick review of Skillshare and Kajabi – two e-learning platforms operating on two different sides of the same coin...

Reviewing Kajabi first: this is a powerful all-in-one solution built so businesses and experts can create and sell their expertise. Here you can host courses, publish videos, and record webinars to create a niche learning experience geared towards your operation.

Looking at Skillshare next: this platform is better compared to a database of general topics like content marketing, HTML coding, and optimising social media. These courses are ready-made for wide consumption and can be accessed by anyone, at any time.

With many courses and methods of delivering training available, you can tailor the learning experience to match your professional needs (be it from a corporate or personal perspective).

Learning helps you network and meet like-minded people

Got your eyes set on a certain industry but not sure how to get your foot in the door? Whether it be through joining online forums, turning up to live events or attending a course, self-education and upskilling provide an opportunity to meet like-minded people and industry professionals.

Having the right network in place is of tremendous value to your personal and professional growth. Although jobs should be earned on merit, taking part in community events and showing an interest in learning new skills helps you access the right places to meet the right people.

Everyone has potential, but it’s finding the right passion and drive that grows your career. The best investment you can make is in yourself, so self-education and upskilling are essential for building up your professional worth.

From networking and building up your professional profile to nurturing talent through training, when the school bell rings for the last time, education remains an essential part of your life.

Guest Blog:

Written by Jeff Cobb. Jeff Cobb is the founder of Learning Revolution.  He is an edupreneur and author with more than two decades of experience in the business of lifelong learning. Jeff is a vocal advocate of cradle-to-grave lifelong learning, an award-winning teacher, and author of multiple books and research reports.