The ABCs of Self-Empowerment Through Learning

Pursuing self-empowerment through learning is complicated. It’s not always easy to stay oriented to your North Star when you’re in the middle of the journey. When in doubt, remember the ABCs.

Aspiration

Aspiration speaks to the dream of achievement. You have a dream. Believe in it. It’s what will ultimately take you where you want to go.

Balance

Equilibrium in your emotional life is critical if you want to advance your life and career. Single-minded obsession with one thing and one thing only is more likely to result in the destruction of everything, then it is to result in the successful achievement of one thing.

Control

It’s your path, and it’s your vehicle upon the path. You control the speed, and the direction. It’s called self-empowerment for a reason.

Discipline

You will not succeed without self-discipline. Your success will depend on your ability to create deadlines for yourself, impose them upon yourself, and meet them yourself.

Energy

Do not underestimate the physical strength you’ll need to achieve your goals. Poor diet, lack of exercise, irregular sleep habits, drugs, alcohol, smoking — all of this can sap your energy, and sabotage your ability to succeed. Learning is no joke. This is for life.

Fun

You’ve got to enjoy it. Simply don’t bother if you don’t. Life’s too short. Choose it because you enjoy it.

Grit

Angela Duckworth’s canonical definition applies. Grit is “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”

Happiness

Every day you are engaged in the hard work of learning, you must take a moment to stop, and remember how wonderful it is to be doing what you’re doing. Without this perspective, you run the risk of growing miserable over what was meant to make you happy.

“Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.” — Leo Tolstoy

Inspiration

You must give yourself permission to be inspired. When someone else succeeds, allows this to fuel, not your resentment, but your effort.

Justification

You’re going to have to make choices along the way. You may have to sacrifice things you don’t want to lose. You may have to invest in things that seem risky. Engage in self-query when faced with these moments. Can you justify the steps you’re about to take? If yes, proceed. If no, don’t.

Karma

We call it self-empowerment, but no one achieves success in a vacuum. Proceed with humility, show appreciation to those who support you, and be thankful for the opportunities you earn.

Longview

When the going gets tough, keep your eyes on the prize.

Motivation

There IS a prize.

No

Sometimes you have to say it.

Opportunity

Three of my favorite quotes about opportunity:

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” — Milton Berle

“Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so”. — Doris Lessing

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” — Thomas A. Edison

Persistence

Persistence in ecological terms describes a system’s ability “to resist external fluctuations.” The same can be applied to a person. Persistence is the ability to stick to it regardless of what’s happening around you.

Questioning

“I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.” — Elon Musk

Resilience

Resilience is fundamentally an adaptive technique; ecologically, resilience describes “the maximum amount a system can be changed before losing its ability to recover.” When we talk about this in terms of a personal trait, resilience is essentially the ability to recover from potentially harmful or stressful things that may happen to you along the way.

Success

I consider myself very fortunate, because I get to make my living as a writer. It hasn’t always been easy. Embarking on the path, as young as I was when I began, meant putting a great deal at risk. I was terrified my parents would be disappointed in my choices. But on my 21st birthday, I received a card from them. On the cover was a drawing of a young boy sitting on a curb, fishing with a stick and string in a puddle. Yet beside him were fish. Inside, were these words:

“Success comes to those who have dreams.”

Time

Make some for learning.

Unconventionality

If “conventional” can be said to describe the way things are usually done, then by all means, embrace unconventionality. We have world-class learning opportunities today the likes of which previous generations could hardly imagine. Today, you are free to craft a learning journey for yourself that is exactly that — for yourself.

Vision

Have one before you embark. It’s what will see you through the tough days. If you can consistently visualize yourself in the place where you want to be, you WILL get there.

Willpower

“Freedom is willpower to define my path.” — Lailah Gifty Akita, Smart Youth Volunteers Foundation.

XI

In Roman numerals, XI = 11. In Spinal Tap, 11 is the number Nigel Tufnel’s amp goes up to, thereby making it, “one more louder.” Consider this an exhortation to always go one better.

Yes

Sometimes you have to say it. (See “N” above).

Zen

Zen in its full measure obviously can’t be reduced to a quick single-sentence description, and to simply say, “Be Zen about it” is to do a great disservice to this branch of Buddhism. What we can take from the Zen tradition is the reminder to be present in our experience. To breathe, and to be aware.

In each moment, the past is with us, for it is influencing our present, even as we are experiencing it. And the future is with us, for what we are experiencing now will influence the future. So in truth, past, present, and future are all here, right now. When we speak of the learning journey, we of necessity describe it in chronological terms. But when we experience the learning journey, there is no beginning, middle, or end. It is simply always happening.

In Buddhism, it is often said that we all already have the Buddha nature, we just don’t always realize it. For our purposes here, we can say that we all are already lifelong learners, we just don’t always realize it. So consider this a reminder that you are already a lifelong learner, and you are already empowered.

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This post was written by Christopher Watkins, Senior Writer, Chief Words Office, Udacity