What are areas of learning most interesting to you?
What areas of learning are least interesting to you?
What do you love about learning?
What ways of learning are most or least engaging?
How does knowledge improve your life?
How does the breadth and depth of your knowledge impact your relationships, from people recently met to close people?
Love of learning is sustained curiosity. Love of learning involves enthusiastically studying new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge. People with this strength enjoy the cognitive engagement of acquiring new skills or satisfying their curiosity, even when the material benefits of learning may not be immediately available, or the results immediately achieved. In addition, a love of learning allows people to persist in the face of frustrations and setbacks, negative feedback, and challenges and obstacles that arise during education, both formal and informal. Viewing a new setback or challenge as an opportunity for learning and growth leads to increased perseverance.
Positive feelings are often experienced in acquiring skills, satisfying one’s curiosity, building on existing knowledge, or learning something completely new. Love of learning has been associated with healthy, productive aging. Love of learning supports positive experiences, enhanced competency, and efficacy, which may contribute to an individual’s psychological and physical wellbeing. Love of learning is inherently fulfilling.
Infusing love of learning with social engagement
Attend new gallery or exhibition openings in your area. Meet artists and exhibitors face-to-face.
Visit a new museum this month and write about new things you learned. Bring a friend or family member and listen to their impressions of the trip.
Arrange a teach and learn date with a friend, learn a skill, and teach what you are best at. Try to find a friend with very different interests so that you are exposed to something new.
Identify topics about which you can share your knowledge with your peers. Share information in a humble, conversational manner.
Visit local factories and laboratories to understand the process of production. Take children and observe their curiosity.
Attend seminars, workshops, and conferences in your area of interest. Make contacts with others who share your interests and follow up with them later.
Read and research a topic by visiting the library at least once weekly. Then, write one page of practical ideas that can advance that field and discuss them with someone who shares your interest.
Overuse of Love of Learning
People with the strength of love of learning may be enthusiastic about some learning and find themselves with a desire to share all they’ve learned when their conversation partner is not interested in the same degree. Applying curiosity and kindness/empathy in a conversation by asking questions of others (e.g., What do you think of this information I just shared?) may be a way to bring some balance to these situations. As a leader, one may find the transition from technical expert to people manager difficult as one experiences trouble delegating some of the workloads in one’s specialized area of expertise to others.
Underuse of Love of Learning
Underuse may simply reflect a lack of opportunity to pursue one’s interests; sometimes, time constraints are imposed by one’s lifestyle. It may be helpful to review how life choices reflect priorities and consider whether the love of learning is receiving its proper emphasis. It is common for people to forget to apply their love of learning to relationships, striving to know more about others.
Underuse contexts may include where one is not learning anything, there are no new challenges for the person in his or her job, and where one is no longer in contact with new sources of knowledge. Underuse contexts may have the impact that the person feels intellectually starved.
Optimization of Love of Learning
In your capacity as a leader, you can accentuate this strength by signing up for courses, seminars, and conferences so you can pursue your passion for learning new things; developing and delivering training content; setting aside a block of time every day to read up on topics that spark your interest; engaging in regular conversation with colleagues to ask them about their work and learn more about what they do.
Optimal use of Love of Learning
See if you can affirm this statement, “In my capacity as a leader, at my best, I am driven to learn new skills, acquire new knowledge, and add new abilities to my repertoire. I like reading up on various topics. I am best suited to a role that requires a specific level of expertise or a professional designation. I like teaching and sharing my knowledge with my team and my colleagues.”
“My motto is: There is no such thing as failure. There is only learning. My signature strength is Love of Learning.”
Themes of StrengthsFinder relevant to the VIA Character Strength of Love of Learning – Input & Learner
Input
The person talented in the Input theme is inquisitive. They collect things such as information or tangible objects because it interests them. They find the world interesting and exciting because of its infinite variety and complexity. Acquiring, compiling, and filing stuff is exciting. They want to know everything.
When working with a person with Input as a signature theme, look for opportunities to leverage his abundant knowledge. Ask this person for information when in a meeting. Keep this person posted on the latest news so that they are in the know. Pass along books, articles, and papers he would like to read. Find a few common interests, and then share facts and stories on these topics to build a great relationship.
Ideas for Action for the Input talent
Look for jobs that involve acquiring new information each day.
Devise a system to store and quickly locate information.
Partner with someone with dominant Focus or Discipline talents to help you stay on track when your curiosity leads you down intriguing but distracting avenues.
Intentionally share your knowledge with individuals and groups that can most benefit from it.
Identify situations you can share the information you have collected and let your friends and colleagues know that you enjoy answering their questions.
Be more than just a collector of information. Instead, leverage this knowledge and turn it into action so your mind does not stagnate.
Identify the facts and data most valuable to others, and use this information to their advantage. Become known as the authority in your field, and position yourself as an expert if you wish.
Deliberately increase your vocabulary. Collect new words, and learn the meaning of each of them.
Learner
The person talented in the Learner theme loves to learn. The process fascinates this person more than the content or the result. The learning journey energizes them. The learning outcome is less significant than the “getting there.” They thrive in dynamic work environments and short project assignments where they are expected to learn a lot in a short period.
When working with a person who has Learner as a signature theme, help this person track his learning progress by identifying milestones or levels of achievement and celebrate these together. Encourage this person to become the “master of trade” or “resident expert” in a specific area to feed his need for competency.
Ideas for Action for the Learner talent
Schedule learning sessions that will not be interrupted so you can immerse yourself and intensify your attention, entering “flow.”
Track and celebrate your learning progress. Create your levels of progression if you wish.
Refine how you learn, either by teaching or quiet reflection or else.
Seek roles that require technical competence and enjoy the process of acquiring and maintaining this expertise. Shift your career toward a field with constantly changing technologies or regulations. The challenge of keeping up will energize you.
Consider internal or external consulting roles where you go into new situations and need to pick up new competencies or languages quickly.
People are more productive and loyal and thrive when learning and growth needs are met. Therefore, create individualized learning milestones, and reward learning achievements to meet these needs.
Be a catalyst for change. Others might be intimidated by new rules, skills, or circumstances. Take the responsibility to willingly soak up this newness to calm their fears and spur them to action.