The new year has begun; time for New Year’s resolutions. Often, these are goals related to your physical health, quality of life, or learning new things. Time for self-direction!

Self-Direction and Self-Directed Learning

Self-direction is the ability to choose your own path in planning, organizing, executing, and evaluating your behavior to achieve your goals. So, you also need it to follow through on your New Year’s resolutions.

The new year has begun; time for New Year’s resolutions. Often, these are goals related to your physical health, quality of life, or learning new things. Time for self-direction!

Self-Direction and Self-Directed Learning

When it comes to New Year’s resolutions about learning something new, like a language, a hobby, or even a full course, there’s even more to consider. That’s where self-directed learning becomes crucial. Self-directed learning is the educational term for self-direction in learning. You take control of your own learning process. The better you practice self-directed learning, the more successful your results will be. You engage in self-directed learning when you:

• Decide for yourself how, what, when, where, and with whom you learn.
• Use learning strategies to achieve your learning goals.
• Reflect on your execution and process.
• Collaborate with your environment, such as colleagues or classmates.
• Recognize the need to learn something new for work or study.

Why Self-Directed Learning?

Self-directed learning is useful in daily life, at work, and in the classroom. First, because a good process likely leads to a good result, boosting motivation and confidence. Second, because our society is changing rapidly, constantly challenging our ability to adapt. Wanting to learn new things is essential to keep up.
For example, consider the rise of the internet in the mid-1990s. The World Wide Web is now indispensable in our society. In fact, life without the internet comes with many limitations. Unfortunately, some people didn’t see the need to explore it back then. Now, they may struggle with tasks like online banking, making appointments, or showing a QR code. Fortunately, this can change by taking advantage of the many resources available for those who aren’t digitally skilled, and that requires self-directed learning.

Measure to Know

In the coming period, we’ll focus on self-directed learning. We’ll share tips and show you how you can use self-directed learning in various ways and how we can support you. Starting with a fun action!
With BetterYourself.app (for organizations and adults) and LearnLikeaBoss.app (for youth aged 10 to 18), you can get started measuring and developing the competency “Self-Directed Learning”. Using a scientifically validated questionnaire, you can assess all the skills you need for self-directed learning.
At the end of the questionnaire, you’ll receive an overview of your results. You’ll see how well you score on different skills. With clear and understandable feedback, you can work on improving these skills, ensuring you follow through on your New Year’s resolutions!