Learning without action

Should all learning require an action?

I love to learn - I guess you might have worked that out from this blog. I spend a lot of my spare time reading books, listening to podcasts or watching videos.

I recently watched an interview as part of the “Quietly Influential Summit” - a series of interviews aimed at introverts. And yes, I am an introvert.

In an interview with Jane Travis she said

Learning without action is just entertainment

I have been going back and forth on whether I agree with this. If my learning is aimed at personal development or maybe a business I am working on then reading a book or watching something without taking the action needed to backup that learning could potentially be classed as “just entertainment”.

With this type of subject matter, where there is a purpose behind it, there is an expectation that what is being learnt should be put into action to benefit from it.

However a lot of it is just learning for fun - maybe learning about a subject that I didn’t know much about or covering something that maybe useful one day. I might read, listen or watch something because I like the subject or it has been recommended to me. In all these cases there is not necessarily a direct action required but I would also not purely class it is entertainment.

Maybe what she says is true but that is definitely not a bad thing - in fact I think it should be encouraged. Not all learning has to have a specific purpose or action associated with it.