Sustained learning is essential for success, regardless of your goals—be they leadership advancement or staying relevant in your current position. You can discover that your present talents are no longer required if you don’t keep up with the always-changing environment, in addition to falling behind the competition.
You can be attempting to keep afloat at the same time, leaving you with little energy for additional training. You’re not alone if that’s true. After work, almost half of employees report feeling “used up,” according to a 2024 survey. This indicates that they are exhausted from fulfilling demands daily and lack the energy to engage in activities that are important for their long-term development.
Many coaches working with numerous gifted leaders may find it emotionally draining when those leaders experience continual overwhelm and fall short of their full potential. This emotional toll can be as demanding as putting in extra hours at the office physically. Reinvigorating them, however, requires a learning journey that pushes people outside their comfort zone, offers purpose grounded in their values, and is tailored to their preferred learning style. Even when you’re feeling exhausted or overburdened, make sure you’re always learning by implementing these five tactics.
Cast doubt on your perception of your ability to learn.
I used to work with a senior executive who was in charge of a brand-new team that was dispersed all over the world. After making the numerous trips necessary to interact with them, he was worn out. Despite his excitement for this esteemed leadership position, self-doubt set in, and a critical voice in his head made him wonder if he could lead in these circumstances. By keeping an eye on this inner critic from a distance, he discovered he was clinging to the unwavering conviction that he was incapable of “learning to fly the plane while it was already flying.”
You could become so aware of your exhaustion when you’re feeling low that you lose control over your ideas and opinions. Every “I’m so tired” statement you make in this state trains your mind to think that you’re probably not going to be able to learn anything while you’re sleepy. Try observing your weariness instead of trying to overcome it or judge it, and instead become inquisitive about what may still be accomplished despite these limitations. Allowing yourself to feel tired allows you to respond more mindfully and allows you to creatively question any harmful beliefs you may have been clinging to when you were feeling that way.
My coworker, a senior executive, discovered he could lead with conviction and continuously improve if he was willing to challenge his presumptions. His focus soon changed, and he was excited to schedule time for learning. He studied papers on managing multinational teams and watched films on enhancing executive presence in preparation for his next site visits.
Start with subjects that provide immediate solutions.
Building on what you already know and do will increase your incentive to study, much like compound interest on an existing balance makes money grow quickly. To get momentum quickly, start with topics that are related to your present struggles and build on your prior knowledge rather than struggling through subjects that don’t feel urgent or pertinent to you.
Don’t restrict yourself to official courses.
Many professionals consider getting a graduate degree or certificate from a reputable university as the best course of action when considering learning on the job. These programs can be costly, unduly exclusive, and time-consuming, even while their academic rigour and social proof guarantee some significant rewards.
When you choose how to structure your learning process, keep in mind that formal programs are only one of many options. They can also be overly theoretical or laborious, which makes them less helpful for some issues related to on-the-job training than approaches like peer-to-peer learning, mentorship, or 360-degree feedback.
Connect learning to your emotions.
Pursuing experiences that are in line with your core principles rather than the ephemeral expectations of others is another easy approach to learning. Continuous learning stops being just another required task on your to-do list and starts to become a desired aspect of your daily routine when it has intrinsic motivation. To go one step further, create an emotional framework for the lessons learned, and the work itself will start to feel more like inspiration rather than a chore.
Work with rather than against your intellect.
You’ll frequently find a second wind to keep learning the new material despite your exhaustion if you become emotionally committed to picking up new abilities. However, the content is useless if your mind finds it difficult to retain it.
Creating a strategy that adheres to your brain’s preferences for retention is a crucial additional strategy for effective learning while exhausted. German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus coined the term “forgetting curve” in the late 1800s to characterise the rate at which people forget what they have learnt. Even if our ability to recall information is influenced by variables like sleep and the topic’s relative complexity, we still tend to forget things easily. You only retain half of what was taught in a day and roughly 10% after a week, so any long-term learning process is a true race against time for your brain.
Fortunately, you may increase retention for increased learning stickiness by using strategies like spaced repetition and recall testing. Let’s imagine you’ve discovered some useful but complex approaches for enhancing business outcomes. You wish to boldly introduce them to enhance support from other company departments. One way to prevent reading and forgetting the material is to schedule 30 minutes each morning and evening to study the material in sections, spreading out and repeating your exposure. Once you’ve gotten used to the frameworks, test yourself using them from memory.
Continue adding higher-level, original learning to the information you’re taking in to help your brain become even more receptive. Studies indicate that the slower the rate of forgetting, the more original the content.
You might think about adding more context to the frameworks you learned by reading about the experiences of businesses that have employed them or speaking with colleagues about the frameworks to get fresh viewpoints on them. When you use all of these techniques, your brain is gradually imprinted with knowledge that has a higher chance of being retained.
Continuous learning is essential to have a lasting impact on your profession in today’s fast-paced environment, but it can be challenging to maintain consistency when you’re already feeling overburdened by your daily tasks. By employing these techniques, you can create a lifetime learning path that advances your abilities and helps you overcome fatigue by getting you closer to your full potential.
(Tashia Bernardus)