As I reflect on the yet another hiatus I’ve recently taken from blogging, what surfaces to my mind is the amount of energy I’ve invested in self-development & professional growth. Most of my reading has centered on nonfiction books & watching documentaries that fuel my mental ability & creativity. Maybe that comes from being the strategist & vision person in my role at work (which I LOVE)? Or, maybe recent events have me delving into problem-solving mode, looking for ways in which the future can be one of hope, positivity, & innovation? I’m reading books like The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, & Our Lives (2020), The Disruption Mindset: Why Some Organizations Transform While Others Fail (2019), Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive & Others Die (2008), Change the Culture, Change the Game (2011), & Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends & Human Creativity Begins (2017). These are newer works to add to the conversation that includes Breakpoint: The Changing Marketplace for Higher Education (2015), Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround (2002), & Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2017). So let’s just say that my mind has been consumed as of late with thought documents, proposals, & learning new things about the business of higher education such as budgeting & profit & loss margins–matters which honestly all those employed in higher ed such have some inkling or education. If for nothing else than for keeping down the cost of degrees & credentialing for the modern learner in the face of an uncertain & ambiguous future.

Yet, this is requiring on my part engagement as a lifelong learner in educating myself. Sure, I could attend programs, but I’m employed at pretty much the most innovative & disruptive nonprofit higher ed institution in the country, moving into new online educational territory with over a decade of experience in online curriculum development, so I doubt many places would already be able to teach me new things in this area. It’s a highly specialized field with a specific circuit.

In some ways, the lockdown & quarantine life has fostered this burrowing in not unlike when my life had been consumed by doctoral research, working on my dissertation. But all of that deep thinking saps your mental energy for writing more in-depth pieces such as blog articles, which is why I’ve been remiss in posting. Social media posts on Twitter & Instagram require far less focus, at least for me. My humble attempts at humor in finding an amusing meme or GIF or sharing an article take only a few minutes of time as opposed to the deeper responsibility I feel when blogging with an intention to share. Perhaps it’s my upping the ante when sharing more professional work that makes me anxious about posting without a real point or enough time to ensure some modicum of quality. And then that causes me to postpone writing, & then I feel guilty about not blogging which then creates a cycle of self-judgment & self-criticism ad infinitum & ad nauseam. Yet, I should acknowledge that I watched a live webinar provided to WGU employees today by Whitney Johnson (mentee of the famous Clayton Christensen, & author of Disrupt Yourself) whose work with WGU as our president’s executive coach & upper-level leadership sparked my renewal of blogging over a year ago. I’m also registered to watch another one of her webinars tomorrow (different topic, different venue), so I’m thinking it’s no coincidence that I’m back on this site writing. I have to remind myself that this kind of reflective writing is also critical for my self-development & growth as a human being.

Thus, I’ll connect this back to my original intent of writing about lifelong learning as an introvert thing. Sure, extroverts & ambiverts can engage in lifelong learning too, but it’s the quiet focus of introverts that tends to make them excel at it.

You see, introverts tend to prefer solitary activities that engage their minds–hobbies like reading, film, photography, crossword puzzles, chess & other games that require thought, & deep reflection. These activities involve mental growth, which translates into lifelong learning, continuing education even in leisurely pursuits. For me, crossword puzzles are a way I can let off some steam even while trying to watch something more entertaining & “fluffy.” It’s hard for me to just watch something silly without some other form of mental engagement, & I’m not sure if that’s just a guilt complex on my part or this internalized voice of my mother telling me not to waste my faculties? As I’ve cited before, in my Clifton’s StrengthsFinder analysis, “Learner” is my #1 strength, which means I “love to learn in many areas & simply enjoy the process of learning, more than the topic being learned… learning is fascinating & energizing.” As an INFJ, I’ve found that most other INFJ personalities have “Learner” in their top strengths, & in general IN– personalities (meaning introvert intuitives) also share this strength. This is why IN– personalities tend to excel in school. They derive energy from solitary activities like reading, writing, computing, thinking critically, reflecting, solving, ideating, & prototyping.

So, a quarantine life may not present the same challenges to introverts that extroverts & ambiverts might face. There’s a pleasure to be found in being allowed to focus on learning on one’s own without the guilt of social pressure to entertain others or attend events or functions that would require conversation or interaction. Instead, introverts can happily curl up with a book or with their device & grow their minds without judgment or fear of social rejection. Yet, I know I need to share more of my writing with an audience; thus, I’ll resume disrupting myself by sharing more here. That’s my goal, anyway.