Continual Learning is a Part of My Life as a Virtual Assistant. Here is why!

Learning Never Stops

Did you know that the brain never stops developing? Well, it doesn’t!

People have long believed that the development of the brain matures when we hit teenagerhood and that nothing much else happens, but scientists have since proven that new connections are made daily within our brain.

Cells die off and new ones are formed.

So, it would be obvious then that as the brain development continues throughout our lives so too does the opportunity to learn new things.

Learning is a Part of My Virtual Assistant Life

As a virtual assistant I generally assist more than one client and you can believe that no one client is the same. This diversity allows me to, firstly, never get bored, and secondly learn something new each day.

Since becoming a virtual assistant I have stepped out of my comfort zone more times than I can think of right now (do we have that many comfort zones?).

I have overcome challenges by constantly learning how to do things, finding out how to do things. I think my biggest strength is that I am not afraid to ask, because if you do not ask you will not know. That coupled with the fact that I soak up things like a sponge – because I want to, because I love to, because I love to learn – has expanded my knowledge base beyond what I could have imagined.

No, I am Not Just an Admin Assistant!

I think there is a big misconception about what a virtual assistant does. I think when someone hears the word, ‘assistant’ they immediately think data capturing, filing and fetching coffee – well no, this is not what a virtual assistant is. Yes, a lot of the work is admin related, but the admin is not limited to just copying and pasting some info into an Excel spreadsheet, no not at all.

In fact, in my own experience I have done hardly any of that, most of my time is spent curating content for social media, creating graphics, sourcing keywords for websites and SEO work (search engine optimization). These take some serious skills, especially when you are doing social media management for more than one client, all needing different types of content and images, each needing to have their own ‘voice’ be portrayed in the content I choose and so forth.

This requires a lot of learning, believe me, a lot!

But it is so worth it, and so rewarding when you have gone and figured out things for yourself and when you complete the task you get an email that says, “Wow, this is amazing work”, or when you have done so much research into things you find other things that could be beneficial to the client and you share it with them and get an email like, “That is a brilliant idea, I definitely think we should look into that.”

So, What Are You Learning Right Now?

What have you learnt from my blog post? Anything? Nothing?

Whatever it is that you may take away from this post, know that it’s never too late to learn a new skill, hey my mom learnt to WhatsApp at over 60, so you can always start right where you are at.

You have the world at your fingertips, literally! The internet has an array of resources for you to learn new things, from Alison courses to just a simple YouTube video on how to create a graphic on Canva (yes, I have used those before), you can find anything that you need.

And what I think may be the most important one, never be afraid to ask! When you ask you will find out, there is always someone who knows something you don’t and who is willing to share their knowledge with you.

So that is why continual learning is a part of my life as a virtual assistant, not only because it is generally a requirement of clients for me to know stuff, but because I love to learn, and I know that there is so much out there to learn and that when I gain knowledge it is not only beneficial to me but also to those around me.

Happy Learning!