The ultimate goal of "student-centered" education is to empower students to learn beyond educational programs. This means nurturing students' autonomy and fostering the development of their own motivation and mechanisms to become self-directed learners. This idea has been embodied in the "lifelong learning" mantra that pervades contemporary views of 21st century society, economy and (biological) science. The big question and the huge challenge is: how can educational programs catalyze the development of lifelong learning? To answer, it is necessary to understand how learning experiences should be designed accordingly, which implies a need to clarify how mechanisms of learning work. Unfortunately, "lifelong learning" is defined quite loosely and not very helpful. The model of self-regulated learning (SRL) may shed a clarifying light on the previous issues and also help on the understanding how to help students overcome conceptual difficulties in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB). In SRL, the ability to learn autonomously is analyzed with the recognition that all learners are active participants in their learning process. Whenever learners are faced with a learning task, they need to actively integrate the "will" and "skill" components that are required for effective learning. The will is the essential motivational component and includes attribution and self-efficacy beliefs. The skill component relates to the various strategies or techniques that are used to complete the learning task successfully, such as time management and/or note taking skills. The continuous and dynamic adjustment of both the will and the skill to ensure that the learning task is achieved requires metacognitive processes to be used by the learner. These processes are at the heart of SRL. Understanding the process of learning through a SRL perspective has implications for providing effective educational interventions. These should help learners to develop their SRL approaches so that they can succeed before the large variety of learning challenges that they will face in their journey as lifelong learners.