As some of you will have seen from my recent social media posts, I have just returned from three days of intense training and have returned filled with enthusiasm, renewed passion and vigour, and hopefully lots of new skills. It made me start to think about the importance of self-development as even though most of us are time-poor, we really cannot afford to keep under-taking self-development opportunities; not if we want to continue to better ourselves and progress forward on our life journey.
Training, self-development courses, conferences, expos, networking functions and workshops give us ample opportunities to further our self-development, gain new skills and give us inspiration and motivation. No matter what you wish to focus on, or what you are seeking to achieve, there are lots of options to help you to improve and better yourself.
If you feel that you don’t have time or can’t fit into your day, then check out the internet as there are lots of webinars, You Tube videos, Ted Talks etc. that may offer you an alternative. These are fantastic as you can do in your own time, when it suits and you can also undertake in the comfort of your own home and with minimal expense.
Personally, I think that you should do a combination of both active self-development and internet options. Internet learning, webinars, podcasts and Vlogs can be invaluable, but don’t shy away from activities where you actively participate in them. Participating with others and doing ‘hands on’ activities are important and can really extend our skills and make us stretch ourselves a little further.
Human connection and interaction, as well as networking and relationship building are crucial to our development. We all thrive on human contact and we learn so much just from inter-acting with others. Conferences and networking events are also a fantastic way to converse with like-minded people who either share similar interests or work in the same fields or areas that we do. This alone can give us fantastic contacts and enable us to make new friends and build new relationships or collaboration opportunities.
Reading is another great way to learn new things and gain inspiration. Self-help books, business books, skills books and special interest magazines are great sources of information to help us on our self development journey. Internet articles, social medial and website blogs are constantly thrown under our radar, so ensure that you read those of interest or save to read later when you have a bit of spare time.
It is so important to keep learning and progressing forward. We all need a daily dose of motivation, relish the opportunity to be inspired and want to continue our learning. Life is a journey and we should seek to constantly improve ourselves, further our development and take up opportunities that are presented to us to continue to learn, grow and develop.
Don’t settle for status quo, take a leap forward and engage in development and training to take you to the next level, whether it is in your career or on personal level.
