As we settle into another school and professional development season, many professionals will take a critical look at their career and where they expect to end up. All too often our professional development goals are tethered to the current jobs that we work.
I invite you to consider professional development from a lens of what you need in your life to help you get to the next level before you book that next conference. I want you to truly consider where you see yourself within the next 5 to 10 years and if you are currently taking steps to get there. For many of us professional development means studying modules online and taking a quiz afterwards with no additional recourse to display to what we have learned. Yet, for others it means jumping in headfirst into a new initiative learning by trial and error and wearing the scars of the event like a badge of honor. While both approaches can certainly build your professional experience, I challenge you to think about which one makes the most sense to truly improve your knowledge and skill set in your desired area of interest.
When you take the time to learn a new skill whether it is in person or online, I want you to think about how you plan to implement what you have learned. I want you to see the future with you utilizing that new skill you just learned to help improve your life. We may think about separating work and life while trying to find that negligible work life balance that we always hear about. Does it make sense to separate your work and life in every single aspect?
Let us look at an example in the field of process excellence. This is a study of how to streamline and continually improve any given process. If you were to take a course in process excellence as your professional development and then leave it on the shelf to use only at work, you are deeply missing the opportunity to improve your life overall. If you took the time to complete that process excellence course and your professional development leads you to a career where your process excellence skills are used day in, and day out would it make sense to implement consistent use of the new skills you have learned? Could you use process excellence to improve your weekend around-the-house task list? Perhaps you could streamline and improve the efficiency in how you support your family?
Consider your professional development and what you plan to get out of it. How will you evolve and how will you ensure the tools that you have learned will remain sharp?
Professional Development – Are You Wasting Your Time?
