Continuous professional development is key to keep performing in a challenging environment, especially when solutions are near impossible dictated by the toughest ever economic environment.
Smart professionals will keep pace with the demand and others will continue to believe in their inherent abilities which may not be sufficient. As the challenges evolve, managers need to keep evolving their capabilities and approaches. Solution to multiplying changes is to multiply your abilities so “better you can take control over bigger challenges.”
Knowing who you are – what you got and what you haven’t got is the most difficult thing to crack. If you get this right you then know where to develop yourself. Unfortunately, most managers overestimate their abilities and they end up being a discarded character unable to add value to the organisation to drive the organisation through mounting challenges.
What others think matters
Developing oneself is a process of transformation in which you ask yourself questions, you listen, think, decide, and act - and then you do it all over again - as a never ending activity. It’s the others who know who you are and what you are worth. To know the others’ feedback is a must. Your own assessment has no value at all. Always think about the content of your mind, listen to your body, and learn from the environment and people around you – and your reaction, or response, to it.
You may have your technical qualifications. But we often hear of self-made people with hardly any formal education or training in management. They are the best example for the success one can strike with self-development through self-coaching.
Set yourself a goal of achieving something that would make you happy, assess and see what areas you need to improve on, chase new knowledge, develop skills you need to acquire, motivate yourself living with the feeling success can bring you. As you assess yourself, you may well come up with other ideas of your own. If so, write them down and make sure you use them.
There is strong empirical evidence to suggest that goals and actions that are written down are more likely to be reached.
In fact, the more you write about your goals, the greater your chances of success. The more closely you can visualise exactly what you want, the more likely you are to make it happen. This means not merely daydreaming but visualising, imagining yourself really in the situation you want to make happen.
There is no point in setting yourself a lot of goals that you think you ought to achieve, if deep inside you actually don’t want to achieve them. If you feel yourself resisting working towards a particular goal, don’t beat yourself up about it but take some time and space to look carefully at what is happening.
Why are you resisting? Is that goal what you truly want? Or what your parents or friends think you would want? It’s a cliché to say follow your heart but, in the end, this is the only way to be happy.
Think like a sponge
When you have decided what you really want, focus on it. This focus, which is sharpened by writing down your goals, is what will carry you through to success - provided, of course, you remember you are focusing on a future reality that you are in the process of bringing about, rather than on some impossible dream.
The importance and value of positive self-talk cannot be overestimated. If you’re constantly telling yourself you can’t do it, it will be exceedingly difficult for you to overcome this. If you believe you can do it, you can. Again, something of a cliché but it’s absolutely true.
Coaching yourself is really about learning and expanding. Think of yourself as a sponge: How much can you soak up? Don’t simply settle for reading and listening. Be creative and look for something that doesn’t exist. Ask for help from those who can help you. Your success depends on your willingness to put yourself out there.
Schedule a standing meeting with yourself. Put it in your calendar and commit. This is a must for accountability and structure. Open a notebook to keep track of your progress and to complete the exercises. And lastly, do something to move your life forward right now. Yes, right this moment!
You can easily go wrong if you don’t take others’ feedback to know who you actually are.