As we move into a more challenging economic environment it is clear that one of the areas companies look to cut costs is Training and Personal Development. However when times are tough the development of staff, one of the critical contributors to the success of any company, becomes even more important. Competition has rarely been tougher so a motivated, well trained workforce is vital to success.
This month we would like to look at 5 reasons why your own personal growth is more important than ever and encourage you to continue your development irrespective of what may be happening to your company’s training plans. We will also discuss some of the personal development options that are currently available to you.
We hope you find this useful and get inspired to prioritise your own personal growth in future.
Why Your Personal Growth Has Never Been More Important
There are a great many reasons why our own personal growth has never been more important, Here are just 5 that we will look at in this month’s Newsletter
- Personal Growth offers protection in times of redundancies.
- If you are not going forwards you are going backwards, if you are not growing you are dying.
- You will discover learn that you and not external events that controls your happiness and you learn how to do this.
- We are only ever as strong as our ability in our weakest key and this can servely impact on the results we achieve.
- Personal Growth increases your self esteem – a considerable help when dealing with the pressures of today.
Now let’s look at each of these reasons in a little more detail.
1. Redundancies
Personal Growth offers protection in times of redundancies. This can happen in 2 ways. First of all, it is often the people with the widest set of skills that are retained, as employers choose to keep the employees who can make the greatest contribution to the company going forward. Secondly, if redundancies become unavoidable your skills and attitudes are major factors in getting new roles. Also personal growth can improve how you handled the consequences of finding yourself in these circumstances. It has been shown that people who continually invest in their personal growth, deal with life’s challenges such as redundancies far more positively and effectively.
2. If you are not going forwards you are going backwards
The world is constantly changing. Just when we feel we have mastered our roles, new technology or legislation comes along to change everything again. These changes are more frequent and dramatic than ever before. No matter how much we have invested on our personal growth in the past we must never rest on our laurels. Remember if you are not going forwards you are going backwards, if you are not growing you are dying – there is no other way to see it. The half life of many professions is thought to be only 4 years. Therefore it is vital that we are continuously upgrade our skills to, at least stay at the level we have already achieved, but also to grow beyond this level and to maximise the incredible potential of each one of us
3. You Can Control Your Own Happiness
As Abraham Lincoln once said “People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be”. The best success literature will tell you that you have amazing control over how you feel on a daily basis irrespective of external events. But sometimes we just need some guidance and techniques that will help us to manage our thoughts and transform our experiences of life. Therefore by studying this type of material you can greatly enhance the quality of your life no matter what your external circumstances may be. One of the most powerful examples of this is contained in Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search For Meaning”. In this book the author describes his time spend in a concentration camp during World War 2. Although it is quite grim at times the underlying message is that no matter how atrociously you treat someone the one thing that can never be taken away from man is our freedom to choose our response to any given set of circumstances.
4. You Are Only As Strong as Your Weakest Key Area
I am often amazed at how many talented people are held back from the success they deserve by a weakness in one of their key areas of responsibility. To use an analogy of the human body, if our organs represent our key areas then a person with a perfect heart, lungs and kidney will still experience bad health if their liver is not functioning properly. A Sole Trader who can’t sell or a manager who can’t delegate will achieve levels of success linked to their abilities in theses areas. Therefore we should always review our key areas and enhance our skills in the weakest of these - this can transform the results we achieve.
5. Self Esteem
As you invest in your personal growth your self esteem continues to grow. Self esteem is a critical element in achieving happiness and success in life. Also people with high self esteem are far better equipped at dealing with the pressures and challenges that we face today. Obviously there is a lot of books, courses and seminars on improving your self esteem. However any work you do on your own Personal Development will always enhance our self esteem as well.
Start Now
So why not start your personal development right now. Here are just some options for doing this.
- Reading: There are so many wonderful personal development books available and not just to buy. Libraries usually have a wide range of personal development books. And don’t forget to look up their online catalogue as this will give you access to all the other libraries in your city and the books you select can then be sent to your local libary for collection.
- The Internet: If you have access to the internet then you have more material available to you than you could ever get to read in a lifetime. It is even possible to see many of the top Personal Development Specialists talk on their areas of expertise on their websites or even on sites such as Youtube.
- Seminars: Many of the top motivational speakers deliver seminars in Ireland on a regular basis. The internet is a great way to find out what seminars are coming to your area and many of these are free or relatively inexpensive. A good web-site to check is seminars.ie which gives information on seminars provided by this company. The Enterprise Boards also run excellent seminars which are often free to attend. Act Now have delivered seminars on Time Management , Building Quality Relationships and Winning Attitudes and Beliefs on behalf of the Fingal County Enterprise Board – see www.fingalceb.ie/ for their current offerings.
- Audiobooks: One of my own personal favourites as you can listen to Personal Development audiobooks while you are driving in the car, walking the dog, cleaning up after the dinner and many other situations without using up time needed for life’s other important activities. A web-site we would recommend here is http://www.audible.co.uk which has a huge selection of audiobooks at a fraction of the cost of buying them on CD in bookstores.
We wish you great success in your personal development journey. If you have any questions in relation to this month’s topic please send us a mail and we will be happy to respond. In the meantime we would like to leave you with the words of George Sheehan who once said “Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be”.
