Professional development – By Wesley Fryer via Flickr
It’s the weekend. I asked myself a question today.
Are I investing enough in myself lately to be a good person?
Sometimes it can be difficult to make the effort to improve yourself after a long work week. If you need extra motivation, here are some tips.
Set goals
You can identify the areas you are interested in learning more. These areas could be related to professional development. Perhaps you don’t have the right knowledge about risk management.
It could be related to your personal life. Are you looking to become a better parent? Perhaps you are looking to learn more about managing your finances, how to build an emergency fund and how to get out of debt.
“If you aim at nothing you will hit it every single time.” ? Zig ZiglarWhatever the issue, you must do something about it if your goal is to make progress.
One at a time
Some people may? I would not advise you to work on multiple projects at once. I don’t. I try to learn one thing at a given time. Once I feel that I have it mastered or at least mastered it, I can move on to the next thing. I’ve learned what I wanted to do for the moment and can move on to the next item on my list.
Find Accountability
You need someone to hold you accountable. A group of people with similar goals can be a great accountability partner. This is why many people form study groups for school classes or tests like the PMP exam.
Contributing posts to this site and 8 other sites helps me find accountability for many things. I am expected to write for the people at these other sites and here. That helps me stay accountable. One thing is that I make it a point to read all comments (that aren’t spam) posted on pmStudent.com. I learn a lot by reading the comments and participating in them. It helps me stay focused because of the commitment I made to you as part of this community.
Are task lists and reminders for calendars also useful? I have the worst memory of any person I know. I need to remember to post comments, read comments and read books in order to remember how to write. I need to set aside time and be reminded. Google Calendar is great for this. However, I don’t like the pop-up reminder. I set it to send me an e-mail before the task is started.
Baby Steps
You shouldn’t use BHAGs (Big hairy audacious goals) as your work strategy. You should break down your goals into manageable chunks, just like you would with a WBS. Write it down, do a WBS.? I mean it.
Next, think about what you will do today to reach your goal. Once you have completed it, go back to your WBS or mindmap and mark it off. It is very important to track your progress and feel that “atta boy” when you cross something off the list. Perhaps you read one chapter per day from a book about the topic. Perhaps you read one chapter per week. You can read the book in baby steps, no matter what it is.
What are you doing this weekend to invest in yourself and the next week? (If you’re willing to share, please leave a comment below. It might help you stay on track!