Who is the Most Important Person in Your Development?

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

That answer is easy.  It is YOU!  You will have many people in your life and your career that will be vital to your development. But none will be more important than you. You are the one that needs to seek the learning. You must have the desire to grow. No one else can motivate you to do the actual work that comes with personal development. No one will know you as well as you know yourself. Learning is an active participation and engagement activity. You must choose to do it.

Developing yourself can be one of the most rewarding experiences you will have in your life and career. Many people think back to school and may not be excited about the idea of learning. After all, you’re getting plenty of information on the job and you seem to be doing fine. This is a journey, though; an adventure even. Think of your development as your own personal development adventure. You’ll have many stops along the way. See exciting things. Experience new environments and meet interesting people. Self-development learning is different from school learning, you select the content. Often you are both the teacher and the student. You create your own lesson plans as you go.

There are many avenues to explore in creating your journey. The resources that are available today for our development are nearly endless and accessible to almost anyone. There is something for every learning style or preference. You can choose to read. You can find online courses or even universities if you do like the school learning environment. There are videos you can watch or audiobooks and podcasts to listen to. All those are great resources that will help in your development.

“Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning, we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning, we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning, we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life”

—Peter M. Senge

Here are 3 things to help get you started on your personal development journey.

Dedicate Time

Schedule it. Make it regular. Your personal development journey has to be something you make specific time for. Find a day each week that you can spend 30-60-90 minutes to dedicate to your development. Put it on your schedule. This is something that should not be seen as ‘easy to move’ or change. This is a firm day and time that you have a meeting with yourself. Ensure you select that time so that you will keep it. If you have a varying work schedule, plan out when you will complete your development time each week after your work schedule is posted. Or, if you know there are regular times you will not work, then use that time each week for yourself. The important part is that you dedicate the time. You put it on the schedule, and you make it a regularly recurring event.

Make Notes and Review Them

Keep a development journal as a way to capture the information you are reviewing or learning about and your thoughts along the way. It can be as simple as copying and pasting passages from a book or article you read online. It could be bookmarking certain sites that you want to come back to. It could handwriting notes in a dedicated notebook. Ensure you have a way of capturing your ideas and thoughts about what you are engaging in. Then, every so often, review those notes. Re-engage the senses from that moment to reinforce the learning that came from that. Capture any new notes or thoughts you have. This would be especially true if you took any of that information and put it to use in your life or job. What were the outcomes? What did you change? What else did you learn? Capture and review to exercise your ‘learning muscle’.

Track Your Progress

Your notes can also serve as a progress report. Your journey will never have a final destination, but you will have milestones along the way. What did you set out to achieve for yourself in this stage? Keep track for yourself, how are you doing?  There is no right or wrong, this is just for you. Tracking your progress should serve to energize your next stage. It can be recognition for what you have accomplished or motivation for what you still want to achieve. Once you build a rhythm to your learning journey, tracking will be a simple exercise that can be done with every review session you have. Know where you have been and what your next step will be. Track your progress.

Your personal development journey should be fun. If it is becoming a chore, revisit what you are setting out to achieve and why. Check in with your mentor or supervisor to gauge the path you are on. The learning you do for yourself is personal and 100% in your control, so ensure you are enjoying it. If you need to change the destination, the course or the stops along the way, then do so. You are the most important person in your development. This is YOUR journey.

Where will you begin your personal development journey?

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