Tiếng Việt
There are a number of things that are important in supporting your self-development, including developing a vision of where you want to go and making a plan for how you will get there.
But in addition to these things, it can be very helpful to take some simple but practical steps to change the way you organize your life. These changes will help you create more time and space to manage your personal development activities.
Practical steps that can be taken to enhance personal development include:
- Time management
- Creating a personal CV
- Overcoming barriers to learning a new skill.
Time management
If you are considering making changes to your life, finding more time often poses a problem.
It may be that the changes you are thinking of making are to ensure you have more time to:
- Spend with your family.
- Do the things you enjoy doing.
- Contribute to your work.
- Contribute to your knowledge.
Whatever the reason, looking at how you use your time will encourage you to think of more effective ways to manage your time.
Creating your own CV
Writing a CV is not only necessary when applying for jobs, it can also be very useful for yourself and will help you assess the skills you have gained through education, training, work, volunteering, entertainment and other activities.
In turn, a personal CV will help highlight the skills you should be working on developing.
Quick guide to preparing your personal CV:
- Divide your document into sections including Education, Training, Previous Experience, Skills, etc.
- Use dates to identify when each item on your personal CV was achieved, i.e. when you graduated, when you learned a particular skill.
- Keep your personal CV concise: the aim is to list your skills and abilities, not to write an essay about them.
Many of the skills you have learned and developed through work, education or your personal life can be successfully applied to other areas of your life. For example, good listening skills are important in many aspects of life. Such skills are known as “transferable/developmental skills”, a term often associated with a set of skills that can be easily transferred from one job to another.
Analyzing your existing skills will help you identify both skills and personal qualities that can be used in other fields. Other examples of transferable skills are IT skills, communication skills, communication (verbal and written), organizational, literacy and numeracy skills, problem solving and understanding the needs of others or emotional intelligence.
Overcoming barriers to learning a new skill for personal development
Learning a new skill will open up new opportunities for you, while also empowering you as an individual.
There are many things that prevent people from learning new skills, but these barriers can be overcome with some thought. These can include:
Lack of confidence or self-esteem:
This is one of the biggest hurdles many individuals face. However, if this is an issue, ask yourself if there is anyone who can support and help you take the first steps in learning a new skill. Often, once the first move is made, the biggest hurdle is overcome. Confidence increases as you develop new skills.
Financial situation:
You may see your financial situation as a barrier to developing new skills, but this does not have to be the case.
The internet has many free pages, tools and resources that can help you develop specific skills.
Family commitments:
If being busy with family means you don’t have time to learn a new skill, you could enlist the help of a friend or family member to give you a few hours free each week.
The first step is often the hardest…
The barriers to personal development are often more in the mind than anywhere else.
The first step — whether it’s signing up for a course, getting some books from the library, or finding a website that can help — is often the hardest. As you take that first step, remember that the process described as ‘lifelong’ for a reason: you are always learning, only the level of formality changes.
