Your professional areas of growth and your personal development goals do overlap most of the time. When you develop on a personal level, professional growth does get impacted positively. If you want to see a greater change in your career, making goals in the area of professional and personal areas of growth can help you achieve the much-needed way forward into success in your Career. What does it mean to grow professionally? Professional growth happens in areas that directly affect your professional life. Developing certain areas distinguishes those who are successful professionally from those who are not doing well in their career. When you develop a clear professional area of growth, you set the tone and the path to a robust and thriving career. Therefore, this is not to be taken lightly.
How do you develop these professional areas of growth?
This can be achieved by making a note of all the skills that you possess and reshaping it or if you see a lack in your skills, you could find ways to achieve those. Take a mental note of all the things that are setting you back from achieving satisfaction and growth in your career and once you have discovered it, make a firm decision to work towards changing it.
Some of the examples of the professional areas of growth are:-
As you all know, when you strive to do more, you can achieve more professional areas of growth when you look for ways to improve your existing work conditions by incorporating things that lead to your professional growth. For instance, improving your services on the job, pursuing further studies, or taking an active role in the professional organization. One cannot underestimate how training puts you ahead of the game. Working on research relating to your particular field also puts you in a better position professionally. And last but not the least, working on roles and responsibilities that are beyond your job roles thus helps a lot in advancing your professional areas of growth. Let’s look at the examples to get a clear understanding of what it is.
1. Sharpening your existing skills or acquiring a new one adds to your professional growth. One of the ways you can do that is by enrolling yourself in some courses or workshops.
- You can even go a step further and pursue a formal degree program. Another way you can add knowledge is by pursuing certificates, accreditation. Other credentials will give you a career boost and make you a more professional employee. The zeal to always learn and put yourself in professional organizations gives you an edge over your competitors.
- You could also find ways to attend as many seminars, meetings, conferences, or workshops locally, nationally, or internationally which are sponsored by professional organizations. This makes a huge impact on your career growth. The ones who are continuously putting in the effort always go ahead of others.
- Find ways to participate in those conferences, meetings, or workshops. Another way of enhancing your professional growth is by serving in the organization wherever needed. For instance, if your organization is hosting a big event, volunteer to help out in it.
2. The second thing is to have an inquisitive mind by keeping yourself updated on the job. Here are some ways to do it.
- Have a mind for research. Always research on how to better perform in your work. There is always something new you can incorporate into your roles and responsibilities. Have a fresh way of doing the same thing now and then. you can only achieve this if you are not weary to conduct research.
- This will help you to be tech-savvy with ease and you will not feel overwhelmed when a new technology is introduced in your organization. Another thing is that you will stay ready for those new developments that may happen in your career field. It is a fast-moving world and your habit of always learning in your career can help you to also improve skills that you already possess.
3. The third thing is to ask for more responsibility and duties. You could also take up roles beyond your job roles if the opportunity exists. If they are not available, you could volunteer outside of your work to stop yourself from getting stagnant in your professional growth.
- This small yet profound act will impact your overall career growth, maybe not in the present organization but elsewhere. In other words, doing so will still be beneficial for you in the long run.
- If your organization is a good one, you will have lots of things to do like you could ask for new tasks or take up any long or short type of projects assignments.
There are existing companies that offer professional areas of growth as many good companies are aware of their employees’ needs and aspirations towards their careers. The names of some of such companies are Wells Fargo, Palo Alto Networks, HCSC, Asurion, AT&T, Gap Inc, Facebook, AllState, Tory Burch, Veterinary Speciality center, WW, PVH, etc.
Professional development happens when you have a better approach to it.
It has a way of making you sharper and better by its effective skill-based training. This is essential as it makes the participants learn some conceptual information or touches on their soft skill development. One of the ways on how to apply those skills-based training is using the classic approach which is applying them immediately. Practice makes everyone perfect. And if one does not apply it in the real world, it will be forgotten soon. This is why the application of it as well as getting feedback on the performance is very much needed.
How do you make the most of it?
Have a group meeting and discuss those skills and work out ways on how to use them with your colleagues and supervisors. Be accountable for each other and do not shy away from constructive criticism. The most important thing is to practice what you have been taught at the training session. Ask for more developmental assignments that make you uncomfortable and push you out of your limits. You will never know how far you can go if you never have such developmental assignments.
4. Another example of a professional area of growth is learning people’s skills.
There have been recent developments in the career world about having a more fruitful experience with hiring people with high EQ rather than just having a high IQ. One learns to communicate better and have thriving intrapersonal relationships when one has a high EQ.
One way to have professional growth is to develop in the area of communication.
- Developing your written communication is as important as developing your non-written ones. In a professional environment, one has to learn to master written communication so you have to be well versed in your email writing, application drafting, SMS writing, etc.
- This has a huge impact on the quality of your skills and talents. But one can also not underestimate the power of those verbal communication styles. The tone and the style of communicating along with using empathy and understanding are very important to succeed in the overall professional development.
Some ways where you can develop both written and unwritten style of communicating is:-
Firstly, to improve written communication, you can study the various tones and styles of writing and brush up on your grammar and vocabulary or take courses on business communication.
Secondly, for verbal communication, you can learn the art of speaking effectively by learning from those who have gone before you and are experts in this field. You could choose various mentors relating to such topics and start learning from them and applying them wherever you get the opportunity.
A person with high EQ has good professional relationships. One of the ways you can achieve growth in your professional development is to invest in the lives of the people you are working with.
For that to happen, you need to maintain some good work habits like:-
- A global mindset:- A person who has such a mindset makes room for people of different ethnicity and cultures. And they also accommodate people of different personalities. They do not stick to their way of thinking but accommodate others’ points of view too.
- Listening skills:- listening with non-perceived assumptions and listening to understand rather than to give an opinion. If you give the people the freedom to express themselves and make them feel valued, there is no way you will have problems working with anyone.
- Learn to manage your time:- work relationships can suffer setbacks if you lack time management skills. An important project delayed will bring the wrath of your team including your boss. It will not allow you to complete your assignments on time and make you seem irresponsible to your colleagues. The ability to properly manage time is a great asset to have. It will limit your stress and enhance your productivity and efficiency. It will also give you more time to do other activities.
Here are some tips to manage your time:-
- Keep a note on things that are unnecessarily taking up your time. For example, such as an app or any unproductive routine. Eliminate it.
- Keep a schedule for everything and complete it. Make a note of your time so that your schedule is not hindered by unimportant things.
- Change your mindset about time then you will become more mindful of it. For instance, have a mindset of looking at time as a precious and limited resource. Once it’s gone, you can never get it back. This mindset will set the tone to be more aware of your time wasters.
- Improve your organizational skills by Cleaning up your emails and arranging those files. Keep a neat table. Keeping important things within your reach saves time.
5. Another huge factor in your professional areas of growth is how you overcome and deal with conflict resolutions in your workplace. Many find it hard to deal with this problem and some just don’t know how to handle it. They just shut down or make more of a mess. Some of the examples of having a good conflict resolution are:-
- When you are faced with a conflict challenge, do not shy away from it and face it healthily. Solving a conflict in a passive-aggressive way or just being plain passive about it is not a constructive way of dealing with it. This will affect your professional reputation negatively and people will take advantage of you.
- You can achieve this professional development in this area by being upfront and open to discussion without being aggressive. Be assertive and welcoming. This will put at ease the other party and will make the situation a lot calmer. If you are a shy person, work on your confidence and eliminate your shyness.
6. The last example of professional areas of growth is in the area of leadership.
Your leadership skills matter no matter what your roles and responsibilities, everyone can be a leader in their roles. As they say, leadership is not a title but it is the way you handle others and how you find ways to add value to their lives. Some of the examples of how to develop your leadership skills are by learning to ease someone’s burden at work. If it is by lending a hand or just listening to their problems. And after learning their problems, start to motivate and encourage them to press on and not give in.
Conclusion
Ultimately to achieve all those professional areas of growth, you need to, first of all, maintain a positive lifestyle and learn practical ways to let go of any stress, frustration, or woes. Only through keeping your mind healthy and renewed, can you make changes in the professional areas of growth. Make daily positive affirmations and change the way you think by making alignment with those things that make you happier and bring you to a peaceful state. Making available challenges and being comfortable with empathy and kindness and love and gratitude makes a person fuller and enjoyable to be around. These things are like a magnet in achieving any type of goal in your life whether it is professional areas of growth or others, you need to stay in your element to thrive anywhere and everywhere.
