How To Be More Strategic In Developing Yourself

Developing yourself greatly increases your effectiveness, your value and your capacity. Developing yourself generates more power in you; power to deliver whatever you are engaged in at a higher voltage and as such more impact than you are currently making is achieved. There are great seeds in you that need to be turned into trees. There are great talents in you that need to be turned into skills and competencies. Developing yourself can actually have a metamorphosis effect on you. It can transform you from being a caterpillar that crawls into a butterfly that flies and you will be amazed at the rate of growth, change and results of your own life. Developing your life starts from your inside. The rate of change in your life is directly proportional to the rate of change in your mind. There was a time that availability of knowledge and opportunities to develop ourselves was the challenge, but right now, the challenge we face is that there seems to be so much knowledge and opportunities available that we need to be more strategic to maximize them. Knowledge and opportunities for training and development are now available in various formats, prices and sizes.

Many times the issue with us is how to identify and maximize the right knowledge and opportunities for developing ourselves and also to focus and passionately commit ourselves to the development and training that we need. So, in the light of the above, I want to share some things with you that will help you to be more strategic in developing yourself:

1. Clearly define yourself: You are a multifaceted person. That is, though you are one person, you have various responsibilities and you play various roles in your life. List out all your responsibilities and every role you play down to your family roles. Whether you are a student, business person, job seeker, husband, wife, son, brother just list them all out. Then, ask yourself which of these responsibilities and roles you require more training and development in and make plans for how to develop yourself in these responsibilities and roles.
2. Be willing to make sacrifices: As you identify good sources of necessary training and development, be willing to give your all to grab and maximize those opportunities. They will greatly pay off in the long run.
3. Value education and learning and be a passionate reader: One good thing about formal education is that a lot of learning and training is packaged and made available to you in a very organized and relatively short time. Reading makes you charged up and impregnates your mind with the wisdom of great people.
4. Desire exposure: Be an inquisitive person. Desire to research and discover new things. Ask questions. Desire to develop new capacities and competencies. Be willing to take risks. We’ll talk more about taking risks in the next edition of this series.
5. Value coaching and Mentorship: Mentorship reduces the learning curve. 30 minutes with a mentor can do more for you than a whole year of feasibility study. Like with learning how to drive, sometimes all you need is someone to guide you and show you what to do to bring out the skill and ability that was always in you all the while. I have learnt recently that one way to learn from mentors is to be willing to render a service to them e.g. by assisting them in whatever they are engaged in.
6. Do not only develop skills, also develop habits: Be ready to value and practice whatever you are learning until it becomes a part of you. It is true that knowledge is power but applied knowledge is real power. Do not only build on your strengths. Work on minimizing and eradicating your weaknesses also. Little adjustments in major areas can bring about great results. Make adjustments and take correction as you learn and grow.
7. Decide to remain consistent in developing yourself: Real training and development has to be initiated from within you. Don’t wait to be pushed to develop yourself. Continually motivate yourself and take initiatives to keep making progress on this great limitless journey of developing yourself.

The ball is now in your court dear great one. It’s your turn to hit it with your baton. What strategic move are you going to make next? In what specific area or areas of your life do you desire to develop and be trained”? What are you going to do to get the next training and development that you need? Your next level of competence, effectiveness and efficiency is calling out to you. Answer the call by making that move. A new level of impact, fulfillment and results awaits you. It is time to rise to a new dimension of your potentials. Develop yourself and bring more of your greatness out of you.

I believe in you.

Ifoghale O. Efeturi,

[email protected]