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The Low-Down On Personal Development
(Snippits from our oh so popular Digital Glue Podcast!)
Let’s talk about personal development plans today.
- What does this involve?
- What is a personal development plan?
- How does one do personal development?
- How does one actually plan to do it?
The importance of personal development can’t be overstated. It is truly the secret sauce that separates you from the rest of the pack. It is the bridge that carries you forward and towards your inspiring goals.
And to put it simply, as Pat Summit, Author and 1976 Summer Olympics Silver Medalist states …
Change equals self-improvement. Push yourself to places you haven’t been before.
No matter what your niche, as an entrepreneur you’re singularly focused on productivity and problem solving. You’re a hustler who works as hard as possible and as fast as possible for as long as you can — hopefully without crashing and burning — because the outside world perceives you as a Rockstar. We live in a culture of “I don’t need help; I can do it all on my own” but in the end you’re only risking your emotional and physical well-being.
What I’m trying to get at here is that every single entrepreneur struggles with personal development. While juggling the day-to-day balancing act … … There’s just not enough time. So, my plea to you is to step outside your comfort zone and start engaging yourself in meaningful self-growth practices and expanding your mind through every learning opportunity you can get your hands on — big or small.
Because life begins at the end of your comfort zone …!
If you think about it … A comfort zone is nothing but a belief, a mere reflection of your thoughts. You desire something, better yet you fear change. Self-doubt will bind you there, belief is all you need.
There are many things you can do on a regular basis to make self-improvement a key part of your everyday entrepreneurial lifestyle that will help your business and your personal life …
- Read more — it exercises your brain and improves your concentration.
- Take courses — improve the skills you have or add some to your list.
- Attend conferences – not only great for networking but for acquiring new skills.
- Talk to others – you learn just as much from your team members and other entrepreneurs.
- Be less busy — working on time management improves focus.
- Prioritize your passions — remember what matters most to you.
- Take YOU time – relax and recharge so you can find peace and be more agile.
Anyone committed to building an amazing life will benefit from a personal development plan. Creating one, however, needs to be a custom designed plan, based on your own personal needs and goals. It’s not something you can copy from your guru friend. If you do, it won’t meet your specific needs. So, spend some time figuring out what your needs are, and what you hope to accomplish in the long run. That information will pay off wonderfully, so you don’t end up chasing down blind alleys that get you nowhere productively.
Once you know what you’re looking for, with a stunning array of material and programs available right at your fingertips, use every resource at your disposal to narrow the search to what’s best suited for you. But of course, tap into free resources first, until you identify the experts to best direct your path. Gather the lay of the land, and where you hope to arrive. Minimize time and energy zappers and addictions. Replace destructive habits with constructive ones. And above all … identify your life’s purpose — if you don’t already have one — that speaks to the center of your being.
Only then will you have the commitment to pursue your self-improvement game plan. Then simply keep track of your progress, so you can review and realize the journey you’ve made.
In short, the more you invest in yourself (business and pleasure), the more you will have to offer and the more you’ll grow as a person.
Next, I want to share 5 courses we feel every entrepreneur needs to sign up for …
Truthfully, anyone who has a really big idea can become an entrepreneur. But keep in mind, launching a business that joins the ranks of startup powerhouses is not an easy path. There are always factors such as demand, timing and publicity that are out of your control. However, if you can position yourself as a strong, knowledgeable entrepreneur who can wear many hats, and run a small team, your chances of launching a successful business are in your favour.
There are so many skills to acquire when running your own show and even more so if you plan on taking on clients (depending on your niche). While most industries have their own set of “required skills”, there are some things that every entrepreneur should know, regardless of their BIG IDEA.
With that being said and after much research, here is a very short list of 5 courses that I’ve come up with to help with some entrepreneurial skills to make you and your business shine and of course without breaking the bank …
(And yes, I have taken or am taking some of these too — this isn’t just a “fluff” piece — I stand by what I preach and wouldn’t toss out any courses or resources if my team and I haven’t first tried them out first).
The first being …
A step-by-step online course (by Michelle Ward, CEO of 90-Day Business Launch) to leaving your boring day job and launching a career you love.
You don’t have to commit your life to a soul-sucking day job. In fact, you can drum up the job of your dreams if you have the right mindset and an action plan to back it up. In Ditch Your Day Job, career coach Michelle Ward will show you what it takes to go from bored-at-work to satisfied and self-employed.
Course #2 …
Work Remotely: Thrive in a Job From Home
This great course by Darren Murph, Guinness World Record-holding journalist, author, and consultant) talks about how to build a home office, a non-linear workday and invest in yourself.
If your soul is drained by a daily commute or you work in a role that you’re sure could be done from anywhere. Working remotely (or virtually as we like to call it) removes a massive inefficiency and enables you to live and work with more flexibility. In this class, you’ll discover the tricks to setting yourself up for success in a remote role and how to ensure a smooth transition.
Course #3 …
WordPress: The Complete Website Business Course
Master WordPress without learning how to code and without any programming knowledge or requirements (available on Udemy).
This course will enlist you with the skills you need to create all kinds of websites for yourself (or your clients). You’ll learn how to build within staging and development environments and master the inner workings and set up hosting in the most secure and economical ways.
Course #4 …
Created by Kevin Allison, Head Instructor at The Story Studio, helps you learn how to grab attention, create emotion, and inspire action.
Here you will learn how to include the 6 senses in your story scenes to trigger emotional responses and how to drive your narrative toward one unforgettable selling point. You will master the 5 beats of the classic story structure and acquire a story brainstorming, workshopping, and performance-honing process that you can apply over and over.
And last but not least, course #5 …
Boost Your Productivity in Just 7 Days
Created by Catrinel Girbovan, Process Improvement Consultant PhD on the topic of our all-time favourite thing beyond creativity and design … productivity.
When it comes to productivity, slow and steady wins the race and why taking scheduled breaks as well as minimizing multitasking will benefit you in the long run. You will learn to identify High Value Tasks or tasks that contribute the most value to your work while also being mindful of tasks that are considered Low Value, that could be delegated, eliminated, or procrastinated on.
In the end, whether you’re listening to this “untangling” podcast episode today because you are interested in starting your own business, learning how to write compelling blog posts, taking a hand at the essentials of digital marketing, or just learning how to succeed in the digital world and be more productive — these online business courses can help get you there.
And lastly, if you know of any other entrepreneur courses that should be added to this list don’t hesitate to drop me a line or post your awesome ideas into the comments.
To end things off today, our best advice is for you to create an annual plan for your own self-improvement — not simply just to acquire more knowledge, but to acquire additional implementation skills. To transform your innovative ideas into lasting success that’s purposeful and on the path of continuous professional development.
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Crystal Kordalchuk
Crystal is an artist, a writer, an organizer, a dreamer, a doer, and down-right proud of it NERD!.
Struck with a love for #AllThings creative at a very young age, Crystal dreamed of a life fueled by her passion for creating and bringing the stories and images in her mind into reality.
As she worked toward her dreams, she earned a diploma as a Computer Applications Specialist then another in Graphic Design and from there began to develop her extensive background in multimedia and the arts. She began her worked in the magazine industry as a layout designer and had a succession of design jobs thereafter. It was her role as a graphic/web designer that gave her the first real glimpse of her future. Soon she began a side job as a freelance designer while keeping one foot in the corporate world. A spark was lit! She turned her freelance gig into a full-time business combining design work with her other passion: creating organization from virtual chaos.
Crystal is one of the most organized individuals on the planet. She is by all means a Zen master of her crafts. She excels at helping others become “untangled” and provides her clients with tools to run their businesses smoothly while she takes care of the details behind the scenes. Thus Virtually Untangled was born. A successful business where her work as a top notch creative in graphic and web — with a twist of virtual assistant — married into one amazing place where clients can come with their virtual messes and become magically untangled. Crystal can always make sense of even the most unorganized chaos and offers a virtual detox of order and peace, so her clients can get busy doing the work that they love the most.