Some employers would prefer candidates who have good interpersonal skills. And although many employers would seek candidates who have excellent academic achievements, completed an internship, leadership experiences, work history, and more, many would consider the candidate’s personality before hiring.
So, why do employers care so much about professional development? First, they want to hire employees who have the skills needed to succeed in their respective roles. They hope to hire someone fully invested in their profession and can glean this by looking at the candidate’s interpersonal skills.
Below are five tips for professional development.
1. Neuroscience Behind Personal Development
Neuroscience plays a crucial role in the way people learn. It’s a field of study that focuses on the brain and its impact on behaviour and cognitive functions, or the way people think. It’s used to study various personalities and help individuals in dealing with negative emotions in their life. It can also lead to a significant boost in their career.
Neuroscience also plays a role in our emotional quotient, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities. It sets a biological base for our changed behaviour in our daily life. Learning neuroscience behind personal development can offer many benefits. First, it can help boost your self-confidence since it will teach you how to position yourself towards others. You will also understand the mechanism of stress and discover what part of our brain can trigger stress and how we can switch from one part to another.
More importantly, learning about neuroscience can help you connect with your motivations. You will understand the difference between temporary and lasting motivations and figure out what really motivates you.
2. Dealing with Stressful Situations
We all have to deal with stress as it’s a normal part of life, both in our personal and professional lives. And now that we are dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us may be experiencing a heightened level of stress. Remember that if you don’t handle stress properly, you could suffer from mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety.
Thankfully, you can take free online training courses that can help you manage stress practically and effectively. These stress management courses will teach you different techniques to deal with stressful situations. When you take these courses, you will learn how to prioritise, delegate, and manage things that could help you handle stress more effectively.
One of the stress management courses you can take for personal development is Time Management Skills. With this course, you will learn how to organise daily tasks at work, understand the value of prioritising tasks, setting realistic goals, and efficiently managing your daily tasks. At the end of the training, you will learn how to manage your time at work, which lessens stress and improve productivity.
3. Resilience
Resiliency is crucial since it gives people the strength to overcome hardships in life. It’s typically defined as the ability to recover from challenging situations. By being resilient, you would withstand adversity, bounce back, and grow despite life’s downturns.
People need to understand that resilience is not like a trampoline, where you are down one moment, then up the next. Instead, it is like trekking a mountain without any trail map. It takes time and strength, and you will most like suffer from setbacks as you go on. But eventually, as soon as you get to the top, you will feel good as you look back at how far you have accomplished.
People lacking resiliency are easily overwhelmed and tend to resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as drug and alcohol addiction. Resiliency is the ability to tap into your strength and support system to overcome life’s challenges and work through problems. There are different forms of resilience. Emotional resilience is when a person taps into realistic optimism when dealing with stress. Meanwhile, physical resilience is the body’s ability to adapt and recover from life’s difficulties.
4. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is one of the essential skills that people must develop. It will help you stay focused on your life’s goals and become the best version of yourself. In essence, self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and whether or not your emotions, thoughts, or actions align with your internal standards. Highly self-aware individuals can objectively evaluate themselves, manage their feelings, and align their behaviour with their values. They can interpret their emotions, actions, and thoughts objectively.
Self-awareness is a rare skill since many people spiral into emotion-driven interpretations when faced with difficult situations. Developing self-awareness is necessary since it allows leaders to assess their growth potential and change courses if necessary.
Self-awareness is crucial because it helps us recognise the effect we have on others, leading to happier and better relationships. If we are more aware of how people see us, we will be more empathetic to others. Leaders whose self-perception are similar to others are more likely to empower others.
5. Growth Mindset
A growth mindset empowers people to believe that they can develop their abilities. This view creates a love for learning and resiliency that are essential for accomplishing our goals in life. A growth mindset is one of those skills that people should develop. Thankfully, you will now find free online courses for professional development, including growth mindset.
Many people often give up when they encounter hardships or challenges in life. This kind of attitude is called the “fixed mindset”, which is the opposite of a growth mindset. If people have a growth mindset, they will be more capable of overcoming challenges since they will be willing to adopt the necessary skills to overcome life’s challenges. For instance, a growth mindset in students who struggle with math subjects will help them recognise what they can do to pass the subject. Instead of giving up, they will persist in their efforts and think of other learning techniques to improve their skills in math.
Developing a growth mindset is not always easy, but the online courses will teach you some ways and techniques. In life, we all make mistakes, but it’s important to learn from these mistakes and use them as motivation to improve yourself.