There are many misconceptions about personal development
& they include;
- How will I spend my money to attend a course when am going to use the knowledge to work for someone else.
- It is my employer’s responsibility to train & develop me on the job.
- I will develop myself when I have enough money because what I earn currently is not enough.
- In-house training is enough.
- Many attend seminars & trainings for the purpose of obtaining certificate alone.
- There are people who will never spend a dime on personal development but will attend when it is free.
- I am okay the way I am.
We are going to analyse each of the misconceptions mentioned
above critically.
Employer's factor
You actually do yourself a great favor when you develop yourself
& not your employer. Even if your employer collects the certificate from you,
he can’t collect the skills or knowledge acquired.
You should know that it is first & foremost your
responsibility to develop yourself on any job you are doing or intend doing. It
is not your employer’s sole responsibility to train you. If you want to be accomplished
you don’t wait for your employer to train you.
Money
Start with the resources at your disposal. You can go for
cheap trainings or look for free ones to help yourself. You don’t have to go to
MIT, Harvard to build yourself up. The internet is free & available for
everyone to use to a realistic extend. You can net-work with people on social
media & learn.
The truth is that money may hinder you from doing some
things in life but life should not come to a stand-still because of lack of
money. Money will hardly be enough in life. You can walk into a library, borrow
an internet enabled phone if you don’t have one. There are many resources that
can be obtained from google, & you-tube.
If you allow money to become an impediment to your development
you may end up at the end of the day never having enough money because your
earning power is decided by your producing power or skill level.
Certificate
If you are among the people whose motivation for attending a
course is to be awarded a certificate then you are not ready for
self-development. There are many people who will not enrol in a training when
there is no certificate attached to the training even when the benefit of such
training is on the high side.
Certificate is good but acquired knowledge & skills are
better. You can mis-place or lose your certificate or it can be stolen but you
can’t lose or mis-place your knowledge or acquired skills & it can’t be stolen.
Let me ask you a question. Assuming your vehicle is faulty &
a mechanical engineering graduate comes around & shows you his certificate
but can’t do any useful work on your car are you going to hire him to repair
your car compare to the road-side mechanic who comes along with no formal certificate
but can get your car running.
It is not enough to obtain a certificate without the
knowledge & skills endorsed by the certificate. It is better to have the
knowledge without the certificate than to have a certificate without knowledge.
Being able to translate the knowledge obtain from a training into useful skills
that you can apply or use on your job.
In-house training is enough
In-house is never enough. Going out exposes you to new
perspectives, approaches, experiences that can’t be acquired in-house as
organizational approaches are different. It also gives you the opportunity to
network with others.
I can only participate in free courses
There are many people who like to develop themselves by
attending courses but hate to spend to acquire the knowledge. They are not
ready to invest. They have a free of charge (FOC) mentality. For sure people
they are only interested in one question when a training programme is put
across to them.
If it is free then I am in otherwise count me out of it.
There are many times when free trainings may meet your
career goals, dreams & objectives & there are other times when free
trainings may not meet your desired goals, aims & objectives.
I am going to sign out at this point. Thanks for joining us. Watch out for our next
episode “The Importance of Personal Development”.
Your comments, contributions & questions are welcome.
Please share with others, your friends, loved ones &
neighbors.
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