Contrary to what society will have you believe, there is no such thing as a natural-born leader, manager, or personal achiever. Although some people may have natural inclinations for leadership, artistry, communication, organisation, or just about any other skill, many factors can influence their attainment of mastery in these (see this article for more details). Each of us grows into our talents at different rates and in different circumstances. There is nothing shameful in admitting your own need for improvement in any one of these areas.
In fact, nowadays, it’s good to be transparent about your shortcomings. For one, it means you are being clear-headed in your efforts to better yourself; for another, it means you are part of a culture that values self-betterment and offers many opportunities to attain it—notably, with the help of the personal development training industry.
Personal development training pertains to the techniques, programs, materials, and systems used by professional organisations in order to improve human capital, employability, and general personal skills for their client businesses or individuals. Those involved in personal development training are often referred to as trainers, coaches, or mentors. Personal development training courses usually advertise specialised courses for individual skills (for example this company in London), or offer packages for seminars in which two or more of these are taught.
The private training market is growing bigger by the day—should you be its newest recruit? Will investing in personal development training be worthwhile, and will it bring you a step closer to achieving mastery of coveted professional and personal skills? All signs point to yes, and here are six reasons why it’s a good idea for you to explore personal development training.
- You can up your chances for employability. No employer expects the perfect candidate to show up and have a Swiss army knife set of skills already at their disposal. But what most hiring companies will appreciate is a candidate who is honest about their areas for improvement, and who can prove that they’ve taken concrete steps to better fulfil the job requirements. Thus, it is not a bad idea at all to put personal development training credits on your resume and cite your completion of a course at your next job interview.
- You’ll learn skills you can use in virtually any field. The great thing about most personal development courses out there are that they’re not meant for just one profession. Effective communication, time management, and leadership are priceless skills that can be applied anywhere, from a job in a corporation to the academe, to the hard sciences, and to the arts. How you benefit from these skills is up to you!
- Your mentors will demonstrate very different approaches. Don’t forget about the wealth of talent that can be found in leadership positions for this sector. Your coaches, trainers, or mentors are experts worth learning from, and they know how to tailor-fit their training style to match your disposition as a pupil. They will play on your unique strengths, existing skills, and aspirations in order to guide you forward.
- You’ll learn more about your audience. In courses for communication, presentation, and public speaking in particular, you won’t be learning just about yourself—you’ll also be learning about your audience, the body of people you seek more meaningful engagement with. In a personal development training course, you’ll pick up on how to read an audience, what cues to take, what body language to use, and other means to help you stand out from the crowd.
- You’ll meet wonderful new people. You’re not the only one who’s walking the path to self-improvement; you’ll find many like-minded, goal-oriented people striving to gain the same skills, and perhaps it’s in one of your fellow students that you’ll make a lifelong friend. You’ll also have greater access to the training organisation’s pool of experts, and this network may be handy to have in the long run.
- You’ll gain the confidence to assert yourself. Many trainees struggle not only with a specific skill, such as articulating themselves or collaborating with other people; at their root, they may also be suffering from a lack of self-confidence. If this is the case for you, then you may find the heightened self-security you were looking for all along. Celebrate the occasion to undergo personal development training and get yourself out there. You have so much to offer the world!
One key learning in the field of motivational psychology is about Abraham Maslow’s 1943 Hierarchy of Needs. At the very top of a five-level pyramid that denotes Maslow’s theory of human needs is the need for self-actualisation, in which one can summon their full potential. Knowing how important this self-actualisation is, it may be a good time to enrol in a course that facilitates that for you.
Go forward, master new skills, and do as Maslow himself enjoined: become everything you are capable of becoming!
