How To Develop Your Skills & Knowledge : Read These Tips

If you are considering acquiring a new skill or if you are wondering How to develop your skills solely as a means of getting promoted, the first step is to change that mindset.

Indeed, continuous learning must be an integral part of your personal development, now and for the rest of your life.

And here’s why: the professional world is changing rapidly, new technologies and automation are also impacting many jobs. In the past, a career could last up to 50 years. But today, the lifespan of a newly acquired skill is about 5 years. Do the math, and you’ll quickly see why continuous learning is so important to keep up with these trends.

In fact, companies are already recognizing that the most valuable employees are those who are efficient and adaptable. So, if you want to develop your professional development skills, improve your technical knowledge or focus on personal development by working on your interpersonal skills, stress management, time management, or professional efficiency, for example.

In this article, you will learn how to start developing your self development skills and professional development skills.

Personal development: Definition

Personal development is a global process of reflection on oneself and developing one’s potential to improve the quality of one’s life and achieve one’s deepest aspirations. Self development skills can affect different aspects of life: professional, personal, spiritual, financial, relational, and family. The actions and progress observed in one area generally have positive repercussions in the others.

Through better self-knowledge, the individual understands and tends to achieve his true aspirations through goals to be reached. Personal development skills encompasses a lifestyle, a state of mind, and a methodology to give meaning to one’s life. The primary purpose of personal development skill is to gain efficiency, productivity, boost your career, take on new responsibilities, improve the way you manage your team, communicate better, etc.

Why develop your skills?

Many people are impressed by other people’s results and then start to envy and jealous of them. Unfortunately, they don’t realize how much time and effort they have invested to achieve them.

It is a trend that is well ingrained in us; we only see the tip of the iceberg. Thus, we greatly underestimate the amount of work required to achieve the same results. We often set ourselves the same goals they set, thinking we will achieve the same success. Taking the time to learn and develop our skills first is crucial.

And then some are easily intimidated by the size of their dreams. They are intimidated by their lack of knowledge, and they give up or put aside their passions indefinitely.

Some attribute their inaction to the fact that they lack the talent in the field to succeed. But they give up on their dreams because that talent is still out of their reach. In the end, they abandon their dreams one after the other. It makes them feel tiny and powerless.

1. Have the right skills to get started

This is the importance of developing one’s skills. Sometimes people think that it is possible to reach a goal with luck, on a roll of the dice, or with a few secret tricks… Which is obviously completely wrong.

2. To achieve any goal.

Whether it is singing, dancing, teaching, coaching, blogging, cooking, gardening, etc., it’s all part of the job. You need to develop the right skills to succeed. Skip this step, and you will never reach your goals. You will fail miserably or perform poorly.

Let’s imagine, for example, that you would like to become a German teacher. The essential skill needed to be a teacher, is without surprise, to Master the German language. Therefore, you must first and foremost master your German if you want to succeed in achieving your goal. Without knowing the tenses, grammar, vocabulary, you cannot hope to get very far in your ambition.

Now, let’s imagine that you are an amateur web developer, and you want to start your own web design business. Before creating such a service, you will first need to have excellent web design skills to design the requested websites. This means having excellent software skills such as Photoshop and Illustrator and programming languages such as HTML and CSS. Perhaps also some understanding of PHP and JavaScript. Without these skills, you will not be able to create a visually appealing site that meets today’s web standards, which is a very competitive industry today.

3. The skills you have are like the tools of a mason.

When a carpenter has shoddy tools, even if he is the most skilled and versatile craftsman, he will be limited in the type and quality of parts he can produce. But, when equipped with the best tools, the carpenter can now complete any project he wants (provided he has the proper carpentry skills, of course!).

No matter how accomplished you are today, you will be able to get the best results to achieve your goals by developing your skills. The limits of what you can achieve are literally defined by the skills you have.

By expanding your skills, you will naturally increase the quality of results you can achieve in any of your current goals.

Primary and Secondary Skills

Skills can be classified into two broad groups:

• Primary skills (core competencies);
• and secondary skills.

1. Primary skills

Core competencies are skills we absolutely need to perform our tasks. Your results are directly related to these competencies. Without these skills, you cannot perform the task at hand properly.

2. Secondary skills

Secondary skills are skills that are beneficial to have, but not necessary to achieve the desired outcome.

Let’s say you are a writer and you want to write a fantastic short story in English. Logically, your skills would be organized as follows:

Core Competencies:

• English proficiency;
• Creativity and imagination;
• Careful writing.

Secondary Skills:

• Your personal influence (to persuade publishers to publish you);
• Design talents (to shape the cover);
• Time management skills.

What distinguishes primary and secondary skills is your goal. As long as a competency has a critical impact on the outcome, it will be considered a core competency.

• If your goal is to write a short story that will interest a major publisher, your personal influence will be crucial.
• If your goal is to write a short story in a short period of time, then time management will be your main skill.

The role skill plays in your desired outcome will dictate the number of resources you will invest in it.

Identifying the core competencies for the task you are performing will allow you to focus your efforts and energy on what really matters to achieve better results.

The secondary nature of secondary skills means that you will only need to master them broadly. There’s no need to go into them in-depth or waste time working on something that won’t bring you more results.

How do you start developing your skills?

Here are five essential steps you can start with today:

1. Break them down into smaller steps

Starting to develop your skills can be difficult, especially if the desired skill is completely new.

For example, you are starting a new business. Managing a business includes a wide range of skills, such as project management, time management, leadership, problem-solving, etc.

If so, break it down into smaller steps. What is the first step you need to take to get started? Direct all of your efforts to complete this first step, then move on to the second step. You will find that your skills are much easier to develop this way.

2. Learn from the best

It’s much easier to learn from people who have been through the same thing as you. Identify people who are already experts in the skills you are looking to develop.

• Observe and analyze them.
• Read what they have written.
• If you know them,
• Approach them for help.
• Ask them to be your mentors.
• Ask them for advice.
• Look for coaches who are experts in your field and hire them.
• Model them if you want to achieve the same results.

3. Search and read

In the digital age, there are tons of media and information available just for you. In fact, in today’s world, we’re pretty overwhelmed with information. Start by narrowing your search to what’s most important to you, your core competencies.

Read books (paper or ebooks), watch videos, and listen to podcasts. Books tend to be better sources of information (structured content and organized information). Don’t hesitate to summarize what you learn on a regular basis, take notes, and make notes if necessary.

4. Practice

Seminars, trainings, and workshops are a great help to develop skills quickly. Depending on their quality, they can be decisive for the skills you are looking to develop.

Here are the most popular sources of information at your disposal:

1. Mentoring coaching.

Coaching aims to coach and guide you in the context of a mission to be accomplished in the short term. It allows you to develop the skills required in your function. Mentoring is based on a more personal relationship and accompanies you in your personal or professional development to help you gain self-confidence and autonomy.

2. Lectures.

The lectures expose theoretical notions that will be applied in the professional context. It provides an opportunity for participants to interact with each other and with the trainer to better assimilate knowledge.

3. Case studies.

Case studies facilitate the understanding of theoretical concepts. They allow the application of key concepts in the context of concrete cases generally drawn from real life.

4. Role-playing.

Role-playing requires participants to play a role, imagine different scenarios, and get as close as possible to reality.

5. Group work.

Group work is essential to learning, as it encourages more exchanges and confrontation of points of view. This allows you to broaden your vision and open your mind to different approaches.

6. Distance learning.

Distance learning is an alternative to face-to-face training and represents a less constraining alternative training solution, but requires excellent self-discipline.

7. Conferences and trade shows.

Conferences and trade shows allow you to update your knowledge, get the expert’s point of view in their field, and meet your peers. These are sources of information already concentrated and organized as a series of programs. The intensity of these events and the participants’ common intentions allow you to move forward much faster than if you were alone.

Let’s not forget that according to Edgar Dale‘s Learning Cone, the information that is practiced is the best retained! Don’t be ashamed to practice relentlessly, even if it means making mistakes in the beginning.

5. Take action and get started!

There is not a better way to learn than to get started on what you need to do. Planning and organizing are undoubtedly important, but you will have to start doing it at some point.

When you start taking action, you will immediately get feedback on your progress and whether or not it meets your expectations. As long as you don’t try, everything you’re trying to do remains blurry in your mind.

Getting things done closes the door to all the “what ifs” and pushes you to move forward. Take the first step, and you’ll see that everything else will follow.

What skills do I need to develop?

Here is an exercise to start working on the skills you need to develop to achieve your goals.

Take a paper and pen now.

• Write down your biggest goal.
• What skills do you need to achieve this goal?
• Apart from these skills, what is the primary and secondary skills?
• For your core competencies, how can you learn and develop them?
• How can you apply the methods suggested above to develop these skills?

Start now, and you will begin to see the benefits of your efforts to build those skills directly through your results. The 10,000 hours of Malcolm Gladwell will come quickly, and you can become an expert in your field.

In conclusion

If you wish to enrich and develop your professional life, the enrichment of your skills is essential. For your return to work, with the aim of moving up the ladder or for your personal development, this initiative promises you tremendous personal and professional growth.

Through training courses, independent learning, or temporary work, acquiring new skills is within the reach of any worker ready to evolve and realize new professional projects. It is an investment that will reward you sooner or later by getting a new position, increasing your responsibilities, or allowing you to negotiate a higher salary.