Hanging onto your marbles… tactic #4 — Improve your skills

Improving your skills can maintain your sanity on otherwise mind numbing days. My experience has been that whatever the skill you are learning at the time, you will find ways to apply it eventually.  Sometimes…. faster than you think. Go after something that intrigues you so you stick to the learning.  Choose the topic based on how you feel about the idea.  Don’t strain too much on what to learn if something is not staring you in the face. If nothing is pressing or is required by your job, then pick something in the general vicinity of your interests. In other words….just do something… just start learning something new.

What I find is…The more I learn about something the more I love the topic. The more I love the topic the more I want to learn.

Switch gears

Improving your skills sounds like the topic has to be related to business or your work. Not true. You could be an accountant and you have always wanted to learn fencing. Go for it.  Touché. It is funny how the mind makes connections from something seemingly unrelated. That has been the argument for a Liberal Arts education. I choose interdisciplinary studies for part of my undergraduate saga ….and it was great. Loved it.

When I was the Manager of Training and Development for a medium size company in Chicago, I found a constant stream of people at my office door with requests for training of various flavors.  Funnily enough I found the really organized people wanted time management.  The accountants wanted “how to use spreadsheets”. The great communicators wanted courses to help them with their public speaking. In other words, people wanted more of what they already had. They wanted to be better at something in which they were already competent.  Makes sense ….they became accountants because they liked numbers, math, etc. So “give me more”. BUT, I seldom got requests from those individuals to take some course outside their comfy spot. Accountants weren’t asking for communications help. The great communicators weren’t asking for finance courses.

However when there was trouble brewin’ …..I would get requests from managers to send their analytical types to sensitivity training or communications classes.  Or the VP of sales would finally push for accounting classes for her reps who were trying to “give away the store”.

So look outside of your comfort zone. Look at courses in art or music if you are not so naturally inclined to those things. Look at learning Excel if you are always focused on communications issues. Take up a writing class if you are usually focused on numbers.

Not got topic?

If you are really stuck and don’t know where to improve your skills…… since we are focused on work life……It doesn’t matter what job you are in, most people could use some help on their communication skills. Listening, making points, staying on topics, following an agenda in your head, etc. Everyone in practically every job could improve their communications skills. So if you can’t figure out what you want to learn. I would suggest you start with communication skills, conflict resolution, listening, etc.

The other area that everyone can benefit from is accounting. Business runs on numbers (we hope). Numbers are a big part of the language of business. Learn to understand basic accounting or financial ideas.

But if these things seem too dry and boring to you…go learn to Tango… you will get some exercise and who doesn’t look good with a rose clenched between teeth? Join the dance.