There are shelves full of books about personal development. In the end the process is pretty simple. It’s not necessarily easy, but it’s simple. Here’s my idea of how it works.

Figure out your career strength. You can use this same process in other parts of your life, but this blog is about your career.

A career strength is something you’re good at and that you love to do. Most of us have many things we like and many things we’re good at. But there are usually only a couple of areas where love and talent come together.

Get yourself in a place where that strength is valued. Look for jobs, professions, industries and companies who need and value what you have to offer. Look for situations where you can learn and develop.

Figure out what you need to learn. This is not a one-time thing. You’ll have to do this several times during your career.

Identify excellent performers. You want to find out what the masters do. Then learn to do the same thing.

Plan how to learn it. I like written plans because they force you to crystallize your thinking.

Answer some basic questions. What do I want to learn? What would be fun to try? What kind of process will I use? Who’s important?

Find a mentor or two. Mentors are your spirit guides to the learning process. They help you learn and find learning opportunities.

Get lots of feedback. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. Without feedback, it’s hard to get better

Adjust. You almost never learn without mistakes. You almost never get it right the first time. So try-get feedback-repeat.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 9:45 am and is filed under Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.