The 5 legitimate Professional Development skills you need to succeed

We’re all learning. No one is perfect. However, who doesn’t want to speed up their journey to success? This blog post will cover the 5 professional development skills you need to adopt now to succeed. 

There comes a point in your life where things become easier, where you find momentum and you feel yourself getting better. It’s not magic or maturity that saves you. It’s focusing on how you behave on a daily basis.

When I stopped whining about my situation and started using my energy to work on what I could control in my life – all of my relationships became easier. I was more interested in working with others and I had more patience with myself. Unfortunately, schools do not teach us how to learn but once you find these levers and pull them, opportunities won’t stop knocking on your door.

Really I’ve had to stop networking because I’m happy where I am at the moment and people keep trying to poach me.

After you read this post and learn about the professional development skills you need to adopt now to better your relationships, opportunities, and life; then you’ll never be the same. You’ll never want to go back to who you used to be. And everything you could ever want will be yours or at least within reach.

This post is all about the 5 legitimate professional development skills you need to succeed.

Professional Development Skills

Listening

When I took a class on interpersonal relationships in college we delve deep into what listening really is.

Hearing and listening are completely different. Hearing is involuntary. It’s your ears picking up sound waves and sometimes making sense of them.

When you listen to someone you’re absorbing not just their words, but you’re deciphering their body language, their tone, their pitch, the speed at which they deliver their message if there is any hesitation or involuntary vocal and physical symptoms and you’re purely just trying to make sense of what they are saying. You’re trying to understand the origin of where their thoughts are coming from, and what they’re trying to get from you. You help guide them so that you both have a full understanding of what is being discussed.

Soo many times people try to jump in and share only what they think and have no desire to understand others. Or people are quick to give advice on a situation that they only have a very basic understanding of.

It also becomes tricky when you’re the listener and the person sharing their thoughts is not receptive enough to hear you when you say, yes I’ve heard this, is there anything new you’d like to share?

Listening is one of the hardest skills to master because it demands you to put all of yourself to the side and selflessly give your full attention to another human being. But once you get better at this, you’ll learn and see things you never have before. Especially from the people closest to you. It’s a great way to strengthen a bond and build a relationship.

Speaking

We’ve all heard about the repercussions that come when you’re impulsive and speak with no filter. You unintentionally hurt those around you and lose trust quickly.

It’s not about having a filter and pretending to be a different person every time you’re surrounded by different groups of people. It’s about knowing your audience. You can say anything you want. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

Ask yourself the following questions when approaching a situation you’re unsure of:

• Do I want to share an opinion, fact, observation, problem, constructive criticism, or solution?
• Is the conversation or the people having the conversation open to hearing what I have to say?
• Can I structure what I’d like to say in a way that strengthens the group and the conversation or is it looking to tear people or what’s being discussed down?
• Has someone else shared a similar sentiment, will I be repeating what has already been said?
• What’s the worst outcome that could arise from sharing what’s on my mind? Is it worth the risk?

Once you’ve answered those questions you’ll know exactly what to say and how to say it. Of course, you’re not going to be able to ask yourself these questions every time you speak but if you get into the habit of thinking through your thoughts in this manner it will become natural for you.

You’ll become a speaker who is mindful. Which unfortunately is a rarity.

Decision Making

Decisions. Decisions.

Some people are great at making them and others are just plain horrible. The main difference between the two groups is a lack of knowledge and confidence.

Think about it this way, if you knew everything about a problem and you know everything about the options you have to solve the problem, then it’s easy. Take the time and energy to research and understand your problem fully. Try to do this in a way that removes the emotions and looks at the facts. Once you have the facts down then look at what your heart is saying. You don’t want to be ruled by your heart but you need to be influenced by it. The order in which you do this is imperative. Mind before heart. It’s the only way to see things without rose-colored glasses.

Once you’ve gathered all the information that you can regarding the problem and solutions, look at your level of confidence. You were put in a position to make this decision for a reason. So make it. It’s not you who is making the decision it’s the facts you’ve collected. The facts are telling you what to do and they guide you on how to proceed. It’s not personal.

Worst case scenario you make the wrong decision. Then you live and learn. And you never make the same mistake twice. It’s that easy.

Taking Action

It’s so easy to get caught up in planning. In imagining and strategizing for a better future. But it’s incredibly easy to become overwhelmed with all this information. Sometimes it paralyzes you from even taking the first step.

Every invention or life-changing success started the same. As a first step.

Do something, anything, and see what happens. Give yourself permission to change and revisit your plans. Life is fluid. We’re reacting to a lot of things we have no control over. So it’s inevitable that plans could change. Have a little grace with yourself and pivot.

Here are a few things you can say to yourself to help you get over the fear of making the wrong move:

• Will I regret not doing this?
• What if this is my destiny and what if this aligns with my purpose in life?
• I believe I am meant for more, and I’m going to prove it to myself by taking this action.
• I could add so much value to the world and those around me if I just do this one thing.
• I deserve to see the best side of myself. The world deserves to see the best part of me.
• Nothing will hurt more than not doing this.
• There’s only one of me in this universe. If I don’t do it, who will?
• I’m doing this. End of story.

Ultimately you need to give yourself permission to try. And if you fail or it’s not as easy as you thought. Just keep trying. The real failure is not trying at all.

Reflection

After you’ve communicated with others in an effective and efficient manner. And you’ve made a decision and taken some action. Now it’s time to take stock of everything that’s happened.

You think to yourself – did things go the way I’d like? Where could I have been better? How could I have done more? What am I confused by? When can I try again?

You have to take the time to reflect and analyze yourself. If you don’t you’ll never understand the situations you find yourself in and by virtue things will never get better – because you’re repeating the same mistakes over and over again. I’m sure you’ve all come across that person who refuses to make their lives easier because they are set in their ways or refuse to understand why things are difficult for them. It’s actually pretty sad, because life is marvelous and your opportunities become available based on your perspective. Based on how you hold yourself and what others see.

Let’s take a very simple example. You can’t sleep at night because it’s very warm in your place. This leads to low energy and you’re overall cranky. You tell your coworkers and one coworker says, “why don’t you open a window?” You think ok I’ll try it. You open a window and the next evening you slept amazingly. After reflecting you realize you were so focused on your problem that you didn’t think of a solution. The next problem you have is it’s too cold to sleep at night. So you close the window in the middle of the night. There’s no need to wait till the next morning to better your situation.

That’s where the power of reflecting is. In the most basic way.

This post was all about the professional development skills you need to be successful.