- Jim Rohn
As an entrepreneur, you already possess some of the wonderful skills and characteristics for success. However, no one can be expected to know everything and perfectly possess all of the strengths for success. That means it’s important to spend time, energy and even money to improve yourself both personally and professionally. When you take time and action toward self-improvement, you’re preparing yourself to not only be ready for future opportunities but to be able to recognize and embrace future opportunities.
Self-Education offers you the ability to:
• Broaden your horizons
• Expose yourself to new people, thoughts, ideas, practices, philosophies, and opportunities
• Enrich your soul
• Strengthen your self confidence
• And embrace all of those marvelous entrepreneurial qualities you already possess.
Continual and regular improvement helps you hone your entrepreneurial strengths. It helps you improve yourself not necessarily where you are weak but where you desire growth. One of the amazing characteristics of entrepreneurs is the ability to adapt quickly and stay one-step ahead. You’re superior at looking to and planning for the future.
Just as it is important to evaluate your business plan and strategies regularly, it’s also important to do that for yourself. Regularly evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and create a plan for self-improvement.
Performing regular assessment of your strengths, skills and weaknesses, is the best way to make sure you’re not only growing but also ready for changes and the opportunities they present. Just as the world of internet business changes so do you. You are in a constant state of evolution.
One True Constant
Someone once said that there is one true constant in life – change. That includes you. You are in a constant state of evolution. When you spend time evaluating how you’ve changed and where you want to go, you can plan for the future both personally and professionally. In addition to honing your professional skills and driving profits, consider what you have to gain personally.
• Satisfaction with your job
• Pride in your accomplishments
• Mental stimulation and self-awareness
• Personal connections
• Self confidence
• Self awareness
• Improved quality of life
• Contentedness
Passion and Personal and Professional Development
A career and business without passion is a life unfulfilled. When you have passion for what you do, abundance follows.
In The Power of Intention by Dr. Wayne Dyer, he writes on the seven faces of intention. One of the faces of intention is love. He says, “if you aren’t doing what you love and loving what you do, your power of intention is weakened. You attract into your life more of the dissatisfaction that isn’t the face of love.” Consequently when you are doing what you love, what you’re passionate about, you attract more into your life.
In Mindmap to Riches How to Create Lasting and Sustainable Wealth Online, we talk about how to build a profitable business on something you’re passionate about. This is important for many reasons including the fact that passion is contagious and when you’re excited about something others will be to. This opens doors for opportunities and profits. It also means you’re enjoying what you’re doing and are more productive with your time. It really is easier to accomplish something you enjoy doing than to accomplish something you don’t enjoy doing.
In that vein passions also often align themselves with skills and strengths. When your passion and your strengths and skills align, the results are profitable both professionally and personally.
Personal development in areas you’re passionate about helps you grow as a person and an entrepreneur. If you’re not growing, you’re dying – the same is true for your business. When you know your strengths, you can focus on those, improve those. Your strengths are what make you successful.
Passion also brings excitement and motivation to learn and when your strengths and passion are aligned, the sky is the limit. When you know what your strengths are, and conversely when you know your limitations too, it gives you the power, courage, and information to make wise decisions about your business and your life.
Continually educating yourself, not only in areas where you’re strong in business but in areas you’d like to explore, is one of the best ways to continue to stay on top of your game as an entrepreneur. It will keep your mind fresh and open to new ideas and opportunities.
Strategies to Fit Development into Your Busy Life
You might be scratching your head and wondering how you’re going to fit all this personal and professional development into your already busy life. Owning and operating, and hopefully growing, a business can certainly be a full time job and if you’re balancing it with another full time job, friends, family and those outside activities, which help you stay balanced and happy, then you’re right. It might seem as if there is absolutely no room to budge, no time in your schedule - personal and professional development may seem like a pipe dream.
The good news is where there’s a will there’s a way. Let’s take a look at a few strategies to fit personal and professional development into your busy life.
• Go Online. Online education is in high demand and there are courses, workshops and teleseminars on just about every topic under the sun. From personal development to professional development, the benefits of on-line training are relatively apparent for anyone looking at furthering their education. You save both time and money and online education gives you the power to fit it into your schedule as you see fit.
• Online you can also find wonderful support groups, mentors, coaches, and mastermind groups. That way you can participate wherever you are and whenever it fits into your schedule.
• Hit the library and bookstore. Books, whether audio books or print, are an excellent tool to self-improvement. Audio books are wonderful for commuting or listening too while you’re waiting. Again, these are low cost, low commitment, high results learning tools.
• Check into your community offerings. Many communities offer learning opportunities. What’s better than finding inspiration and education in your own community? It’s a great way to connect to other business owners in your community as well as potential clients and it’s significantly more convenient than hopping on a plane to attend a 7-day workshop.
Self-improvement, both personally and professionally, is a great way to embrace life. When you take time and action towards self-improvement, you’re preparing yourself to be ready for future opportunities and to be able to recognize and welcome future opportunities. Continual and regular improvement helps you hone your entrepreneurial strengths, it drives opportunity and it helps you embrace and profit from change.
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