Many people wonder why only a few achieve true professional success. The answer is very simple, they work hard for it. To get above-average results, you need to spend a lot of time working on your qualifications. In this article, you will learn how to improve professional skills and achieve better results at work.
Table of Contents
Becoming a professional
Why Cristiano Ronaldo become one of the best footballers in the world? He certainly has a great talent and predisposition to play sports. However, the real secret to his success was training hard. Over the past few years, he has trained several hours a day repeating the same activities; ball handling, passing, receiving the ball, shots on goal, etc. Thousands or hundreds of thousands of repetitions. Are you ready for this?
Of course, I am not trying to persuade you to practice soccer, although practising sports also helps you be successful in any other field. I meant rather to show the pattern. There is no doubt that in order to achieve your goals, you need to spend a lot of time on development and work.
How to improve professional skills and earn more
The labour market is ruled by the law of supply and demand. You earn what someone is willing to pay for your work. A person doing simple manual work earns much less than a qualified specialist. You may disagree, but these are the facts. If you want your work to be valued higher, improve your professional qualifications.
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book; Outliers: The Story of Success, claims that the way to mastery in a particular field is to dedicate ten thousand hours to it. According to the author, it takes about that time to master a specific activity perfectly.
Did Cristiano Ronaldo spend 10,000 hours playing football? Probably a lot more, if you also include playing for fun with his friends when he was a child. Of course, not everyone has to be a sports fan, but this example shows that if you enjoy what you do, it will be much easier to achieve a high level.
Gaining the right habits
Habits are activities you do automatically, without thinking about them. For most of us, driving is a habit. We don’t think about when to press the clutch or change gear. We do it completely unconsciously. Thanks to this, driving a car is very easy for us, and some people even enjoy it.
Improving professional skills can also become a habit. Research shows that successful people, occupying high positions in business, are constantly developing. Despite their many responsibilities at work, they find time to study. It has become for them a ritual without which they cannot imagine their lives.
However, it is not about spending a few hours a day reading books or participating in various types of courses and training. Systematic activities are more important in this case. Regular practice can work wonders. It is said that the drop will hollow the rock, make a habit in yourself, and time will work in your favour.
How to improve professional skills, where to start
Before you start gaining valuable knowledge and additional skills, ask yourself one very important question. Do I enjoy what I am doing now? Does the job I do give me satisfaction? If the answer is not definitely yes, it is worth considering changing your profession. You don’t want to find out at the end of the road that you were going in the wrong direction.
The next step will be to get an appropriate book or training program for your chosen field. However, it is worth talking to your employer or supervisor first. Large companies very often have their own training programs that employees can participate in. Thanks to this, you will save a lot of money, and you might be supported by your boss.
However, if you work in a small company or your superiors are not very positive about your development, you have to rely on yourself and sometimes even “work in secret”. Learn how to improve professional skills in your free time. Your study must not interfere too much with your current job, because in extreme cases you may just be fired.
Your main goal is daily practice. Therefore, learn 10 minutes each day to begin with. Make it a habit. Take a day off once a week if you want, but only one day. The hardest part is getting started. Sometimes it can take up to 30 days for this to become a real thing for you.
It is also worth taking advantage of professional online training courses. This shouldn’t be a problem any more. Remember that the key is to build a habit, regardless of the method and form of gaining new knowledge.
If you have additional questions on how to improve professional skills, please write in the comment below. You can also contact us by the form on the website.
You can read this article in Polish at: Jak poprawić kwalifikacje zawodowe.
