Your better ‘Continued Professional Development’
Continued development in all areas of your life is key to your growth and mortality.
Ghandi said – “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
It’s that time of year when you get emails for membership annual updates.
The dreaded CPD hours is one you particularly resist.
Although CPD obligations exist in most professions and you agree that it fulfills an important role within the career and professional space – what is the reason it still is a challenge for most?
What does it mean for you?
What are you loosing out on by not subscribing to it fully?
Continued Professional Development (CBD) definition
An explanation of the phrase:
Continued – because learning never ceases, regardless of age or seniority;
Professional – because the focus is on your professional competence: and
Development – because your goal is to enhance personal performance and career progression.
If you know what it is you can plan it.
And if you can plan it, you can ace it.
The 10 Steps
To set yourself up for continued professional and personal success, be creative when formulating your CPD plan and think outside of the box.
Professional and Personal development could mean working with an executive and career coach or even mastering a foreign language or setting personal mindfulness time aside daily.
1. Self-analysis – an audit of yourself (your own detailed SWOT analysis);
2. Goal-setting – design holistically S-M-A-R-T-E-R goals that will work for you (2,5,10yrs);
3. Skills-research – identity the specific skills, experience, knowledge and relationships that are needed to achieve your goals;
4. Decision-making – look at options that will work for you and then choose the best ones;
5. Actions – align your specific ‘to do’s’ with you goals and think big (mentor, projects completed, new job, experiences, professional coach…);
6. Resources – quantify exact needs to accomplish set goals (money, time, approval and support, relevant courses, education, professional bodies);
7. Deadlines – pin the completion date down as a final pledge and share with your helpers for encouragement along the way;
8. Execution – commit to your actions and schedule them into your diary to ensure follow-through;
9. Revision – revisit the process on a continuous basis as your professional life changes continually;
10. Tracking – keep record of the actuals to ensure the logging process is effortless.
Your responsibility
You are the guardian of your life and professional career.
Your pledge to lifelong learning provides lasting benefits to you, your business or employer and society as a whole.
To learn is to lead.
Now, go learn!
Updated: As published in leading business journal Accountancy SA.