Developing the right skills for your future

Creating a growth mindset

Your opportunities to improve yourself can come from anywhere. We often mistake room for growth as a weakness. So we avoid seeing the true value and purpose of learning. To develop, you need to accept that there’s room for growth. It’s more than just effort, working harder or faster doesn’t improve your personal growth.

What is a growth mindset?

A growth mindset believes that skill and intelligence are something that people can develop. Your room for growth is never a weakness, it’s your potential.

If you embrace having a growth mindset, you’ll believe that your future success is achieved through constant personal development.

A flexible mindset

We get asked what do we want to do when we grow up. This suggests that our options for our future are in one direction. From a young age, we gain qualifications and make choices that support that direction. This career advice isn’t helpful. Most people today can expect to change jobs several times in a lifetime.

We can have different career paths. People don’t always know what they want to do with their life. This doesn’t mean you lack ambition, direction or that you aren’t good enough. It’s a sign you are willing to adapt. And to accept all aspects of your personality and interests.

LinkedIn has published a report looking back 20 years. Their study found that millennials will change jobs regularly. It will be an average of four times in their first ten years out of college. Earlier generations changed jobs twice during the same time.

Applying your skills to the workplace

Having skills along both of your T lines will help prepare you for a wide range of job roles, industries, and companies.

Imagine all your attributes as a set of ingredients. For any recipe, you want to make, you’ll need a specific set of ingredients. This is the same for jobs. You may use some of the same ingredients. You may need to get new ones or adjust the amounts of ingredients you are using. And the way you’re using them.

By looking at roles and what you need for them, you can start to identify gaps in your T-shaped skills and use these to create a development plan.

Let's go into each in more detail.

Identify

We've already covered identify. This is the process of looking at your skillsets and qualities and making a note of what you've identified.

Visualise

The second step of the process is called visualising. This is seeing the role and life you want in 12 months’ time. Try now to visualise what your perfect workday would look like. The more open you are, the more useful it will be. And it will help you to see the exact point you want to get to.

Ask yourself:

• What is the weather like?
  
• Where are you in the world?
• Are you indoors / outdoors?
• Who are you with?
• What are you wearing?
• Does your day start early?
• Do you finish late?
• What does your workplace look like?
• How does your working week look?
• Busy, different every day, set routine?
• How do you get to work?
• Is your work at a desk, outside, a mix, or something else?

Some of these may seem like minor details. Things like the people you work with are all part of your happiness at work. Don’t ignore them when looking for a job. Or you may find yourself in the ‘perfect role’ on paper, but still unhappy.

Setting intentions

Setting intentions is the next step. Now you’ve visualised what your future looks like. You can start to set a direction for the future. Use this to create a goal for yourself. Start with “It’s 12 months from now and I am...” and go from there.

Break it down into steps

1. What personal strengths can you write down? (think about your existing qualities - think back to your T-shape)
   
2. What have you got now that you can build upon?
3. What extra skills do you need? (they can be soft skills, qualifications, or skills you can teach yourself)
4. Who will you need to speak to who can help you? (a mentor or a colleague)
5. How will you share what you want to achieve?
6. What questions do you need answering? (understanding the industry? The role? Etc.)
7. What personal areas do you need to strengthen?
8. What weaknesses can you work on?
9. What volunteering or work experience could help you?

Start small and start now

Start after you have completed the five steps in the roadmap. Take small manageable steps.

Remember, keep it simple, keep it realistic, and keep it positive. Keep on taking steps towards your goal. You’ll be there before you know it.

Learning options

There are lots of options for learning, such as online lessons, YouTube videos and knowledge-sharing. Now you know that you can learn from so many different experience, you start to realise that everything you've done has been a source of a skill.

Here are some options to get you started:

• Lloyds Bank Academy
• Future Learn
• Learndirect
• Udemy
• nationalskillsagency.co.uk
• Short courses - university
• Continuous Personal Development
• The Open University

Some more social learning options:

• YouTube tutorials
• Social infographics
• Specific interest WhatsApp groups
• Company ‘lunch and learns’
• Skill sharing
• Thought pieces and article reading
• Eventbrite
• Meetup
• Mentoring

The value of mentoring

A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced person.

There are lots of apps and organisations to help you find a mentor. Mentoring can be formal through an organisation. Or informally through someone in your day-to-day life.

“Employees of greater than 5 years were more likely to have a mentor. Many companies found having a mentor for a new employee improves productivity. This also improves the level of engagement of those joining their organisation.” - Jeff Webber, How leaders and employees should harness the power of mentorship, 2018.

So, now you understand the value, let’s look more at how to make the most of mentoring.

Mentoring can help re-skilling through:

• Adding perspective
• Advice
• Encouragement
• Wider network of contacts

A mentor can also:

1. Take a long-term view on your development
2. Offer insight from their perspective and experience
3. Be the person to bounce ideas off
4. Share your barriers and ‘failures’ to see a route through
5. Give feedback on your strengths and areas of growth

Asking someone to mentor you

Think about what areas of your life or career you would like help and advice with. Then identify someone to be your mentor. A mentor isn’t a coach or a therapist. A mentor is someone you can aspire to be and learn from professionally.

Networking

Networking and creating connections can help you find mentors, but also potential future employers.

Here are a few things you can do to help your network:

1. Join professional groups on LinkedIn. Search using what’s trending on a weekly basis and be active in those groups.
2. Comment on and like articles. Written by individuals you admire professionally. Start a conversation on the topic.
3. Don’t just re-share a post. Add your personal touch and take time to invest in the content.
4. Write your own content on topics you are professionally invested in. Show your knowledge, interest and understanding.
5. Request to connect with a personal message. Show why you are interested in that person.

Being interested

Being interested is key. Not only in your continual professional learning, but also in your networking skills. Let’s look at the two rules of networking now.