It’s important to pay attention to your growth and development at work if gaining maximum happiness and satisfaction out of your career is a priority. According to this study, happy employees are 20% more productive at work, and successful employees who perform better are more likely to gain job satisfaction. Consider this: most people invest at least 40 hours weekly at work, and that’s a substantial part of their lives. Why not explore how you can make your 40 hours as rewarding and as pleasant as possible?
Here are four best practices with which you can take control of and enhance your growth and development at work.
1. Develop a growth mindset
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella has driven incredible growth with the global giant ever since he took command in 2014. In his autobiography Hit Refresh, Nadella stresses the importance of developing a growth mindset to enable productivity and development at work. Unless your mind can keep pace with rapid changes and transformation, you can’t effectively implement the actions required to promote growth. Further, it’s important to dedicate enough time and resources in your day to learning something new. Most leaders spend a considerable amount of their time daily in learning new skills and concepts.
In an interview with McKinsey Quarterly, American writer Tom Peters once recommended setting aside unscheduled time every day for learning.
2. Seek a suitable mentor
Success at work is heavily dependent on how well you learn. And the quality of learning is deeply affected by your sources of information and inspiration. History is proof that great mentors play an important role in the lives of successful personalities. For instance, some of the most popular guitarists of our age such as Steve Vai and Kirk Hammett were taught by guitar god Joe Satriani. If you’re aiming to enhance your growth and development at work, you should invest in finding the right mentor. The simplest way to do this is by identifying the person who has skills and abilities that you want to adopt.
Even if you’re unable to formally engage a mentor, you could use role models for reference to learn and adopt best practices to achieve success at work.
3. Attend training programs
Some of the world’s best leaders are voracious readers because they believe that knowledge is power. But books and blog posts can only take you so far. To enhance growth and development at work, you have to go beyond reading and put what you learn into practice. Training sessions are a great way to have this experience. If you have training sessions at work, ensure that you attend them. If you don’t find suitable training sessions at work, you could explore supplementary online or offline certifications that can enable you to perform better at work.
When attending training programs, it’s important to be proactive. Participate fully in all possible activities within the program and practice what you learn for long-term benefits.
4. Volunteer for challenging projects
Research in neuroscience has shown us that the brain has its plasticity to thank for growth and development. Each time you have a new experience, face a new challenge or learn a new concept, neurons form new associations amongst themselves to enable growth and development. That’s why it’s essential for you to constantly put yourself in challenging situations so that you can develop your analysis and problem-solving skills. One way to do this is by volunteering for challenging projects at work.
Be proactive at work. Don’t wait to be assigned to projects. By conversing with other teams and managers, you can identify worthwhile opportunities and volunteer for them.
Growth and development at work is an essential part of having a fulfilling and joy-filled career. You could create such a situation for yourself by developing a growth mindset and pursuing learning and new challenges.