by Beth Miller

Created on: October 17, 2009

Whether you are a CEO, Manager or Administrative Assistant, you are responsible for your own development. During these economically challenging times, one of the first things to be cut in a company's budget is training and development. More than likely the cuts were done at the beginning of 2009. If you are lucky, there is still a training budget but it is much smaller than in 2008. For others there may be no annual training budget.

If you are like me, I always look forward to developing new skills and techniques that I can add to my portfolio. I always come back from training re-energized and excited about the future. And as a business owner, I have always been committed to developing others around me. Yet, not all managers, executives, and business owners embrace this value of developing employees to their full potential, which leaves development in the hands of the individual employee. Even if you have a manager committed to developing her employees, this year without a company training and development budget your personal development is now left up to you.

So Where Do You Want To Be In The Future?

With development left up to the individual, those employees who take control of their own personal and professional growth are the ones who will be the most successful. Planning your own development starts with knowing your end goal. If you are going to be in control of your own development, you need to know where you want to be in the future and build a development plan to help you reach your future goal.

Your future goal should be written as a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound) goal. Further information on SMART goals can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria (Beth, substitute the link you prefer here. This link is just a reminder that your preferred link needs to be placed here.)

Once you know where you are headed, then it's time to take an inventory of where you currently are in terms of your end goal. What are the things you excel at doing and what are the things that bring joy in your life? The University of Missouri has a great tool, http://bit.ly/KV3l3, to get you started with this evaluation. Another resource is the perennially favorite book, What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles. This book will help you learn more about yourself and will guide you through a process to help you discover what you really want to do and how to get to your destination.

Development Opportunities

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