Professional Development Goals for the New Year

[Guest Post – This article was first published in December 2020 and has been republished with some of the best updates.]

New Year is around the corner. What are your personal growth, self-improvement, and professional development goals for the New Year?

The New Year is an opportunity to re-imagine your life, change any bad habits, and work towards a better future. Symbolically, the New Year is a time of change, where we leave behind the things that have hindered us and move forward towards creating something better.

This past year has not been an easy one with the Pandemic affecting every aspect of our lives. A lot of our friends and family members lost jobs that could not go remote while others had to continue working with the possibility of potentially being exposed to the virus.

Even if the Pandemic continues into 2022, we can choose to enhance our skills and focus on personal development. In this post, we will go over personal development, imposter syndrome, enhancing career skills, and learning resources when wanting to change careers. 

Personal Development

By definition, personal development refers to activities that improve awareness and identity, activities that develop talents and build human capital, facilitate employability, and enhance our quality of life.

Personal development is also about reaching our dreams and aspirations by enhancing our skills or learning new skills. Some great tips that you can use for personal development this new year include setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, changing bad habits, being more active, and loving yourself!

By setting goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, you are able to measure your progress towards achieving them. This will also help you stay accountable.

For example, your goal can be to earn 20% more from affiliate sales by June 2022. This goal is specific, measurable, it is attainable because you give yourself a few months, it is realistic, and it is time-bound.

As well as setting goals, some great personal development tips are to focus on spiritual, mental, and physical development to help you reach your dreams and aspirations as well as improve your awareness of your own identity.

Like I wrote before, you can try to change bad habits, be more active, and love yourself more. These will help you with your personal development journey as you learn new things and enhance your spiritual, physical, and mental states.

A good place to start is by reading up on ways that you can improve yourself and continue to reach for success. Here is a good read on improving your life to get you started on your journey. 

Imposter’s Syndrome

We have all heard of the infamous imposter syndrome and how damaging it can be to our personal identities.

According to Abigail Abrams in an article for Time, imposter’s syndrome is very common with “an estimated 70% of people experience these impostor feelings at some point in their lives.” Feeling like an imposter can mean feeling like you do not belong in your group of friends, colleagues, or family, and feeling like you are a fraud.

This can happen to a lot of people, particularly when they are new in a field of study or industry. Sometimes being fresh out of college can make you feel this way considering that you might be in a new industry. When I was first out of college and even throughout my first year working professionally in my field of study, I felt like a fraud.

I have experienced imposter syndrome in the past, and this is something fairly common. I think that one of the reasons why it is so common is due to social media because we are on top of what other people from our generation are doing. We might even compare ourselves to celebrities or influencers that are the same age and a million times more successful.

But you must remember that everyone is different, everyone follows a different path, and your skills are important. You must sit and think of all the things you can do and all the amazing work that you do.

A big part of overcoming imposter syndrome is analyzing yourself. You need to allow yourself to see that you are an expert or on the way to becoming an expert, you are a thought leader, your opinions and inputs matter, and you are making a difference. 

Career Skills

Having the right skills for your chosen industry is important. It is also important to continue learning new skills and developing the ones you already have.

A good example here is to think of a social media manager. These individuals must stay on top of algorithm changes, trends, and everything related to social media which can lead to learning new skills. They also continue to improve their skills by staying up-to-date with new things.

Another example here is to think about bloggers. They must know a little bit of everything including graphic design. Bloggers are basically small business owners because their blogs can function as their business.

If you are a new blogger or small business owner and are interested in learning more about graphic design, visit my blog to learn a few things, and enhance your skills. One of the best things I ever learned from my college professors was to always continue learning.

You might think that you already know everything that there is to know about your job, industry, or career; but there is always more to learn. There is always a new trend, a new app, a new algorithm, a new book, and a new lecture that can either teach you something new or refresh your knowledge.

Take some free learning courses online, watch an educational YouTube video, or read some blogs to continue developing and enhancing your skillset.

Learning Resources 

We have just discussed personal development, imposter syndrome, and career skills; so, let us move one to some great learning resources that you can use. There are so many free learning courses online, certification programs, blogs, e-books, guides, etc.

Some of my favorite ones to use include Hootsuite, LinkedIn, and HubSpot. These websites have an Academy section with free courses and certification programs. Some certifications are paid, but the course is free. You can take advantage of watching the free lessons, learning something new, and when you have the money you can get your certification.

Occasionally, LinkedIn offers its courses for free. You can stay on top of their offers by signing up for their academy section. Another great free resource is YouTube. You can watch videos explaining new concepts, teaching new subjects, and so on.

Finally, one of the best free resources is blogs. Of course, you can visit blogs by Neil Patel, Hootsuite, HubSpot, and other high-ranking websites, but you can also visit some lower-ranking blogs that have great information. Sometimes it might be easier to visit lower-ranking websites if you want a more conversational style of learning.

It all depends on your preferences, but these are all great and mostly-free learning resources that you can take advantage of starting right after you finish reading this post.

I hope you have found this article informative and helpful in your journey towards personal development this new year. If you want more information on graphic design, social media marketing, and public relations for small businesses then visit my blog, JM Blog.

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Author Bio

Johana M. Caba, M.A. is a public relations professional and social media manager/marketer. She shares thought-leadership articles on her business blog (JM Blog) and on her social media accounts. Johana recently earned her Master’s Degree in Professional Communications from William Paterson University of New Jersey. Find her on Twitter.