So many organizations are ripe with employer-driven personal and professional development opportunities that are supported, encouraged and often even funded by the company. I often tell my students to get a job with their Bachelors degree and find an organization to work for that will pay for the Masters. These organizations are the kind to keep on your radar, for sure, and these opportunities should be considered when making job choices.

But what if you work for an organization that really doesn’t do anything for their employees’ personal or professional development? Some of us do work for these types of companies and often end up there – stuck – for long periods of time. Maybe the money is good and you have a family at home, and your life just requires stability right now. So even though the organization is not supportingyour forward momentum in your career, you stay to keep the bills paid and roof over your head.

Understandable.

Respectable.

But there has to be a way to move forward in your career without loss of the current financial situation.

This is where the responsibility comes in. Some of us are lucky to have the responsibly built into our vocations via licensure and CPEs. But those of us who aren’t still have a lot of opportunities to grow, albeit on our own dimes and time.

Here are just a handful of the ways anyone in really any profession can ensure personal and professional development:

• Join your occupation’s professional development organization. This opens access to special events, dinners, and even job opportunities through membership and the networking possibilities.
• Attend seminars, conferences, and workshops in your field of expertise. These events are often posted in publications by the professional organizations, magazines, and all over the internet social media.
• Take a class on a topic that you need to improve. A business owner friend is mine is taking a Quickbooks class at the local community college to get to know the system better.
• Read books about the latest and greatest of the field. Some may know that yours truly needs a push too sometimes, but it really is an excellent way to keep you informed about developments in your area of expertise.
• Follow bloggers that keep you thinking and that have the same career interests as you. We have choices who to follow or unfollow. Raise your hand if you ever got caught up in the negative trap of tweets. (All hands in the air.) Yep. Take control. Unfollow. At some point, we all need to clean up shop.

So Professional Development: whose responsibility is it? YOURS!🎉

I love this stuff. It is my passion to find ways to make people’s lives and careers better. Let’s all make sure that we are doing the best for ourselves and take charge of our professional selves❤

I’d love your comments, thoughts, and certainly, follows! I’m suddenly on a mission, so I’ll be posting much more from now on. Introduce yourself and let’s have a dialogue! (That’s for you, Art! 😉)