How to gain competitive skills that will set you apart in the workplace.
The notion of working for one company throughout your entire career is becoming a rarity.
People commonly remain at one company for approximately four to seven years.
This statistic might have you thinking differently about your current occupation. Redefining yourself and changing careers is becoming more common, particularly in our society where people continue to work later in life. This could be out of necessity due to precarious retirement options or just to alleviate boredom.
Either way, as people get older, they tend to a have different interests and want to change what they have been doing for most of their careers.
One of the main considerations about changing careers is whether you possess the necessary skills that will transfer to another field. Often, the skills that you have worked hard to develop throughout your education and career tend to stagnate.
This is a serious obstacle to your current career or any career. Hiring managers like (and need) to hire people who can come up to speed fast, solve problems quickly, and help boost the bottom line. Therefore, in the workforce, being pretty good isn’t enough, you need to stand out and make a recognizable contribution.
If you are entertaining the notion of changing occupations or even want to advance in your current job, you will likely need more training or retraining. If this applies to you, you might wonder where to start. One of the qualities I often see (and include myself) on a resume is the ability to learn fast. If this is true, this is a great skill, if it’s not, then it’s a skill that you should develop. Fortunately, there are ways that you can increase your learning ability and speed.
A lot of companies hire permanent employees who have done contract work for the company. Pursuing this path is a good way to get into a rewarding career position, but you might need to do contract work for a number of companies before you land a permanent position. This is where your ability to learn fast comes in handy.
Here are a few ideas for how to improve your ability to learn and comprehend new information:
1. Write it down
Grab a pencil, pen, or crayon and write your ideas on paper—and I mean paper, not a computer screen. You can write in journal fashion, create lists, or do word association. Writing by hand stimulates ideas and actually increases your retention.
2. Keep a Journal
As long as you’re regularly writing things down, keep a journal. Write about your experiences, what you learned from them, and what you would do differently next time. Keeping a journal is a good way to be mindful of your skills, abilities, and contributions you have made during your career so far.
3. Learn to do One Thing at a Time
Multitasking is not a skill. Although, I will admit that some people can do it effectively. But it’s not something you want to tout to current or potential employers. Focus and devote yourself to the task at hand. I sometimes teach college writing classes. I’m amazed (and a bit troubled) when my students sit in class with their laptops open doing a myriad of different things during my lectures. However, they seem to be paying attention because when I call on them, they’re ready with a response. Nevertheless, I assure you that you will retain information and forget fewer items if you doing one task at a time.
4. Prepare Your Mind for Learning
If you’re easily distracted, take care of all distractions that will prevent you from focusing on your project. Understand that you can’t rid your mind of everything that is drawing attention away from your ability to concentrate. Make sure the temperature is right, use the bathroom, and get your snack or beverage. Do what you need to prevent having to leave your work area. Those are the external things. If you have distracting thoughts in your head, get some paper and write those things down so your mind knows that you are aware of those issues and that you will attend to them after you are finished with your task.
5. Set Goals….For Real
It’s easy to tell yourself what you want to accomplish during a certain period of time and then store that thought somewhere in your head to refer to later. This rarely works. Set a goal and design an action plan that has you doing something toward that goal each day. And again, write it all down. This keeps your mind engaged and feeling productive.
6. Avoid Forcing Too Much New Information Too Fast
After about two hours of learning something new, your brain needs to process, sort, and store the new information. It’s important to let your mind do that so you can retain the information better. Also, you want to prevent your head from imploding.
Just like every new thing you try, it will take awhile to get up to speed. However, once you establish a routine, your mind will begin to absorb information faster and you will boost your learning speed and retention ability.
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