8 Personal Development Courses to Take to Maximise Your Potential

These days, business is booming for enterprises under the wide umbrella of personal development training. According to the UK Training Report: Industry Trends 2018 report released by the Education Media Group, the area of personal development ranked at #7 in a list of Top Training Topics by Delivery Method. This indicates a high level of public interest in the field. Ahead of the Training and Development Summit that took place in Northamptonshire in May 2018, 41.8% of UK delegates expressed their desire to invest in personal development.

With the numbers in favour of the industry, perhaps it’s a good time to ask: should you be part of this elite percentage? Would you like to be among the many individuals who’ve enrolled in personal development courses and who’ve since increased their potential in their professional lives? 

One fantastic observation that can be made about the personal development sector is this: there’s a breadth of opportunities to be had, and for several different skills, too! A pupil can choose to learn one specialised skill (for example, this training company that offers a small number of courses), or to join a seminar or a course where they can learn two or more at once.

Taking a personal development course is a great way to boost your employability, to be productive with your free time, to meet wonderful new people, and to pick up skills that you can apply in almost any profession. But which ones will bring you the best return on investment?

Here’s a brief list of courses that are worth your time and money, and that will surely maximise your personal potential!

1. Presentation. Good presentation skills are universally sought. Whether you’ll end up using your newfound presentation skills to pitch a product or to give a rundown of a quarterly report, improvements in your delivery will serve you well. Aside from gaining more self-confidence, you’ll be seen as trustworthy and memorable by your audience. Take this course to learn effective presentation strategies, how to use up-to-date presentation tools, and how to master the principles of good presentation design.
   
   
2. Public speaking. Just like presentation, public speaking is a skill that will put you on the market. An affable, articulate, and creative speaker will be the talk of any meeting or conference—it is in this manner that the world’s most famous orators have amassed their tremendous social capital. A course in public speaking will impart the proper techniques, verbal language, body language, and rhythms to help you speak your truth.
   
   
3. Assertive communication. Assertive communication is a means of verbalising one’s wants or needs in a clear and persuasive manner. It is a strategy of communication that you’d want at your disposal if your job requires you to move, pitch, and sell ideas quickly, i.e. a job in advertising, law, or real estate. This course will likely teach you how to eliminate barriers in your confidence, how to speak with less ambiguity, how to listen actively, and how to convert your listeners into leads. 
   
   
4. Time management. Time management is a skill that we all wish we had more of; if you’re looking to head a project where better time management is a necessity, why not enrol in a specialised course? This course may demonstrate how to better economise your time, how to prioritise tasks, how to allot time to different people, and how to manage impending distractions. Someone who truly values time and knows how to make the best of it is an asset to everyone. 
   
   
5. Minute-taking.  Meetings in any profession can be tiresome and difficult to keep up with. It’s crucial to have a good minute-taker on board to ensure structure, completion of agenda, and recording of outcomes and concerns. A course on minute-taking may seem rather niched, but anyone who joins a meeting with you after you take this course will most likely notice how productive, organised, and focused you will have become.
   
   
6. Leadership. Though leadership skills may not come to everyone naturally, any individual can harness their potential to be a great leader. A course in leadership will likely combine key leadership and management concepts with knowledge of the pupil’s exceptional strengths, talents, interests, and disposition. Enrol in this kind of course to learn leadership strategies, and to appropriate them for yourself!
   
   
7. Personal branding. In a sea of similarly skilled and educated people, what are the things that make you stand out? The many courses out there on personal branding will impart knowledge on establishing your presence, telling your brand story, and making a singular impression on your audience of viewers, buyers, or partners. 
8. Stress management. One skill that many in our high-octane, high-pressure work environments may have cast aside is stress management. This encompasses more than the ability to relax or chill out; stress management is also a matter of utilising grace under pressure, handling conflict, and appeasing negative emotions from oneself or one’s community. Taking a stress management course will be good for your inner peace, but it will also cause others to perceive you as compassionate, level-headed, and capable of working through the odds.

These are just eight types of courses, out of the many that are available, that you can take, courtesy of the UK’s most brilliant training professionals. Go on ahead and search online or ask for referrals. It may be the most rewarding training experience that you’ll have all year!

Sources:

• https://hrsummits.co.uk/2018-learning-development-buying-trends-revealed/
• https://traininganddevelopmentsummit.co.uk/
• https://issuu.com/educationsmediagroup/docs/uk-training-report-pages-18