Invest in Yourself by Ian Kinnery

The quickest way to make yourself redundant is to stop learning and to stop growing. In the fast paced world of change in which we are now living having the same level of skills knowledge and behaviour this year that we had last year means that we are less valuable this year, less marketable than last year. This applies at whatever level we operate. Unlike our parents and grand parents the majority of people today are what Peter Drucker called knowledge workers. My grandfather was a miner and the value he brought to the era in which he lived was measured by the amount of coal he could hew. In the twenty-first century when most of the physical work is done by machine our value is measured quite differently. The justification in your investment in your own development is far more than merely economic. 

One definition of happiness is that “Happiness comes from progress. Progress shows up in the form of growth and a sense of contribution” 

We owe it to ourselves to keep developing and to keep growing; our happiness depends upon it. Someone once said that you will be the same person today as you’ll be in five years, except for the people you meet and the books that you read and the action you take. Who are you meeting? What books are you reading and what action are you taking? Your greatest asset is yourself and so I wonder what your level of investment in yourself is? What do you know today that you didn’t know yesterday? What can you do today that you couldn’t do yesterday? What lessons have you deliberately learned today that you weren’t aware of yesterday? To what extent are you growing and learning? The fact that you are reading this blog would tend to indicate that you understand the need to learn and to grow. What else could you be doing I wonder?