Career development in the events industry: tips and tricks
We’ve all been thrown into uncertain and difficult situations over the few last few years. From this, we’ve all experienced some level of personal growth in the process.
It may have felt uncomfortable at the time – maybe it still does, but what are the positive outcomes we can take from this experience?
I caught up with Emily Taylor, a career and development coach from Green Grass Coaching, to learn more about personal growth, and the skills and behaviors we can develop to support us during challenging times.
How do you define personal growth?
“Personal growth is about believing there is more to learn and being willing to give change a go. It means embracing different perceptions and new ideas or ways of doing things. This involves giving yourself space to think, listening to your intuition, taking action, and evaluating.
Doing this also helps us to feel we’re making progress, whether it’s big or small.
Paying attention to our inner world as well as the outer world and actively reflecting on this is a big part of personal growth – we need to take a moment to pause and reflect to learn and grow.
Ask yourself questions such as, what have I noticed about myself during this lockdown? What does that tell me? And how could this be helpful to me and others?”
1. The process to identify personal growth potential. Ask yourself these six questions.
“We can ask ourselves questions such as:
- What have I learned this week?
- What am I pleased about?
- What has been challenging?
- What have I done to manage those challenges?
- How am I feeling?
- What helps me to feel good?
This helps you to notice your growth. Try to keep the questions simple and limited, I would advise three or four questions to discover what’s helping you most and what’s hindering you.”
2. What skills and behaviors are important during times of change and uncertainty? Empathy and relationship building
“I think in a leadership position, empathy is an important skill to develop at this time, as well as being able to show vulnerability, which can simply mean acknowledging that things are hard and asking for help.
It’s also important that informal and social connections are upheld, especially whilst remote working. We’re all missing those coffee break conversations and lunchtime walks with colleagues and friends. Creating more opportunities for virtual social interactions during work time are behaviors we need to encourage, not only for our wellbeing but also to help spark those new ideas you get from having a great conversation.”
3. Developing resilience is an important skill.
“On the topic of resilience, it’s important to recognize that we don’t always bounce back in a straight line after a challenging time. It might be more of a wiggly line! Necessity has forced us to change quickly and be more inventive. Flexibility and adaptability and staying open to change are good behaviors to develop to support our resilience.”
