Self-development (including professional development), is key. It not only imparts fresh knowledge onto the individual, but it also makes them feel energised about their role.

However, self-employed people, and small business owners, are often not great at self-development for a whole host of reasons. Here are some reasons I’ve captured from friends, colleagues and peers, who are either self-employed, or small business owners:

1. Not enough time - By the time the day-to-day work has been delivered, the next piece of work has been chased (business development), the business admin had been completed, and the dinner has been cooked, there is “literally no time left” for self-development, so it drops off the bottom of the list, and doesn’t happen. 
    
2. Money - When you have to pay for something yourself (rather than it being a company ‘perk’), it can be easy to miss the true value. Attending a course means time away from the office, which can often mean a loss of earnings. “Loss” of money, as well as the cost of the course, can feel like a ‘double-whammy’.
    
3. “I don’t need it” - Successful entrepreneurs can be guilty of believing they don’t have any knowledge or self-development gaps. They “know it all”, or certainly “know enough” because they’re already succeeding in some way.

Confession time.... I am one of those entrepreneurs who has been terrible at self-development in the past. I have been guilty of not focusing on myself, and not taking time or making the investment in me. In fact, a colleague once said to me; “You’re a professional pleaser”. Pardon the pun, but I was really pleased! He then explained it wasn’t a compliment! He went on to say I should think about myself more. 

So I have! So much so, that I am writing this blog from a self-development course in Portugal! Look at these amazing pictures of the local area; it’s not only beautiful, but very inspiring too:

Bringing it back to topic (and away from my lovely pictures!), I thought it’d be useful to share some of the benefits of self-development, and some of the reasons why I chose to (finally!) invest in myself... 

• Self-awareness  - You get to know who you are; your values, your beliefs and your purpose.
   
• Sense of direction - Enables you to understand what you want in life, and moreover, prioritise what brings you the most value.
   
• Motivation - Motivation is energising and an energised person is more effective in their role. 
   
• Resilience - There are often tough times in business. Self-development gives you the confidence and resilience to manage these challenges.
   
• Self-worth - The ability to remove that nagging feeling that you’re not good enough. Self-development makes you realise you are. 

And on that note, I’d best dash back to my course as I’m busy putting the ‘ME’ into self-developMEnt....

I’ll report back in a later blog about what I’ve learned.... 

It's not just my journey you can read on here, look at some of our testimonials to find out how other people have benefited from my coaching.

Keeping a positive attitude does not “happen by accident,” says Author and Doctor, Travis Bradberry. “Maintaining positivity is a daily challenge that requires focus and attention. You must be intentional about staying positive if you're going to overcome the brain's tendency to focus on threats.”

I pride myself in being a positive person, so when a friend and colleague sent me the above quotation and said “I saw this and thought of you”, it genuinely made me smile. It was particularly heart warming, because the colleague, who I now consider a friend, and I met, when we both worked on a distinctly challenging project together. My role on the project was a Business Analyst, and she was a Stakeholder.

Let me paint you a picture of the challenges….

• Overloaded stakeholders - Stakeholders are key to every project, and this project had the best; hard working, knowledgeable, dedicated, and a genuinely nice, friendly group of people. We had a great working relationship, but they were vastly overloaded. Their ‘day jobs’ were very intense, then I would come along and would need to speak to them about requirements, testing, processes and document sign off… I had to be mindful of their business-as-usual responsibilities, and would work with each individual Stakeholder to ensure we worked together in the most effective way. 
   
• Poorly performing Suppliers - External Suppliers were engaged to provide IT solutions for the project. Unfortunately, there were issues with some of the Suppliers in terms of the quality and timeliness of their deliverables. This impacted on the project and made it difficult for the Project Manager to plan. It also impacted on the Stakeholders who had to repeat their User Acceptance Testing multiple times; the last thing they had time for!
   
• Inter-Departmental Challenges - The organisation had very separate IT and business departments and structures (as is the case in most Companies). The relationship between the departments had to be managed carefully. Clear and transparent communication, and consistent and comprehensive documentation, was the best way to overcome the challenges the Project faced.
   
• Evolving Requirements - A different Business Analyst had documented the requirements for one particularly challenging work stream within the Project. For a whole host of reasons, the time between the requirements being gathered and the Supplier completing their development, was significantly longer than it should’ve been. The business was evolving quickly, and as a result, the requirements were fast becoming out of date. This led to change requests and additional discussions with the Supplier about items that were in/out of scope. The original Business Analyst had left by this point, so there was a lot of time spent with Stakeholders unpicking requirements and providing additional detail to the Supplier. Again, more impact on the Stakeholders...
   
• Economic/Market Challenges & Demands - The Project came at a time when the market and economy were experiencing a number of challenges and demands. This impacted on the intensity of the business-as-usual. Each department in the business was continually evolving and adapting in order to ride the waves that were coming their way.

So as you can probably gather, it was a project full of challenges, which could’ve quite easily escalated into a tangle of negativity. I was conscious of doing everything to keep the stakeholders engaged and the project on track, and the way I did this was to stay positive. As Dr Travis Bradberry said, it required focus and attention. I had to be intentional about staying positive. I took each challenge as it came along and worked out the best way to address it. 

My advice to anyone who is dealing with challenges, in their personal or business lives, is to channel positivity. Don’t let negativity win. Maintaining positivity does take focus and attention though; it’s not easy. "You have to be intentional about staying positive if you’re going to overcome the brain’s tendency to focus on threats.” Take each challenge as it comes. Take yourself away from the situation, and assess the options. Physically move away from your desk, go for a walk, make a cup of tea or coffee, and smile….yes really…! Never under estimate the power of a smile….!

Contact me to see how I can help you find your career happiness.

“Self-esteem is a bit like walking down the street as if you owned it. Self-worth is walking down the street and not caring who owns it.” 

John Niland

This fantastic quotation, by the equally fantastic John Niland (Author, Speaker and Business Coach), sums up perfectly the difference between self-esteem and self-worth. In this post, I want to explore more about self-worth, and share some helpful hints and tips...

The subject of self-worth really resonates with me, particularly as I’m someone who has suffered at the hands of low self-esteem. If you were to meet me in person, you would likely not believe that I suffer from low self-esteem. I am genuinely confident, happy, positive and upbeat.

I’ve spoken many times about my business being called “Akeno” because it means “bright and shining” in Japanese, which is a reflection of me and my business, and that is certainly accurate. What you see when you meet me isn’t an act; I am all of those things, however, I can also be crippled by low self-esteem. For example, I do a great job of avoiding the camera, specifically because I hate myself in pictures so much! I therefore make sure I always offer to be designated photographer whenever friends, family or colleagues suggest a group photo!

So, how do you overcome low self-esteem in order to succeed? Self-worth.

Self-worth is a deep and genuine belief in your inherent value as a person; both in your personal life and your business life. If we have an unconditional sense of our own value, we don’t spend our time trying to prove ourselves; we more easily focus on the task in hand. 

Self-esteem on the other hand, is the reputation that we have with ourselves, even when no-one is watching. John Niland talks about the need for self-esteem starting early in life. It’s aiming for the highest marks, weight loss, awards, romance, appearance, cars, houses, the best career, affirmations from people around us… As soon as we slip on any of these slightly, we’re hit by a feeling of low self-esteem.

So, how do we improve our self-worth? How do we walk down the street with confidence, but not care who owns it?

I read an article by the Author Stephanie Jade Wong about correcting misunderstandings and misperceptions about self-worth. She listed all the factors that go into self-worth, and outlined what should not determine your inherent value and self-worth. It’s a fantastic summary and a useful set of hints and tips on how to improve our own self-worth…

• Your to-do list: Achieving goals is great and it feels wonderful to cross things off your to-do list, but it doesn’t have a direct relationship with your worth as a human. It’s OK to park some items for another day.
• Your job: It doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is that you do it well and that it fulfils you.
• Your social media following: It also doesn’t matter how many people think you are worthy of a follow or a retweet. It can be enlightening and healthy to consider the perspectives of others, but their opinions have no impact on our innate value.
• Your age: You aren’t too young or too old for anything. Your age is simply a number and does not factor into your value as a human being.
• Other people: As noted above, it doesn’t matter what other people think or what other people have done or accomplished. Your personal satisfaction and fulfilment are much more important than what others are thinking, saying, or doing.
• How far you can run: Your mile run time is one of the least important factors for your self-worth (or for anything else, for that matter). If you enjoy running and feel fulfilled by improving your time, good for you! If not, good for you! Your ability to run does not determine your self-worth.
• Your grades: We all have different strengths weaknesses, and some of us are simply not cut out for some subjects. This has no bearing on our value as people, and a straight-A student is just as valuable and worthy as every other student.
• The number of friends you have: Your value as a human has absolutely nothing to do with how many friends or connections you have. The quality of your relationships is what’s really important.
• Your relationship status: Whether flying solo, casually dating, or in a committed relationship, your value is exactly the same—your relationship status doesn’t alter your worth.
• The money (or lack thereof) in the bank: If you have enough money to physically survive, then you have already achieved the maximal amount of “worth” you can get from money.
• Your likes: It doesn’t matter if you have “good taste” or not, if your friends and acquaintances think you’re sophisticated, or if you have an eye for the finer things. Your worth is the same either way.
• Anything or anyone but yourself: Here we get to the heart of the matter—you are the only one who determines your self-worth. If you believe you are worthy and valuable, you are worthy and valuable. Even if you don’t believe you are worthy and valuable, guess what—you still are worthy and valuable!

Take some time to read through the summary above, and assess your own self-worth. Listen carefully, though, self-worth can often talk to you in a quiet whisper, whereas self-esteem shouts loudly. You often have to dig deep and listen carefully to find your inherent value. But when you do, the voice will become stronger and stronger, trust me. 

If you want to work on your career happiness, contact me to see how I can help.

Stuart Webb is a Strategic Management Adviser and Coach, and founder of ‘The Complete Approach’. He has kindly provided a guest blog on a subject he works on with his own clients; avoiding burnout at times of change….

Change causes burnout, and that can destroy your business - here's how to avoid it

“We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, maybe the very reason why you don't have something better.”

C. JoyBell C

Business has to change and people need to go through it as humans, not cogs in the wheel of an organisation. Often in retrospect, people realise the change was good and an opportunity for growth, but as that change is happening, it never feels good.  

Too often as managers, we fail to recognise the effects of changes we know need to happen to make our business successful are having on the people most affected by the changes. Change can produce burnout in an organisation. Why?  

Change often takes away the ability for people to choose how to work. Having the ability to make at least some decisions about how you spend your time also serves as a hedge against burnout, says Joyce Maroney, director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos. As long as wages are not substandard, employees who can make decisions about job roles and feel they have choices will be more engaged. “And generally speaking, the data says engaged employees do a better job for your customers, they’re more loyal to your company, and they’re going to stay longer. All good things flow from that,” she says.

Giving employees the freedom to find meaning in their work and make an impact pays off, says Michael C. Mankins, co-author of Time, Talent, Energy: Overcome Organizational Drag and Unleash Your Team’s Productive Power, and a partner in management consulting company Bain & Company’s San Francisco office and a leader in the firm’s Organization practice. “Some people reach burnout at 40 hours a week, some people reach burnout at 90 hours a week. It’s very dependent on the individual, and it’s very dependent on how much autonomy and impact that individual feels they have in their job. If you have no autonomy and you’re having no impact, you’ll probably burn out at 40 hours a week,” he says.  

What can managers do to prevent burnout during a change:

• Create an action plan: By explaining the plan clearly and getting everyone to set manageable goals, creating a series of steps to get from one goal to another, people will feel more in control of the situation, which should help minimize stress. This preparation will also reduce uncertainty, which will minimize people worrying about the unknown associated with upcoming change. 
• Encourage the use of support networks: Social support is essential in alleviating stress. Encourage people to talk about their fears and answer them among multiple social groups within the workplace. 
• Encourage people to take care of physical health: The NHS notes that caring for your physical needs by eating healthy foods, exercising, finding time to relax, and getting plenty of sleep can help with coping with stress. This is especially important if there are big changes are on the horizon. 
• Good, old-fashioned workplace policies are still important: Employees look to their managers to set the example. If a manager is sending emails on a regular basis after hours, employees will feel pressured to do so, too. Conversely, if a manager treats a day off truly as a day off by unplugging and trusting their coworkers to step up in their absence, their employee will be much more likely to do so. France has made it a right to ignore emails when not at work, and although that may seem extreme, it might protect people from excessive burnout. 
• Ensure that people base everyday actions on self-worth rather than self-esteem. For example, encourage exploration of what is valuable about work (and why), vs. how valuable they are. 

People need to be given enough information about the changes which are planned and by ensuring people think about their self-worth during the change, it is possible to reduce the risk of burnout during a change.  

To find out more about Stuart’s work, check out TheCompleteApproach.co.uk, where you can read what advice The Complete Approach offers start-up and growing businesses. 

Struggling with burnout? Contact me to start fighting the fire!