I promise you, this one phrase will motivate you to consistently skill up to a happier life
because happiness comes from skills.
It can be easily ignored but if you sit down and think about it, success and happiness are nothing more than the outcome of your skills. These days, skilling up is as easy as unlocking your iPhone. Places like LinkedIn Learning, Khan Academy, Youtube, or Coursera are incredibly easy to access for a quick learn.
But here’s the thing, people struggle to prioritize skilling up.
Why is that?
I believe that just like every other behavior in life, the act of skilling up is very much so tied to an immediate purpose. This is perhaps most evident in your workplace. You’d only train on a particular software if your company has every intention to use that software in the near future. You don’t question it, you don’t slack on it, you simply get it done. You do this because you’re able to mentally visualize requiring this skill for the very productivity you have today.
On the flip-side, skilling up, when not tied to an immediate purpose can be rather difficult. That’s because there is little motivation to do it. If you have no intention of becoming a manager, why take a course on corporate management? It may sound logical that you don’t put your “learning energies” into areas that won’t benefit you in your current situation but ask yourself: how many skills are you missing out on learning that may create new ideas, open new opportunities, increase wealth or perhaps prepare you for something big?
We are currently in one of the most extraordinary times in human history. This pandemic brought the entire global economy to a grinding halt and in a blink of an eye changed how we live. Consider how many people are having to step-up and leverage skills for their company, community, family, State or city to go above-and-beyond? How many are having to leverage skills that they may have never imagined maximizing to practice patience when their child is screaming during a work conference call? To mentally manage the stress of a partner’s layoff? To strategize the productivity of employees now working from home?
So you see, skilling up for an unpredictable world will have a profoundly beneficial impact on you and those around you. Skills you pick up this week may not change your life at this moment or even a few years from now but they may just be the set of tools you depend on in an unpredictable future.
So today, I want to give you a purpose to skill up at a consistent level . It isn’t about your current job, it isn’t about your immediate future. It’s something bigger. Say this to yourself every week, heck, say it every day. I believe it might just be the mental nudge you need to keep learning, learning and learning.
Say it out loud:
“In x years, the world is going to come to me for help. How do I start preparing for this today?”
Here’s why I like this phrase: First, you have no idea what help the world is going to come to you for. This is my intention. It’s difficult to be precise about what professional or personal position you will be in down the road. And therefore, you should focus on macro-level, broader skills like mastering emotional intelligence, agility, strategy, leadership, data organization, and communication. Second, it tells you that you may not have the pressure of dealing with the fallouts of a pandemic today — like the employment of hundreds of people — but you will be counted on in the future. You decide the time (x) you will give yourself and pace your learnings before that “moment” comes. And finally, saying this phrase will constantly remind you that the world has problems and it will always have problems that need solving by people like you. But you will need skills to step up to the plate. Your skills will be sought after, depended on and they will be impactful. This final part will ignite in you the very human nature to help others. It will get you to learn those skills you’ve set out for yourself because you are a caring human who doesn’t want to let the world down.
So here’s my ask of you: start using this phrase and keep skilling up. There’s a ton you can learn: become an incredible leader, learn the importance of diversity and inclusion, or master emotional intelligence. These skills may not help you today. They may not help you even five years from today. But friend, trust me, the world will need you one day and I hope that when that moment comes you are found carrying a heavy bag of skills.
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