Personal development is a process of assessing life skills, understanding your unique personality, talents and developing them for growth and realization of your full potential. Although personal development is a lifelong process, focusing on personal development early on, is detrimental to your success and happiness in life. So, what are life skills? These are skills, abilities and behaviors learned to help you effectively manage challenges of day to day life; from interaction with others, facing problems to identifying your emotions.
It is known fact that hospitality professionals work long hours. And while at work, you then get pulled into taking care of other people’s need, administrative reporting or paperwork and the day to day details of service. Finding time for personal development may be difficult at times. However, personal development is very important for hospitality professionals and even those who just started a career in hospitality industry.
Ideal hospitality companies and organizations provide personal or individual development plan (IDP) and professional development plan (PDP) to their employees. However, if you are in a place that doesn’t offer any growth or development, you owe it to yourself to create one for you.
Reasons Why Personal Development Is Important?
- Identify skills you need to set your life goals
- Assess current skills and to develop new ones
- Increase self-knowledge and self-awareness
- Build strong identity
- Improve self-esteem and confidence
- Increase your employability
- Helps you set goals for financial freedom
- Enhance quality of life
- Connect to your higher self
- Realization of your dreams and aspirations
RESOURCES FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Hospitality Career Focus offers career coaching for individuals which may include personal development plan. However, we recognize that others may prefer to do professional development planning on their own and at their own pace. So, here are non-comprehensive resources to help you start your own personal development plan. These resources can be use by individuals and few for managers/supervisors for their team.
An online learning platform useful for Learning Managers. However, if you are an individual looking to download a free personal development template, you may search in their “resources page” where you can download this template.
More than 100,000 designed templates, you can download individual personal development plan template or if you are a manager/supervisor you can download templates for your team. You may have to subscribe and pay to use this platform.
Offers colorful and fun templates for vision boards and planners. Some downloads are free.
“Find your strengths with this assessment based on psychologist Martin Seligman’s pioneering research in positive psychology. Understand which strengths you rely on most, how your strengths manifest in your daily life, and how to make the most of your natural gifts.” The assessment is free. This is not just a personality test but assessment of strengths. Knowing your strengths will help you develop it to be successful in life.
Career oriented assessment of your interests, abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Hospitality professionals who intend to transition to other careers may benefit from this assessment. The test will show what other jobs are good match for you.
If you want to know more about the world, business, technology, design, entertainment, the mind, etc., this organization is devoted to spreading ideas and inspiration in the form of small and powerful talks.
A web service that provide free information about essential life skills. Easy to read and browse.
An online goal setting software that helps you create, manage and track your goals. It helps you get organize in managing your goals. It has free and paid features.
Online tool that allows anyone to train core cognitive abilities. This tool offer games to train your memory, problem solving, flexibility etc., if you are in hospitality, this may help you easily remember names of your guests and solve problems.
Offers some free tools and programs for personal and spiritual development. This resource may help you when looking for a higher purpose in life.
Top Personal Skills That Hospitality Employers Value
- Customer Service
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Interpersonal skills
- Problem solving
- Attention to details
- Cultural and industry awareness
- Flexibility
- Time Management
- Multi-tasking
- Leadership
- Resilience
- Emotional Intelligence
- Stress Management
Your personal development doesn’t need to be tailored to what employers’ value because this is your life’s work. Increasing your chances of being employable is just a byproduct of your development. You can learn anything on daily basis that contributes to your growth as a person. For example, taking on new hobbies, trying new exercise routine, attending retreats, etc. Therefore, managing your personal development according to your truth is important.
How to Manage your Personal Development
- Develop a vision board
- Write down your goals
- Taking an inventory of your skills
- Planning your development
- Stating the process
- Recording your progress
- Reviewing and revising your plans
Hospitality Career Focus – HOSCAF provides these resources for informational purposes only. We cannot authenticate the accuracy, efficacy, benefits, quality, legality or usefulness of the information provided. The inclusion of these references, including affiliate links, if any, does NOT constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Hospitality Career Focus – HOSCAF. We are not liable for any loses that may occur when you use and engage in these resources. Please do your own research before making any online purchases from these resources and make sure it is right for you.