Let us now be up and doing
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labour and to wait.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Back in December 2017 as I was making my goal list for this year I decided that I wanted to do a course in Life-Coaching. It made sense to me, because this is something I already do in my writing, but I had nothing to prove I could do it, save for ten published books. So earlier this year I signed up for a course which I have now completed and passed this week. This means that I now have a CPD certificate in Life-Coaching & Mentoring on the way. It was an interesting course and I am glad that I did it. I'm sure it will come in handy with my counselling, because the two strategies are complimentary and go hand in hand. I already know that life-coaching is a useful aspect of being a writer, as it has played a role in all my books, features and columns up to now and I don't see that changing.
So that was one of my goals achieved and ticked off my list, but as always, it led on to me setting a new goal - and that was to do a course in Administration, alongside the Life-Coaching. I thought this would be good to have, to sit in tandem with the Business Etiquette course I passed last year, and also it is useful for me, being self-employed, as I do all my own admin. So in addition to the new Life-Coaching & Mentoring qualification, I also have a CPD certificate in Business Administration on the way too, as I passed that last week!
So now I think I'm going to take a couple of months off from studying. I have all the qualifications in place that I wanted, for the time being anyway, and they all compliment and support each other. I do think it is important to have something to prove that you can do a task. Because I'm my own boss I am responsible for my own training and it is something that I enjoy, as I like to learn new skills and feel that I am growing and developing as a person.
I really don't understand people who refuse extra training opportunities, especially if it is the boss or the company you work for who is paying for it. If you have no qualifications beyond school exams and your employer offers to put you through an NVQ in say Administration, only a fool would refuse and turn their nose up at such an opportunity! Yes it means doing a couple of extra hours each week for a few months, but unless you are considering leaving the company, I'd say do it! Because you are there anyway, so you might as well get something beyond a pay cheque out of them - something you can take away with you and which will add to your overall prospects of future employment in an uncertain world.
There is no point waiting until they start to cut back on staff and then whinging that you have nothing to prove you can do the job, especially if you refused the training they offered. The boss will just refer back to your refusal. And you will look like a complete numpty! Far better to take on board any training they offer you and start to build up a portfolio of qualifications and certificates, because education is expensive - so if they offer, take it!
I'm really glad that I have spent the last five years in training. It has given me a great sense of achievement, which in turn has boosted my overall confidence in my own capabilities. I know now that I am academic, even though I don't enjoy all the hoop jumping tasks involved in academia - I'm still capable of succeeding academically without too much effort. My counselling tutor even commented on the fact that I was just "coasting along and breezing through the diploma" - and I was! But as the course wasn't graded, it was simply Pass or Fail, I didn't see the point in spending 12 hours on a task that I could do in 2 hours - that's just bad time-management. Yet that's exactly what some students were doing and getting increasingly stressed out by it too.
So I would say, do continue to study and learn, but assess how much effort is really needed to pass a course and don't burn yourself out.
In the last five years I've achieved 9 new academic qualifications and certificates. I might need to do another course, just to round it up to 10 for my own satisfaction, but overall, I'm very happy with the progress I've made academically. Now it is time to start thinking of how best to put it all into practice - I can feel a brain-storming session coming on!
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