AS competitiveness continues to define our way of life, working on oneself is seen not just as a virtue. It’s an imperative. There’s only so much time and energy at your disposal, so what should you invest it in?
This article makes the case for three areas you should dedicate yourself to. Work on improving them all to reap personal, social, and professional rewards that keep on giving.
Lifelong Betterment Through Learning
Learning doesn’t and shouldn’t stop with the highest tier of formal education you’re willing to attain. Out of the three topics we discuss here, learning in all its forms has the potential for the biggest payoffs. And we’re not just talking about the monetary kind, even though such gains can be a powerful incentive for many people.
Even if you don’t enjoy a stuffy lecture hall, you likely appreciate education’s impact on earning potential. Longer formal schooling correlates with our long-term earning potential and the benefits being more financially stable brings. However, more informal pursuits like workshops, collaborations, and self-motivated learning can bring a similar upward shift.
Employers value candidates with well-rounded skill sets. They’re also more likely to promote individuals who pursue industry certifications and expand their professional knowledge in other ways.
Lifelong learning has proven health benefits, too. Elderly individuals who engage their minds keep functioning at a higher cognitive level for longer. The effects of mastering new and complex skills on slowing down the progress of diseases like Alzheimer’s are also well documented.
More educated people are more intriguing and better aware of the world. One can strike up a conversation with them about many different topics, and they’ll rarely feel out of place. Even if you’re clueless about something, most will go out of their way to reward your intellectual curiosity.
Perhaps most importantly, learning is crucial for maintaining a sense of fulfillment and self-worth. Few feelings approach the satisfaction of finally comprehending a math problem that stumped you or pulling off a challenging guitar solo. Whether it’s forgetting the drudgery of everyday life or seeking to improve your lot in it, continued learning is your most valuable tool.
Meeting Modern Challenges Head-on through Cybersecurity Awareness
Working on strengthening one’s cybersecurity competence doesn’t register on most people’s radars. Even if you use technology as little as possible, it’s impossible to escape its effects on our habits, beliefs, and ability to function in modern society as adjusted individuals.
Even the technologically savvy among us don’t take cybersecurity seriously enough. Admit it – how many of your accounts share the same password? How many are “protected” by a common word or string of numbers you don’t even have to be a hacker to bypass?
By using simple passwords for multiple accounts, you’re one data breach away from potential financial loss, identity theft, and reputation damage. Such breaches happen constantly. Just one can expose millions of username & password combinations. It’s not a big deal if it’s just info for a delivery app, but it’s a major problem if they’re also login credentials for a payment platform or your banking app.
Be it for personal use or business, a password manager ensures something like that can never happen regardless of how many accounts you have. They generate and assign strong passwords to each. The only way to compromise such a password is by sharing it carelessly or leaving it out for someone to see. But even that isn’t a complete disaster if the account you use this password for comes with multi-factor authentication.
Other cybersecurity investments require even less effort. Simply keeping your antimalware and operating systems updated keeps you immune from most threats. An hour spent researching how to spot phishing and social engineering attempts pays for itself many times over. Being smart about what you give away about yourself on social media also adds to it.
Practicing good cybersecurity hygiene pays dividends in your personal and professional life. Human error is the most unpredictable factor in business cybersecurity. Staying informed and being proactive about the latest threats can turn you from a liability into an asset.
Take Back Control with Organizational Skills
Bringing order to the chaos is among the most transformative actions you can take to improve your well-being. On a personal level, organizing brings stress relief and a sense of accomplishment. It puts you in control. That lets you prioritize crucial tasks while leaving enough time in your calendar for fun, rest, and self-development.
Organization is also a highly-valued skill regardless of your profession. Knowing where your tools or files are and a clutter-free environment help you maintain high productivity. Higher-ups see organized people as more competent & trustworthy. The better and more efficient you perform, the less need there is for micromanagement.
An organized mind allows you to get your point across faster and with more conviction. If you plan for different scenarios, you won’t be caught off guard and can react calmly in a crisis.
Technology makes developing and maintaining organizational skills easy. Calendars, time trackers, and other productivity apps can help arrange your day and discover inefficiencies you can iron out. Combine them with the right communication tools, and your entire team can learn to work smarter.
Conclusion
Living well in our day & age comes with challenges that investing in the three pursuits we outline can address. If you’re willing to learn, you needn’t be afraid of a future in which those with rigid thinking are left behind. Organizational skills will make you an asset to any enterprise while helping you maintain a better life balance. Finally, cybersecurity awareness will help you deal with or minimize the digital dangers that have become a fundamental part of our world.
